Month: August 2017

The Antifa Cancer

In the wake of the Charlottesville turmoil I wrote a post condemning the white supremacists who initiated the confrontation. I don’t agree with President Trump’s comment that there were nice guys among the crowd of Nazis, etc. Nothing about any ideology that promotes racial supremacy and racial inferiority is “nice.” If you want to review my comments, go to the calendar on this sidebar and click on August 14. In that same post, I also pointed out the problem that… Read more »

All Saints: A Review

Picture an Episcopal church called All Saints in the middle of Tennessee with only a handful of congregants. Then picture a pastor who has been sent to that church for the sole purpose of shutting it down and selling the property so that a mega-store can be built on the site. Then, unexpectedly, refugees from Burma, Christians from the persecuted Karen tribe, arrive in the area. Because their tribe had been Christianized through Anglican missionaries, they find their way to… Read more »

Lewis on Intellectual Pride

How does one decide which C. S. Lewis essay one likes best? Just when you have read one and concluded nothing could be better, another one invades your mind and spirit, and you’re now convinced this has to be the crowning jewel. As an academic, I am drawn to the essays in which Lewis takes aim at those of us in academia. He’s particularly pointed in those because he’s also taking aim at himself. One of the greatest temptations for… Read more »

The History of a Book

Why did I write a book comparing Ronald Reagan and Whittaker Chambers? May I provide some history on that? I came of age politically in the 1980s. After suffering through Richard Nixon’s Watergate, Gerald Ford’s caretaker presidency, and Jimmy Carter’s near-total ineptitude, I looked upon Reagan’s inauguration as a fresh start for America. Even Time magazine, in its cover story, seemed to agree with that assessment. I followed political developments closely. This corresponded with working on my master’s degree and… Read more »

To All My Students, Past & Present

The pre-semester faculty meetings have begun and I now enter into my 29th year of teaching American history in a Christian college. When you believe you have a specific calling from God to do something, you can do it regardless of the trials and obstacles that sometimes make you question the calling. There was a time in the previous 28 years when I seriously considered going in a different direction, wondering if the calling had been withdrawn and God was… Read more »

Niceness vs. Redemption

We have just completed a week filled with anguish. The Charlottesville protests and anger that they have stirred has brought our nation to a low point indeed. In the midst of this anguish, people say things about changing the rhetoric and promoting understanding—all very nice, but never getting to the core of the problem, which is sin. C. S. Lewis, in his Mere Christianity, delivers the truth about niceness vs. redemption. We must not suppose that even if we succeeded… Read more »

Slavery & the Civil War

What caused the American Civil War? Historians are hesitant to assign just one cause to anything. There are always many factors that come together to create an event, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be a primary cause. Where do we go to find the primary cause for the Civil War? I suggest we look carefully at the official secession declarations of the various Southern states. They went to great pains to explain why they chose secession. I’ve read them… Read more »