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Notice how ecumenical we are, giving Molly Marshall an award that honors the Lutherans, Methodists and Mormons.

My apologies. No denigration or mocking of either Dr. Marshall or Luther Wesley Smith was intended. I posted it in a followup so it wouldn't appear to be part of the ABNS story. It looks to me so obviously like a harmless one-liner that I will admit your reaction to this leaves me just scratching my head. Maybe my fellow moderators and ex-moderators can try to decluelessize me.

Oh good gosh, Ed. Have a laugh or at least try to "get it" even if you don't find the joke funny.

Just to chime in, Dale Miller was my area minister for 6 yrs in ABCOPAD, Southeast area. A real gem, a great guy and I'm very proud of him!

FWIW even though "Leland" is indeed a "good old Baptist name", enough so to be all too popular for convenience sometimes - I think I've mentioned that when I joined Fremont Baptist, in a membership list that probably didn't exceed 200 there were already three other Lelands - yet I don't think I was named Leland, even though my dad was a Baptist minister, because of its Baptisticity. I think it was pure Scottish tribalism, witness my siblings, Graham, Alan and Margaret. (All of which rrrrroll well off a Scottish tongue, and none of which as far as I can tell has any strong Baptist associations.) And no, Ed, I am not suggesting that there is no one in MMBB's inner circle or at Judson or Broadman or wherever named Graham, Alan or Margaret.

As for Ross, when I was in first grade there was a kid in second grade named Ross Leland. He was a problem child. I was a cutting edge come-on-let-me-start-college-now type. And the school office repeatedly sent his Poor Work Slips to my parents. The first time they were upset, but it soon became a family joke. He moved away the next year, I think, at any rate I have no later recollections of or related to him - until about a year ago, that is, when I received a recorded collections call on my home phone. It asked, if I was Ross, Leland, to press 1. Thinking I might be, I pressed 1. Then I was informed that this was a call to collect a delinquent debt owed by Ross, Leland, DOB such and so such and so 1953..." Well, I am a 1954 baby, but guess what year I'll bet Ross Leland was born!? Anyhow, I tried calling the number I was given by the recording, but it was a dead end, and I've heard nothing from or about him since.