Delightful Humor

‘Nothing sinister about a woman minister’ — or a comedic librarian

By J. Michael Krivyanski

PITTSBURGH — Ingrid Kalchthaler has stood in front of many different audiences and spoken just the right words. 

As a youth librarian she helps children to appreciate reading and other good things. She has stood in front of a Baptist congregation and used her words to deliver sermons.

Most recently, she used her oratory skills in front of a different crowd — at a comedy club — where she delivered humorous words as a stand-up comedian.

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'Translator between two worlds'

A conversation about faith and science with physicist Paul Wallace

By John Pierce

Paul Wallace’s published writings are quite diverse — ranging from “An Active Galactic Nucleus Identification for 3EG J2006-2321” (Astrophysical Journal) to “Believing in Johnny Cash: An Open Letter to Atheists” (Religion Dispatches).

Wallace, 43, holds a Ph.D. in experimental nuclear physics from Duke University… and spent 10 years on the faculty of Berry College where he chaired the department of physics, astronomy and geology.

            Sensing a call to ministry, he entered Emory University’s Candler School of Theology and graduated with a Master of Divinity degree last May.…

Issues concerning faith and science intrigue him. His training in both physics and theology led Baptists Today Editor John Pierce to pose some questions to Wallace who lives in Decatur, Ga., where he is a member of the First Baptist Church there.

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More than blocks

New techniques, common materials help address housing needs

Story and photos by John Pierce

JEFFERSON, Ga. — Michael Helms has a heart for Liberia that goes back many years. He has helped Liberian students to study in the U.S. and continues to work closely with the resurrected Ricks Institute, a Baptist school ravished along with much else by civil war in Liberia.

Helms, pastor of First Baptist Church of Jefferson, Ga., has written Hoping Liberia …With proceeds from that book and others, he created the Bricks for Ricks Foundation that, along with donations, helps fund needed housing projects in Liberia and beyond.…

            While in Monrovia, Helms attended a Rotary Club meeting and met another American who was building an orphanage there. He had imported a large earth-block machine from a company in Texas.

Helms wondered if this construction method might help solve some of the great housing needs in Liberia and other parts of the world. He began to explore the challenges and options.

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Humble man, proud deeds

Baptist Edgar Palacious helped save El Salvador

By Tony W. Cartledge

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — He wasn’t a politician, but he understood politics. And he wasn’t a revolutionary, but he sympathized with the rebels.

He was the pastor of a small Baptist church, and he helped to save El Salvador. Few people have heard his story.

Until now.

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La Cruz Subversiva

Freeing the cross that frees

By Tony W. Cartledge

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — The countless crosses that adorn churches around the world could be described in many ways. In El Salvador, a simple cross in a Lutheran church gained a reputation as being a subversive enemy of the state.

The cross was the brainchild of Medardo Gomez, the first Lutheran Bishop of El Salvador, but its real inspiration came from a movement that spread through Latin America in the 1970s, often known as “liberation theology.”

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