MARKED MEN

There is a professor at Howard University Divinity School, a teacher and scholar, with an unusual name. A name that tells this very story. The distinguished professor of New Testament, the author of the book Troubling Biblical Waters, is named Cain Hope Felder.

Dr. Felder tells his own story: a young man who never knew his father, who grew up on the seamy side of the street, a young man whose family has been shattered by violence and devastated by crime. How could such a young man enter the Christian ministry and teach New Testament in a seminary? How else except that, though he bears the mark and the name of Cain, the curse, he also is claimed by Christ and therefore shot through and through with hope? His name utters the promise: Cain--hope. Cain, yes, but hope too. Grace. Possibility, even for marked men.

(From a sermon by Joseph Smith, "Marked Men" 1/22/2009)