Free 1634: Turn Your Radio On by Eric Flint

was working at the school cafeteria, you know. It's the story of a Pentecostal female preacher who starts her own evangelical ministry. I never did get around to reading it myself. Back up-time I was going to give it to one of my friends in Fairmont who went to the Four Square Church, but I just never did.
    "Maybe it might help you." Phyllis thrust the book into Fischer's hands.
    The title of his new book was Sister Aimee: The Life of Aimee Semple McPherson by Daniel Mark Epstein. There was a quote on the back out of a review that said, "With her radio ministry and her theatrical sermons, Sister Aimee ushered in the modern religious age."
    Fischer pulled off one mitten and started to thumb through the book. Some pictures of a tall woman and her children, then of what looked to be a great round sanctuary, finally of the same woman on a crowded stage with a microphone.
    A female minister? Fischer decided that this was a book he was going to have to find time to read. “Thank you very much, Sister Dobbs. I'll be sure to read this and return it as soon as possible."
    "No need in that, Reverend," Phyllis replied, rejecting his offer with a motion of her free hand. "I feel like I owe you for helping Slater find the Lord and saving his hand. I just don't know what we would have done if it weren't for you. He's like a new man!"
    "Trust me, Sister, it wasn't me. It was the Holy Spirit who touched your husband's hand and, evidently, his heart."
    ****
    Fischer came back to the book after his talk with Chalker and a considerable amount of prayerful study. It seemed that at every opportunity, the Protestant faith of the future had rewritten the understanding of the present day Church.
    “Dieter,” Chalker grinned. “You’ve got to understand that when Martin Luther nailed that poster to the church door, that was just the start!
    “All Christians are just men and men make mistakes. Look at Peter. In Matthew 26:74:75, it says, ‘Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew. And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.’
    “Since God’s purpose concerning man is to seek and to save that which is lost, to be worshiped by man, and to build a body of believers in the image of His Son, the priority reason-for-being of the Church is to be a channel of God’s purpose to build a body of saints being perfected in the image of His Son as laid out in Ephesians 4:11-16 and First Corinthians 12:28 and 14:12.”
    Chalker paused as he recalled a lesson learned early in his life.
    “There’s something else you’re going to struggle with, Dieter. Sister Aimee’s three husbands. But, as you’ll see, each one of them was sent to her to help her fulfill God’s mission.
    “Even in leaving her second husband, she followed God’s plan as Jesus said in Luke 12: 51:53, ‘Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”
    Seeing the troubled look on Fischer’s face, Chalker smiled. “There’s been a lot smarter men than you and me hash out these issues in the next three hundred plus years. Even the Catholics of our time have allowed more women into their church leadership and have found a work around that allows their church members to annul their marriages a lot easier than in this era.
    “Anytime you have a hard time reconciling what you’ve been taught, remember what Jesus said in Mathew 7:20, ‘Wherefore by their fruits, ye shall know them.’
    “You think of it that way, and you won’t go far