This Week’s Patheos Column: An Evangelical Pastor Gets a History Lesson

Here is a snippet from this week’s Patheos column.


Three cheers for Rev. Dudley Rutherford.

A few months ago, Rutherford, the pastor of the Shepherd of the Hills Church in Porter Ranch, California, sat down in front of a camera and told the inspiring story behind the writing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” (The video has been removed from YouTube).

Rutherford delivered a dramatic rendition of how American troops during the War of 1812 (which he confused with the American Revolution) defended Fort McHenry (which he repeatedly referred to as “Fort Henry”) from an attack by the British navy positioned in the Chesapeake Bay.

Immediately following the attack, a lawyer named Francis Scott Key, who had watched the battle from a British war vessel on which he was being detained, wrote a poem called “The Defense of Fort McHenry.” The poem was eventually put to music and we know it today as “The Star Spangled Banner.” It became the American national anthem in 1916.

Read the rest here.

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