Dear Editor:

My father was an officer serving in the US Navy. Captain Dages would take me on errands and explain life to me as a boy. Dad told me about what his son should know at sea...diminishing bearing rate.Bearing rate applies to sea science. If you notice a distant ship coming towards you at 14 degrees while on your watch then you tell your next in command. Ten minutes later having come full circle in your rounds you realize the ship you saw at a distance a few minutes earlier has closed the distance by more then half. The approaching vessel is still coming at you at 14 degrees. You alert the nearest officer and continue your rounds. Eight minutes later you are back in the spot you were before and now you can hear the oncoming engine noise and see the other ship in detail and its still at 14 degrees diminishing bearing rate. The looming reality is that without an emergency tactic there will be a crash.A Clash Among FOUR FATHERSWilliam Penn is the subject of this essay. He is the founding father of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. He prompted a family crisis long ago. His absentee father was an officer in England's seventeenth century navy. Admiral Penn's son William quit law school to become a Quaker. Life styles clashed in the diminishing bearing rate of ideas. William Penn, a peacemaker, would not draw blood like his military father. He would not read the King James Bible. He would not bow in court.William had different priorities. But more regulating than theology was his view of government. He had a one kingdom view of the world and he was not infected by unconstitutional notions later known to us as "separation of church and state". This doctrine is an application of a divide and conquer strategy for the Father of Lies. False divisions between the sacred and the civil realms is a two kingdom structure.Penn negotiated a problem we are all born with called a sin nature.Sin was transferred genetically from his EARTHLY FATHER in a process known as the seminal transmission of sin. This disease or condition of the human race passed on to all humans from the first man of all humanity- ADAM, (everyone's federal head.) This affect became regulating after an event first described as "the fall" of man as recorded in Genesis. Real evil was sponsored by a personal Satanic entity known as the "FATHER OF LIES" described in John 8:44.The ruling power of normal selfish instincts sponsored from The Father of Lies is diminished in the skill of good decision making.Mankind needs divine help to break the power of conventional wisdom! For Penn to defend his creature comforts of the affluent lifestyle in which he was raised seemed like bad baggage worth discarding in light of eternity. Being born into high class from a family of wealth was in part traded for the will of his HEAVENLY FATHER in a Quaker system of discipline and separation in lifestyle.Consequences for dissenters on the wrong side of a two kingdom world view were harshly imposed by the civil realm. The gallows were ready.He had already done jail time. Many of his "friends" had already been martyred. Evil seemed dominant but God was regulating circumstances. The world was getting better on a wider lens. Penn's efforts were rewarded as part of that shift forward in the common good of mankind in anticipation of events foretold in Old Testament.His risk taking and positive long term outlook regarding life and the world to come was not a gamble for heaven only, but sweat equity for the here and now. This idea in part is called "postmillenialism" which is the Latin language meaning "after a thousand" years. He was in preparation for Christ's coming for a final state of kingdom here on earth.William Penn is an example of a man who failed forward advancing God's economy. Few would want the founding father of Pennsylvania for leadership today. Modern psychologists would label him as a man with a "religious preoccupation". Penn exercised freedom in Christ to obey his obligations to his Heavenly Father without the blessing of a civil magistrate. (Google the hat trial of 1670 A.D.)The legacy of William Penn was critical to the establishment of a Christian Republic in North America. Institutionalized evil seemed to lose its grip for mankind in general to advance good values. The primary cause was a theologically literate man fighting spiritually as a victim over freedom with the civil power. This English city boy got a land grant and a charter to the wilderness across the sea. The secondary cause was the crown of England who bartered land to clear a outstanding debt to his dead father. William now had a recipe for failure. He was ambitious to build a society based on religious convictions with heretics.This "religious experiment" in Pennsylvania became progress in Liberty in the United States to influence the whole world. Individual liberty is ultimately based on an identity inherited from the Creator.Penn knew he was made in God's image. His efforts blessed everybody not just his own religious sect. He thought, wrote and argued in public using good logic, Bible study and a one kingdom theory. The Declaration of Civil Rights in Pennsylvania's constitution is a direct result of Penn's thinking reduced to principle.Never have plurality and tolerance achieved results of such large proportion then under culture developed by William Penn. He was a realist in the minority. This is good and true history and a foundation for free people spelled out in government charter. Jesus said..."Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness".Robert DagesJim Thorpe