Gregory Lewis Web-Log

 A New Interfaith Religion  I am a Christian Baptist. I am a descendant of the Pilgrim Baptist Separatist who came to the New World and founded the Plymouth Plantation 400 years ago. I, also, have distant ancestry as part of the Seneca Native American Peoples. My stepfather founded what is now Skyline Baptist Church. Additionally, I hold a B.A. Philosophy from Virginia Tech.  My beliefs and faith are not one-dimensional, but multi-faceted. A person growing up in a small rural American town as a Preacher’s kid does not usually get exposure to other faith traditions, and in some cases, other Christian denominations. As an undergraduate Philosophy major, I attended Interfaith Religion Conferences and visited several of the local monasteries. At Virginia Tech, I enrolled in courses specifically on Philosophy of Religion. Today, a person can use modern computers, internet, and other technologies to research and explore the Faith Traditions across the spectrum from around the w...

Banks, as we would recognize them today as depository and lending institutions, have been around for more than 5,000 years. Shortly after the implementation of large-scale farming in ancient Mesopotamia a commodities market developed to better hedge against the uncertainties of seasonal crop yields. Also, in ancient Mesopotamia, banks formed in and around religious temples and government strongholds. The first formal system of taxation was developed by the ancient Egyptians, some years later, giving rise to government, as we would recognize it today. It is the Christmas Holiday 2023 season and not many people are thinking of the many bank failures of March and April earlier this year. However, I plan to watch the movie It’s A Wonderful Life, as I do every Christmas Holiday season. The movie stars James Stewart and centers on a Saving and Loan Bank financial failure in a small town and is a Christmas movie classic. In March and April 2023 the Silvergate Bank of California, Silicon Valle...