[Music] does the Bible say anything about current events it certainly does it's our Focus to be culturally relevant and to communicate a perspective from the scriptures as Christians we should have a Biblical perspective of the news and be able to share that perspective with others [Music] hello I'm Rob Fields executive director of the leaders of Faith foundation and co-host on the show with Pastor Larry Bird we are so glad that you're joining us for today's news and biblical views it's our Focu
s to be culturally relevant and communicate a perspective from the scriptures we see so much in the news that Grieves and saddens Us in the state of our world but there is good news that can come from all this despair what does Jesus and the scripture say about some of these difficult and complex struggles in our news Jesus of Nazareth shows his care for us and reminds us with these words so don't worry about these things rather seek the kingdom of God above all let us seek together a better way
and work through the struggles in the news as I meet with leaders in government we discuss the various aspects of our community such as agriculture manufacturing and school and another key area for our communities is the spiritual well-being and the churches and Faith of Our communities these sectors are a vital part of our communities today and even historically William Penn brought Many religious groups to the new land in order to find religious liberty and protection the holy experiment as h
e said we have religious communities such as the Presbyterians Lutheran anabaptists Amish moravians and so many more today we're going to focus upon a little Moravian missionary community of the 1740s called Bethlehem Bruce we are delighted to have you on the show here to talk further about a little bit of our heritage and history and the spiritual Dynamic that has really shaped a wonderful little community in Pennsylvania and a lot of people come to visit annually as Bethlehem Pennsylvania I kn
ow and I I remember when I was with some ambassadors down in DC and I introduced myself hi I'm Rob fields from Bethlehem before I even got to the next word they said oh Bethlehem Judea and I said no Bethlehem Pennsylvania but it is a delight to have you on the show today and uh we're glad to have you thanks Rob delighted to be here yeah so tell us so we know who Bruce Haynes is tell us a little bit about yourself before we get into a little bit of the heritage of moravians Hotel Bethlehem and th
e story of the Christmas City okay well I'm a jersey guy born and raised in Somerville area and um went to Lehigh to be an engineer basically you know Lehigh engineering my actually I really wanted to be a baseball player and then when I realized I couldn't do that I wasn't good enough somebody suggested I'd be a baseball announcer because I had a deep voice and I and I then somebody said well you're pretty good in math and science why don't you be an engineer so anyway I went to went to Lehigh
became an engineer I went to work for U.S steel uh not Bethlehem Steel which is I think they offered me ten dollars more a month or something and they were the number one seal company so I went to Pittsburgh I had a 35-year career with them but throughout my entire time in Pittsburgh we maintained a real close relationship with in Bethlehem we came back for family stuff and stayed at the Hotel Bethlehem for all of those years I came back for Lehigh weekends family stuff and our base was the Hote
l Bethlehem and so uh so when the hotel went bankrupt and belly up and boarded up in 1998 they were about to turn to the moravians actually were the ones that were going to save the hotel because no no hotelier was stepping forward but they wanted to save the building and so they had put a plan together to essentially make three of the Six Guest floors the top floors be senior citizen Apartments and the next three floors were going to be um girls dorms for Moravian College so that would have bee
n an interesting combination in the elevators every day but it was really the Moravian Church really what saw the need to they're they're they've always been the backstop in Bethlehem when things are tough and of course Bethlehem Steel had just shut down prior to that and that was part of the downfall of the hotel so at that point uh this was like Joanne and I losing our second home so I talked to a bunch of people at a Lehigh football game and said we got to save the hotel and uh ended up with
11 investors to spread the risk and none of us knew anything about the hotel business but we teamed up with a management company and partnered and bought the hotel out of bankruptcy court and 21 23 years later for 24 years later we got number one best Historic Hotel so achieved our vision that we had from the very beginning when we saved the hotel so it was really fun it's been a great second career a great story and congratulations on that number one another go around and share that with the co
mmunity so we definitely see the community of Bethlehem and the hotel they intersect a little bit of just of the history of the community of Bethlehem which just comes to your mind on that or how those two cross over a little bit too yeah well um obviously the where the hotel is currently located is where the first house in Bethlehem was actually right in the back of the hotel would be right behind 1741 and um in the Terrace which is our restaurant so we call it 1741 on the Terrace because you'r
e basically looking out at the colonial industrial quarter and the location essentially of the first house with the naming of Bethlehem by count zinsendorf on Christmas Eve of 1741 and as they say Bethlehem not Jerusalem and it was out along the creek and uh you know there and his Sylvan woodlands and uh so the small band of people that first house was both where they kept the cattle actually and there there was stayed in the same building so that house was the so the hotel is really a location
of the first house and then the colonial industrial quarter right below the hotels where all the goods were made by the community and the people lived up Church Street so the hotel uh location um was the site of the first house no I'd love to love the history and with the moravians and as I was sharing you know hear a number of you know religious groups Coming to America seeking New Opportunities and the moravians were strong missionaries to bring in the gospel to the Indians and establish and w
e have other communities of just Bethlehem but we got Nazareth we got Emmaus and some great works uh and that Heritage that's here uh Bruce this subject of Bethlehem and the moravians has been a great subject of my heart for many many years I've read any number of books about Zinzendorf and one of the things that I really enjoyed reading was about the Revival that they had at hairnote August 13 1727 when he opened his place there they called it the Lord's watch at harrenhoot and all these persec
uted Christians were coming from all these Catholic Lutheran anabaptists he had about 300 of them came to harrenhood and but they couldn't get along they were very divided you know how do you do communion and how do you do this and that and so he would visit with them but they were having a communion service on that particular Wednesday August 13 1727. and the only way that they can describe it is that the Holy Spirit just descended upon them and they were just filled with his love his Joy forgi
veness and out of that they started these prayer bands where every 24 hours were covered men 24 men 24 women took an hour and every day around the clock they were praying and God did amazing things through the moravians and even brought them here to Bethlehem in 1741. so I guess my first question to you as you're in the hotel business do you know anything about whether the moravians were ever in the hotel business actually that's interesting yes the answer is yes they uh they on the in the front
of where the first house was where the hotel is today they actually built a building that was the first store in 1794. and then that converted that in 1823 to a hotel that the moravians owned and as you know the Moravian Community was a closed community you couldn't live here for the first hundred years unless you were a Moravian until 1844. so visitors that came to town they generally stayed outside the town like the sun in but they did decide to convert the first store in 1823 to the Eagle Ho
tel and it became a a hotel that was uh sort of a getaway for people from Philadelphia I think to come to the country um and to the community and so this was one way the moravians interacted so and in 1860 they actually then sold the hotel to Caleb yoe who was one of their parishioners and he owned the hotel until basically 1920. and 1919 when it was torn down and the Hotel Bethlehem was built amen 1920. well in 1919 or 1920 it was torn down in 1921 they broke ground for the Hotel Bethlehem and
that's kind of a different story great well Bruce we have much more to talk to you about but we need to take a break so uh don't go away we're talking with Bruce Haynes one of the owners of the Bethlehem hotel and about the spiritual Heritage with the moravians we'll be right back foreign views is produced and recorded in the studios of Lighthouse TV positively different [Music] welcome back to today's news and biblical views my co-host Rob fields and I are interviewing Bruce Haynes one of the o
wners of Hotel Bethlehem and uh we're talking about their spiritual Heritage of Bethlehem very interesting you have another question Rob yeah so we were just talking before we want to break about the moravians being in the hotel business which was really fascinating on that but you know what I guess my next question were kind of similar to that is what role do the moravians church play uh in your decision to even buy the hotel in 1998. well um while we were when we came here at probably 10 or 11
times a year you know we would we'd started going to the Moravian Church and uh you know Doug Caldwell was very influential when you know he's a he's a great man and he uh we we got involved with that and um and decided we were gonna move here when we retired when I retired and uh at that time I think I was 56 57 years old and uh as I said the they were looking to save the hotel and Doug and the other moravians the uh the whole Moravian Community were looking to figure out how they could save t
he building and uh so when we decided that we were going to try and save it as a hotel we got together with them and said we have an alternative plan because they really didn't want to buy the hotel to be perfectly honest with you they were just doing it as a last resort so so when we came together with a plan to Salvage the hotel and keep at a hotel they were very supportive and and I was and they they sort of backed off their plan of as I mentioned which was going to be you know part senior ci
tizen apartments and part a college dorm but and and quite frankly the hotel fell into the same um thing that most hotels did interesting the Hotel Bethlehem was built originally by the Chamber of Commerce to capture automobile automobile tourism when Henry Ford invented the automobile uh the assembly line and could make automobiles affordable for the average American they all started traveling so it became automobile tourism became a big thing and at that time of course there were no interstate
highways and so when you went from New Jersey to Harrisburg you went through Easton and then the only road that really got you to Harrisburg connected with Bethlehem Allentown reading York you know so so essentially in the 20s everybody started building these hotels and the chamber started competing with one another to figure out how could we capture our people to stay in our town instead of the next town and of course there was no Expedia or Internet to book rooms in advance so it was really j
ust people seeing the hotel and saying or and the town and saying this looks like a good place to stop and so the other thing that was instrumental with that is Bethlehem Steel had just created the rolled I-beam which allowed buildings to be taller than four to five stories prior to that no building could be more than four or five stories and if you look at downtown Bethlehem all the other buildings are about three four five stories Max so the Hotel Bethlehem at Nine Stories stood out above all
above all buildings to cat catch the eye of those people driving through town well the moravians were a big part of the of the of the chamber obviously when people come to stay at the hotel I'm sure you're there a lot almost all the time and you're interacting with them are many of those people going on the Moravian tours and are they learning about the Heritage and how Godly this community was and very much so we immerse we really immerse our guests in the history of Bethlehem okay starting wit
h the moravians and the fact that the views from the hotel look at the colonial industrial quarter The Brethren's house where the single men lived and we tell the story we tell the story with the murals in our mural Ballroom which are were painted in 1937 that give the history of Bethlehem starting with count zinsendorf a big big a mural that was painted with count zinsendorf and his daughter benigna who founded and we we really try to immerse everybody in the fact of Moravian College and the fa
ct that benign was the founder of the first school to educate women in America in the American colonies the sixth oldest college but first to educate women in the American colonies that's a that's a really big deal and when people understand that and and recognize the significance of the Moravian community to not just you know Bethlehem but the entire American colonies when when I think of Zinzendorf I think of the fact that from what I've read he was only four years old when he accepted Christ
into his life as a savior and he'd write little love notes to Jesus and he developed this like a little theme he said I have one passion it is Jesus Jesus only and that was his passion and then when you come to the you know the symbol the Seal of the moravians where our lamb has conquered let us follow him let us follow and they wanted to follow Jesus and that was the main emphasis of zinzendorf's life and community and when he came here then in 1741 what a thrilling experience as I've read that
story of Christmas Eve and they're singing and like you mentioned Jerusalem they were singing about Jerusalem and he said no no not Jerusalem it was Bethlehem yes that gave us Christ to save us and that's how the name stuck Bethlehem 1741 yeah no it's amazing to see the spiritual Heritage you know just in this community but many other communities too and then you know you have key players like Zinzendorf uh Whitfield that was through the area John Huss that was influential you know to the morav
ians founding and these people in the past their great faith of How It's impacted and built a community and a wonderful Heritage with the guests you know when the hotel was um kind of a different turn here the hotel was recognized by USA Today as America's number one best historical Hotel what did that do to the tourism aspect of people coming not only just to the hotel the Christmas City to see the star the the downtown all so much of the things that just make it that that icon well it was it c
ertainly certainly was helpful I mean Bethlehem really started in 1937 with the star that and when they named The City the Christmas city that was a chamber initiative in 1937 to kind of you know in the middle of the depression how do you get people to come to Bethlehem and and and see what we have to offer and all that we have to offer and so um but yes getting uh getting name to the top 20. in 2019 by USA Today top 20 historic hotels you know along with great hotels like the you know the Plaza
New York and the Hershey Hotel and um the many many hotels Greenbrier and other places was really astounding and I was just thrilled and and then there's a voting process that goes on for four weeks and you so we got we got the community voting for us and we came in third we were thinking gosh if we could be in the top ten that would be great we came in third but at that time we wore the little buttons like I have the number one pin now we wore number three and the servers and everybody and so
when the guests would come from out of town they would say well what's the number three and then say well we've we got name number three best Historic Hotel but the first question they would always ask is who's number one so interesting um basically every top 10 hotel is basically promoting the number one hotel in effect so our goal was obviously to get the number one the next year we got to number two and uh the The Perennial number one is the Peabody in Memphis Tennessee and so it was basicall
y Bethlehem voting against Memphis and uh they had a number Advantage but we overcame that we shall overcome and we did in uh 21 we got number one number and 22 we got number one and so so the amount of people now because of that and the websites and all the Google and the internet stuff you know the amount of people hitting our website more than doubled when we got the number one ranking and getting it the second time it increased again amen so it's been uh great it's great not just for the hot
el it's really great for Bethlehem now we're exposing more and more people and we have a we created a website visit historic Bethlehem which really goes into the true history of Bethlehem there and all the the buildings we have 25 buildings that are historic buildings that people can visit 25 shops and 25 restaurants so you know come to the little town of Bethlehem amen amen well Bruce we're going to take another break but I know you have more to share with us thank you we'll be right back so do
n't go away [Music] welcome back to today's news and biblical views Rob Fields my co-host and I are interviewing Bruce Haynes he is one of the principal owners of Hotel Bethlehem right here in Bethlehem Pennsylvania and we're talking about the spiritual Heritage this place was founded by the moravians and it has a very Godly Heritage and many of us that have been here I've been here almost 40 years we've been praying for a Revival of what actually took place here the spiritual awakening of this
whole area so Bruce so you've been mentioning about the recognition that the hotel has had worldwide actually and especially here in America so you're actively involved in of course promoting Bethlehem and its Heritage in the Moravian so can you give us a little bit more on that how to bring recognition to this whole experience yeah we um I think we recognized back in 2015 historic Bethel museums and sites really does a lot of great work to really expose our guests to to Bethlehem and the and th
e Heritage and what the moravians are all about and they have their tours on Friday and Saturday and Sunday and that walk around and they stop at the monument on the side of the hotel and talk about first house and and walk up to the Mind house which is a National Historic Landmark and the Water Works which was the first industrial water plant in the United States in colonial America so we have a lot of true history that's that got recognized and uh and Charlene Dante's mowers I gave a lot of cr
edit to her she she really took this thing forward to to get Landmark designations so we got recognized by the department of interior as a Historic Landmark district and then in 17 I think it was 2017 that we actually were identified Moravian Bethlehem was identified as had put on the U.S tentative list for a potential world heritage site and the world heritage is something that was started in the 70s it's part of part of the you know the United Nations UNESCO world heritage committee out of Bru
ssels and each year the United each country can nominate one site for potential world heritage and if you were to go to Europe uh Germany of course has Europe has a lot more world heritage sites than America does because of its history but if you go on a tour of Europe the quality of the tour is measured by how many world heritage sites you're going to see and obviously the Great Wall of China the pyramids are all part of the world heritage site so the fact that that Moravian Bethlehem got put u
p on the as a candidate to be considered over the next 10 years and in the United States we got put up along with places like the Brooklyn Bridge Central Park Ellis Island and Moravian Bethlehem right so we're in tough competition but each year the U.S can put forth one of those and uh last year essentially they came to Bethlehem and asked Moravian Bethlehem to proceed toward nomination and put together the dossier and I'm on the committee the world heritage committee commission for the city alo
ng with obviously people from all the moravians Moravian owned entities and some other business people and so we're we're we're hopefully in that final thing that that maybe we will be nominated along with three other Moravian sites excellent so uh in in the world so we're looking at uh Parenthood the original Germany nominating Parenthood and uh and then uh Northern Ireland and the United States and that's fabulous fabulous so it's pretty pretty exciting it's really exciting on that so I defini
tely would like to just you know extend a personal thank you to you Bruce and with Hotel Bethlehem for this wonderful time together um it's wonderful to take a journey into the past and learn and reflect upon what men and women who built many of our communities with a foundation and faith and we're not living in the past but we're really Gathering inspiration some encouragement and Hope from the faith of those who built our communities you know William Penn writes in his book no cross into a cro
wn while he was in in prison these words when about 22 years of age got in his Everlasting kind took him by the hand and led him out of the pleasures and vanities and the hopes of the world and he's tasted Christ's judgments and his mercy and he rejoices in the experience and dedicated his life to Jesus into the service of Christ think about what Penn had said you can be a man or woman who shapes our community today towards a spiritual framework like these great leaders of the past and in order
to be a great man or woman of true Faith you must know Jesus personally and you can know Jesus personally and even right now you can ask him even to come into your life and to follow him would you even pray this prayer to God right now God I know I have sinned against you would you forgive me for my sins by the shedding of the blood of your son Jesus on the cross and I ask you to come into my heart and I will follow you and your son Jesus we hope that you prayed this prayer to invite Jesus in yo
ur life today and we truly do appreciate you joining us for today's show send us a note and just tell us a little bit about your experience of watching the show let's continue to keep Jesus at the center of our lives and our communities thank you for being with us on today's news and biblical views [Music] [Music]
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