When my wife Erna and I arrived at Luther Place in the the winter of 1970, the 14th Street situation was chaotic: drug pushers, pimps, hundreds of prostitutes, homeless ill. It was difficult to get to the front door of the church. The fragrance of tear gas from anti-Vietnam War demonstrations hung over Thomas Circle. Every morning I’d pick up empty bottles of Richard’s Wild Irish Rose and heroin needles, just to clean up the area before services. In the midst of this Washington, DC, asphalt desert was Luther Place, a church that was threatened. Yet it was exactly the place of greatest promise. It was where Jesus would most likely appear...