While renouncing the title of abbess, Radegund exercised a strong influence on the running of the abbey, starting with its initial conception as a refuge for women in violent times. “I asked myself,” she later explained, “with all the ardor of which I am capable, how I could best forward the cause of other women, and how, if our Lord so willed, my own personal desires might be of advantage to my sisters.”[2]  Abuse against women was common in those days – whether by their husbands or as a consequence of wars. 

In 531, an army of Frankish soldiers invaded the Kingdom of Thuringia (in today’s France), sacked the palace, killed the royal family, and took the royal children back to the Frankish capital, Athies. Among these children was Radegund, daughter of Bertachar, who had ruled Thuringia jointly with his brothers until one of them killed him. At the time of the Frankish conquest, she was living in the home of her father’s murderer.
Theuderic and Chlotar, co-rulers of the Frankish kingdom, divided the spoils. Clothar, who had a reputation for being “most amorous by temperament,” won Radegund in a gambling game, and raised her as future member of his harem of six wives and at least one concubine.
Officially, Theuderic and Chlotar were Christians. Their father Clovis had been converted through the intervention of his wife Clotilde. But conversions of rulers, at that time, were often political in nature, and their actions didn’t always follow their professions of faith.
We don’t know anything about Radegund’s beliefs at the time of her arrival. Thuringia was still a pagan region but Christianity might have been introduced at her court. In any case, in Clothar’s palace she was baptized and raised as a Christian with other children. She learned to sing Psalms and received a basic education that allowed her to read the Scriptures and the writings of the church fathers.
Radegund’s Escape
By 540, when Clothar, now in his forties, took her as his wife, her life was so devoted to prayer, study, and works of charity that he complained that he had married a nun. There were times when she left the conjugal bed to go “to relieve nature” and he would find her prostrate on the floor in prayer. During the royal banquets, she would often leave to take food to the poor.
Most likely, Clothar objected to these practices. Although his opposition has not been documented, the reference in one of Radegund’s poems to “the captive maid given to a hostile lord” might be an indication.
This situation continued for about ten years, until Clothar murdered her brother. Then she left the palace and found temporary refuge with the bishop of Noyon, Médard, surprising him with the unusual request to consecrate her to God as a nun.
This put Médard in a difficult situation. He wanted to help her, but married women could not legally become nuns. When Radegund insisted, he consecrated her as a deaconess.
After this, she retired in a castle in Saix, in southern France, which Clothar had given her as a morgengabe, the customary present noblemen offered to their wives after their first wedding night.
Clothar was not about to let Radegund go. Whatever his feelings might have been toward her, she had brought him dishonor. Besides, their union was important to him from a political point of view, sealing his victory over Thuringia. He then asked Germanus, bishop of Paris, to go with him to Saix to take back his bride.
But Radegund was a step ahead of him. Alerted by some courtesans of the king’s intentions, she approached Germanus and asked him to intervene in her favor. Her letter to him might have included some details of marital abuse, because Germanus asked Clothar to repent. In the end, he was able to convince the king not only to let Radegund go, but to finance the founding of an abbey she could preside.
Apparently, Clothar allowed some of Radegund’s ladies-in-waiting to follow her. Radegund, who refused the title of abbess, gave it to one of her ladies, Agnes, whom she had “loved and brought up as if she were [her] daughter from her childhood onwards.”[1]
A Place of Refuge
While renouncing the title of abbess, Radegund exercised a strong influence on the running of the abbey, starting with its initial conception as a refuge for women in violent times.
Read More

I believe it is really important that we are seen to be celebrating Christmas in our community. Not because Jesus demands that we do it. Not because I think we are more godly if we do it. But because we are free to do it and the message we send if we don’t do it will be particularly terrible. What does it say to our community if, on the day they expect us to be celebrating the birth of Christ, our church is shut, the lights are off and nobody seems to be bothered? For that reason, even if nobody came, we will celebrate Christmas anyway.

If you have followed this blog for a while, you will know our church building is in the middle of an overwhelmingly South Asian Muslim area of Oldham. You will also know that we don’t find Christmas the slam dunk, open goal cultural evangelistic opportunity that a lot of others do. You may also know that, despite that fact, we will still do stuff for Christmas. The obvious question is, why?
The truth is, we don’t expect lots of people to turn up to our Christmas events. Those that do come are more likely to be indigenous Brits looking for their fix of carols, religion and tradition for the year. We sometimes pick up a few of those. The majority who come will really be those who have received an invite from someone in the congregation. They are really coming because they would rather get their bit of Christmas religious tradition with their friend who asked than somewhere else that might be that bit more traditional and Christmassy. The fact is, if you’re mainly bothered about traditional Christmas jazz, you’re probably not going to pick our 70s-built dissenting church for a carol sing-a-long over the parish church, with its lovely building, choir and whatnot. Even the traditions aren’t quite enough to pull people in to us of themselves.
More to the point, whilst we will certainly invite them, we don’t expect to see all that many of our Muslim friends and neighbours. It’s possible we might get one or two who are particularly interested in seeing what Christians do at Christmas, but for the most part, they will no more be flooding through our church doors than we tend to file into the mosque in great numbers at Ramadan. It’s just not a thing for them.
And the truth is, as a hardcore strict Baptist – whilst I love Christmas – it has almost zero religious significance for me.
Read More

The preacher expects us to take to heart both the urgent warning against a final departure from Christ and the admonition to assured confidence in God’s promise  without any whisper of contradiction. He doesn’t admonish us to doubt the inheritance that God assures us by his sworn oath and promise. God regularly uses warnings and consolations or threats and promises together to secure us in the way of salvation.

Who hasn’t been perplexed by the warning in Hebrews 6:4–8?
For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.
This passage confuses us because it relates to how we process the relationship between the gospel’s promises and its admonitions. In fact, doctrinal strain between warning and promise prompts many to remove the tension altogether, since they regard it as uncomfortable if not contradictory.
Looking Back or Ahead?
Some, as I once did, resolve the tension by explaining the passage as a retrospective (backward-looking) assessment of one’s faith in Christ. They accentuate gospel promises with adjustments to gospel admonitions. In so doing, they unwittingly alter the prospective (forward-looking) conditional warning against repudiating Christ and intractable unrepentance. So the warning becomes a backward-looking reflective appraisal of one’s perseverance amid temptations. This is often seen as evidence that implies the genuineness of one’s faith. Accordingly, if my faith is enduring, this authorizes me to infer I’m truly united with Christ. If I’m not persevering in faith, however, this evidence suggests my faith is false.
To contend Hebrews 6:4-8 addresses falling away that exposes one’s faith as false is to advocate what Tom Schreiner and I call the “tests of genuineness” explanation. If I’m to feel the passage’s proper effect, the argument goes, I must entertain the possibility that my faith in Christ may be fraudulent.
Even though advocates of this interpretation claim their explanation prompts believers to remain loyal to Christ, it pushes us to be retrospective and introspective. But the passage is a future-oriented warning. And as a warning, it directs us to be prospective and extrospective so that we might persevere in faith. It’s a warning God employs as a means of enabling his people to endure.
Can You Fall Away?
To alleviate the strain, some say the warning presents a possibility that genuine believers may reject Christ and be cast away forever. They stress gospel admonitions with abridgment of gospel promises. Advocates of this interpretation are convinced the passage is truthful and sincere—not a deceitful charade or false exaggeration—only if the believers addressed can fail to persevere in loyalty to Christ (see Scot McKnight, “Warning Passages Ahead: Brief Response”).
Read More
Related Posts: