I’ve been questioned why I write so much about religion. Well by-golly, I’d be leaving a lot of local history out. At least half of my environment was and is spent in religious settings. In my lifetime more than a carload of my relatives got into the preaching business, plus several prophets were thrown in for good measure. A good sincere minister is of great value in any religious community. A lot of my best friends are sincere Christians. I happen to have a bad distaste for any evangelist that can’t stay out of trouble and takes advantage of the blockheads and the innocent ones.
Years and years ago, out here at Rocklyn, a lot of my Sundays were spent going to the Evangelical Church that was located a couple of miles south of Rocklyn proper. It was sort of a meek church that made us feel good to be Christians. My relatives and church going neighbors took it for granted that God was quite a guy and was full of love. We didn’t take the Devil too seriously ‘til the Pentecostals crashed the Rocklyn territory and preached the more scary parts of the Bible.
The invasion of this denomination caused our church to fold up. But it only shook the living daylights out of the Zion Church when it lost half of its members to the Pentecostals. Their camp meetings in Bursch’s Grove had powerful influence in religious thinking. Audio battle lines between the two factions were established.
It was quite a decision for some Rocklyn Christians to decide which faith to follow to insure a more safe and sure arrival to heaven. Sugar’s step-dad, Ed Deppner, chose the more complicated road when he joined the Pentecostals. To this day that fundamentalist church has been able to stand Ed’s onslaught of his unanswerable questions that he presents to their Sunday School.
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