60 — ♪♪ On Wisconsin, on Wisconsin ♪♪ Again! (Jan 1979)

We had only been back from Rhodesia for a few months, but it was clear that after eight years at Berachah it was time to move on. Thieme’s authoritative teaching had been just what I needed to pull me out of the psychedelic/Jesus Freak morass in 1969. Bible class six nights a week and a community of like-minded believers had provided stability.

The most significant event of my Berachah experience was meeting and marrying Pegi. In her I found a true soulmate. First of all, she was drop-dead gorgeous with blue eyes that just melted my heart. More importantly, although we couldn’t be from more diverse backgrounds (conservative Texas Baptist and liberal “almost a Yankee” Jew), we shared an overwhelming imperative to discover the “truth” concerning faith and God. Maybe it was the genetic seed of her “possibly” Jewish maternal great-grandmother or maybe it was just God’s humorous intervention--whatever it was, that same life-upsetting drive for the truth is still there 33 years later. We are always shooting ourselves in the feet as we abandon any chance of normalcy in our quest for truth.

Think about it. How else would you explain finding someone who would be crazy enough to follow me to Rhodesia after being married for less than a year, join the Rhodesian Army herself, consistently and constantly pull up roots and relocate over twenty times (several times overseas) in three decades? And through it all, she is still ready to chuck it all and try something new. Just this week, she suggested that we really ought to consider aliyah to Israel. She said, “No one needs us in Chicago, but there are all kinds of people we could help in Israel!” [For the time being, we will stay put here in Illinois and spend time with our daughter and grandson. But, we always keep our bags packed!]

Six months after returning to Houston, I had completed just about every Hebrew correspondence course that Menachem Mansoor at the University of Wisconsin could send me. We packed our car and left for Madison to take classes from him in person on January 1, 1979. We knew we were out of Texas and Berachah when we encountered a monster snow storm as we drove on I-294 around Chicago.

By the time we got to Janesville, outside of Madison, the snow was blinding me. We stopped at a motel for the evening. Early the next morning we arrived at the duplex that we had rented in Madison. Before we could pull into the garage and unpack, our neighbor came to our rescue clearing our driveway of 36 inches of fresh snow with her snowblower. Our Texas-born cocker spaniel was going crazy not finding any grass. When I opened the back door for her to go out, she disappeared in several feet of soft snow. Rescuing her, I spent the next hour shoveling out a 10’ square by 5’ deep area for her. At least until Spring, we didn’t need to worry about fencing!

We were out of the Berachah community, but were still listening to Thieme’s taped bible studies. Each evening we would try to concentrate on the assault of his forceful voice screaming at us. Thieme was known for being a temperamental sourpuss. He regularly excoriated his audience. People were scared to even move in his classes. I got screamed at once for simply leaning forward and putting my chin on my fist while I concentrated on what he was saying. We knew someone who actually threw-up in her handbag rather than risk what would happen if she stood to excuse herself during one of Thieme’s 75-minute monologues.

We no longer cared about Thieme’s obnoxious behavior. We were simply trying to squeeze a few more drops of biblical knowledge out of this tapes. However, he had strayed so far from anything resembling a Christian lifestyle in his teaching, that we daydreamed or fell asleep listening each evening. I had heard it all before anyway. I had completed every single lesson that Berachah Tapes and Publications had recorded.

By 1979, he sounded more like a fringe psychologist than a minister. He had imposed his own flawed understanding of psychology on the biblical text, overshadowed the themes of love and compassion with military and political commentary, and lost himself in arcane details of Hebrew/Greek syntax and grammar. His “revised literal translation” of the biblical texts bore little or no resemblance to the very obvious message of the best seller of all of history.

He continued to insist that you could not understand the Bible by reading it for yourself. No, you needed someone like him to dig into the original Greek and Hebrew and lay it out for you. It was funny, because when I learned Greek and Hebrew, I discovered that any of the hundreds of translations in hundreds of languages had the same teaching. Pegi and I began to do something that no good Thiemite would ever do--we began to read the Bible for ourselves--in English!

And that was pretty much it for Thieme and Berachah Church as far as we were concerned!

Pegi was working in one of the Madison hospitals. I was selling cars and waiting for my Wisconsin residency to qualify for in-state tuition at University of Wisconsin to continue my Hebrew classes with Prof. Mansoor. 

About this time, I was promoted to sales manager for a Porsche/Audi dealership in Middleton, just outside of Madison. I am not sure how the subject came up, but when one of my customers discovered that I had been a chaplain in the Rhodesian Army, he decided to publish an article about me in the local newspaper. The story followed the lines of how I was a former Rhodesian soldier and minister now selling cars!

The article brought us a little business--it always helps in sales to be a bit of a curiosity. You know the story--all publicity is good publicity! Well, the story also got me a speaking engagement at a nearby Evangelical Free church that had supported some missionaries in Rhodesia years before.

I wish I could say that my sermon stirred the congregation to new heights in their faith! Not at all--I stumbled through a poorly constructed teaching on the the doctrine of Eternal Security--totally based on Thieme’s teaching. Oy! I needed to spend more time in preparation so that I could teach something from my own heart.

My embarrassment on this occasion moved me to begin an earnest study of theology, beginning with Thieme’s teachers at Dallas Theological Seminary. I built a theological library and applied myself to a systematic study of both Old and New Testaments. Aside from Greek and Hebrew courses, I also took courses in archaeology and ancient history. As my theological knowledge began to expand, I discovered many biblical scholars with whom I found affinity. In particular, I was attracted to the scholars related to the Plymouth Brethren movement who centered on eschatology (study of “last things,” biblical prophecy). It had been eschatology that was a strong part of my original interest in Christianity.

The Brethren writers taught the doctrine of “death to self” which also interested me. Now, this had nothing to do with actual physical death, but was focused on minimizing self-interest and focusing on God as the Great Self in the person of Jesus. In many ways, it is almost a Buddhist version of Christianity in that it is a matter of denying one’s own desires in order to have a “deeper” walk with God as part of the “Christ-centered life.”

One contemporary writer who drew extensively from these teachers was Miles Stanford. He did not actively minister in a church, but because of health concerns, had developed a ministry of counseling in “deeper life” subjects through the mail and publishing. I began to correspond with him and he helped guide me to numerous authors whose books began to fill every available shelf in my library. And, I read them all! As I had devoured Thieme tapes years before, I now devoured the writings of C.A. Coates, J.N. Darby, J.B. Stoney and a contemporary British pastor, T. Austin-Sparks.

By now, we had moved away from Madison to the village of Neshkoro, population 253. I just couldn’t wait for the rest of the year to be over to get my Wisconsin residency for school. I had to study now and the only way to get enough time to study was to move out of Madison. Pegi found a job 17 miles from Neshkoro at the Berlin Community Hospital in the booming metropolis of Berlin, population 5000 and one street light!

With the reduced cost of living, my head was in books from early morning to late at night. But the more I studied, the more I looked for an outlet for my rapidly developing spiritual insights. One day Pegi came home from the hospital with the news that another nurse she had met there wanted me to lead a Bible study in her home.

Next:  61 — Me a Pastor? (Neshkoro, Wisconsin:  Dec 1979)

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57 — Finding Out for Myself (Leaving Rhodesia: May 1978)

The South African Airways flight from Johannesburg to New York was 18 hours.  The only break in the flight was a 90-minute stop for refueling and crew change at the small Portuguese island in the Atlantic off the horn of Africa named Ihla do Sal (Salt Island) ]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sal,_Cape_Verde]. The island’s claim to fame is its white sandy beaches, salt mines and its international airport.

This was our second, but not our last visit here.  On approach from the air, the small island was a brown and lifeless splotch in the blue Atlantic.  Deplaning at the airport was like something out of a Cold War thriller.  As we walked across the tarmac to the terminal building, we were “guarded” by soldiers with automatic weapons and fierce-looking dogs.  I mean, there was nothing there--did they think we were going to steal some of their precious salt or that we would dash across the runway seeking to hide in the luxury of the desolate landscape?  

From the windows of the the terminal building, we could see the planes from Lufthansa and Aeroflot.  Now, this was 1978, long before the collapse of the Soviet Union.  To see an actual Russian Aeroflot jet was the closest I had ever been to our Cold War enemy!   As we were locked into the stuffy terminal--if they had air-conditioning, they weren’t using it--I began to reflect on the last 14 months in Rhodesia.  

I had come to Africa with the express purpose of fighting the encroachment of Russian and Chinese Communist aggression.  I had hopes of stopping the march of Communism that we had not stopped in Vietnam.  I saw this as my opportunity to finally “get in the game” that I had sat out in Southeast Asia because of my student activism and Hippie lifestyle.

As I stared out the terminal window at the Aeroflot plane just a few hundred yards away, I “wondered” if my wanderings had any meaning at all.  I had not fulfilled my dream of either a military career as a Christian warrior, nor had I accomplished anything of value as a chaplain.  

And now I sat in this desolate no man’s land staring at my enemy’s plane.  I wondered where that Aeroflot flight was headed.  Was it headed to one of the new Marxist states in Africa such as Mozambique or to one its many Socialist nations that looked to it for leadership like Zambia or Tanzania?  Were there Russian military advisors on board?  Were there Russian soldiers locked in another section of the same terminal building?  

I shook those thoughts out of my head.  That part of my life was over.  We were headed back to America.  There was nothing I could do about the Rhodesian bush war.  Indeed, as we left Rhodesia a dozen hours before, the new “Transitional Government” came into place.  This new government was composed of Bishop Abel Muzorewa, ex-terrorist leader Ndabaningi Sithole and Chief Jeremiah Chirau.  They were to work together with Ian Smith toward the election of one of their number as Prime Minister in the new “Zimbabwe-Rhodesia.”  

The problem was that the Communist forces under Mugabe and Nkomo would try to disrupt the elections and there were already murmurings that the UN, US and UK would not recognize the new Zimbabwe-Rhodesia government.  And if sanctions were not eased with these elections, then the bush war would intensify . . . .  Whoa!  I had to stop thinking about all of this!  I had to let it all go for now.

We were heading home, but to what kind of reception?  Certainly, we would not be able to stay at Berachah Church in Houston for very long.  Thieme and his coterie of sycophants would consider me a failure for not fulfilling my three year contract in the Army.  He wouldn’t care about my conversations with the Army chief-of-staff in which I was advised to leave the country.  

And, I had lost much of my confidence in and respect for Thieme.  His bible doctrine just didn’t work. I had found this out for myself.  Pegi and I had put his whole system of doctrine to the test--taking it to Rhodesia, putting our own lives on the line for bible doctrine--only to find that it was flawed.  Nothing was working the way Thieme had said.  Bible doctrine failed us politically and personally.

As I write this in 2009—three decades later, I can see that we left Rhodesia at just the right time.  Over the last 30 years, I have battled with my own personal feelings of failure.  I have carried my feelings of guilt for not pushing through the pain from my leg injury to complete my commando training.  Removed from the events, it is easy to forget just how bad that pain was.  And removed from the events, it is easy to dismiss the turmoil and terror that inhabited our hearts as we experienced the frightening deterioration of the Rhodesian experiment.  

But, we left at the right time.  If we had stayed another 12 months, we would have seen the disheartening refusal of the world to accept the new majority-elected government of Bishop Muzorewa.  Although the Rhodesian Army successfully defended the Rhodesian people from terror allowing for his election, the UN, US and UK overthrew the new government of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, demanding new elections.  

Before the new elections could take place, the UN, US and UK combined their power and influence, calling for the amalgamation of Mugabe and Nkomo’s terrorist forces into the Army.  Rather than keeping his terrorist soldiers in their garrisons, Mugabe dressed civilians in uniforms and kept them in the garrisons.  This allowed his trained soldiers to disperse into the countryside where they could coerce the population into voting for Mugabe.  To the surprise of all, neither Muzorewa (the favorite of the African population) nor Nkomo (thought to be the most popular of the terrorist leaders) won.  

Instead, Mugabe was able to intimidate his way into power.  All the sacrifices of the Rhodesian people, black and white, were for naught in the face of the political maneuvering that brought Mugabe to power.  All these years later, Mugabe is still Prime Minister, and recently has refused to effectively share power when he was soundly defeated in a new election.

The armed guards escorted us back to the SAA flight and we prepared ourselves for the final leg of our flight to New York.  No, we had no choice but to leave now.  There was nothing more that we could do for Rhodesia.  As far as we were concerned, we would never see that part of the world again.  

As we turned towards home, we dismissed the lingering questions about our reception at US Customs and Immigration.  Yes, we had heard through Robin Moore that many Americans were having problems reentering the US.  That could not apply to us.  We were returning Americans who valued our American citizenship more than ever before.  America was the only place we were safe.  We were going home. 

Next:  58 — Are We There Yet? (New York:  May 1978)

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56 — “The French Would Sell Their Mothers!” (Bulawayo: April 1978)

I had a few final duties as base chaplain.  There was a sermon on the blessings of sexual relations in marriage--pretty graphic and probably more straight talk about sex than the recruits had heard in school and certainly much more than they expected from a preacher!  All of my Padre’s Hour sermons had gotten rave reviews.  They were practical and graphic.   

My sermon on sex was attended by the rabbi from the Bulawayo Jewish Synagogue.  When I had discovered that there were five Jewish soliders in the latest training intake, I had invited him to come out and minister to them.  I did this because I remembered how I had felt as a young Jew when forced to listen to prayers and sermons that freely ascribed everything to Jesus’ name--I always felt uncomfortable being forced to participate in someone else’s religious events.

After my sermon, the rabbi invited Pegi and me to a Friday evening Shabbat Service at his synagogue to be followed with a meal in his home.  [Sadly, the Bulawayo Synagogue was destroyed in a 2003 fire.  It has since been rebuilt.  See the history and pictures at:  https://zjc.org.il/bulawayo-hebrew-congregation/]

Pegi was excited about this as it would be her first experience in any type of Jewish service.  I had grown up shuttling between my mother’s Reform Temple and my father’s Orthodox Shul and had regular Friday evening shabbat meals at my Uncle Herman’s home.

After explaining to Pegi that we would be seated separately for the synagogue service, we parted company.  She sat in the balcony with the rest of the women, while I took a place a few pews back from the bimah from which the rabbi delivered a short sermon on the passive voice of the shabbat command that “no work should be done.”  

Typical of Orthodox Jewish tradition, people arrived at different times and started to read the through evening prayers at their own pace.  The normal cacophony of dozens of voices reading Hebrew prayers was occasionally interrupted by private conversations in English by those who had finished their liturgy or who were taking a break.  

For my part, since my Hebrew reading skills were not very sharp, I read through the English translation silently.  This meant that I overheard an interesting conversation from the row behind me.  Two men were discussing the scarcity of spare parts for the vehicles and machinery needed for their businesses.  

Their discussion turned to the Rhodesian fleet of Alouette III helicopters used by the Security Forces in their Fire Force role.  At that time, there were only a handful of Alouettes in service.  The French had recently become unreasonably stingy with spares and other munitions needed for the war.  This was the result of increasing pressure from UN imposed sanctions.  Ultimately, the conversation ended with the assurance that the French would come through if enough money was offered them.  A voice behind me asserted, “The French would sell their mothers for the right price!”

Even at this late date, Rhodesians still believed that they could continue on indefinitely in the face of worldwide condemnation and sanctions.  And yet, I had just come from Army HQ where it was already obvious that end was rapidly apporaching.  Sighing, I continued reading from the Prayer Book and added a personal petition that somehow the Lord could make the transition to majority rule a peaceful and bloodless one.

Borrowing an umbrella from the rabbi, we walked back to his home from the synagogue in the pouring rain. Orthodox Jews do not drive on Shabbat and we honored that tradition by leaving our car parked until after the meal.

After the meal, we sat in the living room and talked about God.  The rabbi’s brother-in-law was also a rabbi and visiting from Israel.  I was the first Jew they had ever encountered who had converted to Christianity, and since I was a chaplain, they assumed that I had a deep theological and biblical background.  Although I had no formal theological training, my self-study under the tutelage of Thieme made me think that I knew much more than I actually did!  [See 21 — From Jewish Hippie to Texas Conservative]. Nevertheless, I acquitted myself well in our discussions of Adam in the first few chapters of Genesis.  

I remember that we got stuck on God’s interaction with Adam after he had eaten the forbidden fruit.  You may remember that God called out to Adam saying, “Where are you?”  The rabbi from Israel asked me why I thought that God would ask such a thing.  I remember parroting back what I had heard Thieme say, that this was God giving Adam a chance to come forward freely of his own accord to confess his sinful condition.

To this the Bulawayo rabbi replied, “Yes, that of course is a good point, but the real reason God did this was so that he would not startle Adam.”  This answer startled me!  How could the manner of approach to Adam be significant?  Wasn’t the real issue his sinfulness? 

What I only realized upon reflection was that there is a wide divide between the Jewish and Christian views of sin.  Christianity is totally focused on humankind’s sinful condition.  That is how Jesus becomes the Christian savior, by paying the penalty for sin on the cross.  In Christianity, sin keeps humankind and God separate with no hope of reconciliation.  For Judaism, sin as a part of our human nature is not really the issue.  The issue is the very nature of God.  In Judaism, sin is not such a big deal--God is the big deal, not us or our sins.

See what God said about Himself to Moses after the golden calf incident:

The ETERNAL passed before him and proclaimed: “GOD! GOD! a Deity compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin . . . .

Exod 34:6-7  Revised JPS, 2023

One of the things that eventually disenchanted me with Christianity and drew me back to Judaism was focus.  Christianity is more humanity focused.  Judaism is more God focused.  Consequently, Christians are always shocked or surprised by sin.  We Jews are neither shocked or surprised by sin--it is human and we are human.  We Jews are awed by the greatness of God’s love and compassion in the face of persistent human sinfulness.

Just that morning, I had received an alert that there was a possibility of an attack on the Bulawayo power plant.  This had me a bit uneasy as the terrorists had never made such a bold move before.  About 11:00 pm, as our theological discussions continued, suddenly the lights went out.  My instinct to take cover was alleviated by the rabbi’s quiet voice.  “Don’t worry, that’s just the timer!”  Since no work could be done on the Sabbath, the house lights which had already been turned on before sunset, would automatically turn off at bedtime.  That way, no additional work was being done!  My Uncle Herman had been orthodox, kept kosher and observed shabbat commandments, but was not so strict in his observance.  I felt silly, but my rabbi friend only chuckled assuring me that my reaction wasn’t unusual at all.

As he walked to us our car, he offered to send me to Israel for a few months to learn Hebrew.  I was humbled by his generosity as foreign exchange for travel was very difficult to get approved.  I declined his offer, knowing that we would soon be leaving Rhodesia anyway.  

I realized as we drove home that he was probably wanting to bring me back to Judaism.  He knew that spending a few months in the modern Jewish community in Israel would do more to help me see my way out of Christianity than countless doctrinal discussions.  He realized something that I was only beginning to understand--that true religion was not a matter of belief or doctrine.  True religion has to be lived.  I was confused by my exposure to Christian doctrine.  A couple of months seeing how modern Jews lived out their faith would quickly clear away my confusion.  I wonder what our lives would be if Pegi and I had gone to Israel then instead of returning to Houston.  Could we have prevented two and half decades of wandering?  

Well, I have never done things the easy way, and as Pegi and I returned that evening to finalize our packing for our departure from Rhodesia, I began to wonder if there were more problems with Thieme’s doctrine than just the practical application to daily life.  Even his theology seemed to be “less than” what I had just encountered with the two rabbis. 

A few days later, we boarded an Air Rhodesia flight for Johannesburg, and from there, home to Houston.  As we crossed out of Rhodesian airspace we breathed a sigh of relief--the danger was gone.  Mugabe’s list of chaplains to be executed would no longer apply to me.  

But what did we face at “home” in Houston?  Thieme had already declared me “unstable and unreliable” for daring to differ with him on political and cultural issues [40 — Unstable and Unreliable].  Now, I would be labeled a “deserter” at Berachah.  If Thieme wouldn’t believe what I told him about facts on the ground in Rhodesia, would he even care that the Rhodesian Army chiefs-of-staff had instructed me to leave?  Would we even be welcome at Berachah Church any longer?  And what was I to do for a career now?  

And if there was no place for me at Berachah, where was my place in Christianity, especially now that I was doubting key elements of Christian doctrine?  I had never believed in the doctrine of the “Trinity.”  None of the Christian explanations could overcome my core understanding as a Jew that God is one!  I couldn’t buy Thieme’s explanation that God was one “in essence, but three in personality.”  That was logical nonsense.  Either there was one God or there were three Gods--and I couldn’t buy into Christian tritheism.

And after my encounter with the rabbis, I was “wondering” about the nature of sin and just how important it was not.  Well, all of that was hours away across the Atlantic.  Right now, it was time to get some rest.  The first thing facing us would be customs and immigration.  I sure hoped that Robin Moore’s articles about us weren’t going to make reentry difficult once we got to New York.

Next:  57 — Finding Out for Myself (Leaving Rhodesia:  May 1978)

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