Author Archives: Dr Snyder

Whittaker Chambers: Conservatism or Counterrevolution?

  

The year: 1938. The occasion: a meeting between Whittaker Chambers, who had, at great peril, left the American communist underground, and General Walter Krivitsky, a defector from Stalin’s secret police. This meeting was instrumental in helping Chambers decide to inform on his former underground associates, and eventually led to the front-page drama of the Chambers-Hiss controversy from 1948-1950. Chambers was hesitant to talk with Krivitsky. He knew it might lead to that fateful decision that would change the rest of… Read more »

Lewis: Modern Man & the Sense of Sin

  

C. S. Lewis’s “God in the Dock” essay exposes one of the biggest obstacles we face in transmitting the Gospel message: the unwillingness of people to acknowledge they are guilty of anything and are in need of a savior. What Lewis says in this essay has become even more conspicuous in our day. He writes of what he learned when he spoke to Royal Air Force (R.A.F.) audiences during WWII. One of the first things he learned was that they… Read more »

Campolo’s Betrayal of Scripture

  

There may be those among my readers who are not familiar with the name Tony Campolo. He has been a sociology professor at an evangelical Christian university for many years. I believe he is now about 80 years old and has been in the limelight in evangelical circles for quite some time. In his earlier years, he wrote books that always pushed the envelope with respect to evangelicals’ more conservative view of culture. Then he began to be even more… Read more »

Lewis: Christianity & Education

  

I’m preparing to begin my twenty-seventh year of teaching college this fall. One of the joys I’ve had is the free hand to develop upper-level courses for history majors. Due to all my research on C. S. Lewis this year (and my still-hoped-for book on him), I will be teaching a course on him in the upcoming semester. Lewis and education go together. He had many wise and insightful comments on the aims and limits of education. For a good… Read more »

James Otis: The First Voice of Resistance

  

Most people have never heard of James Otis and the part he played in American history, but he could easily have the title of First Leader of Resistance to the British Tyranny. Here are the facts. The Great Constitutional Debate Period prior to the American Revolution ranged from 1761-1776. It was a unique period in history, very unlike most others, when debate over the proper role of government and the basic rights of the people came to the forefront. Usually,… Read more »

Lewis: Do We Want Vision or Virtue?

  

Is there a moral law to which all men are subjected, or do men create whatever morality exists, according to their own lights? C. S. Lewis says that the second proposition is a disaster. Unfortunately, it’s where we are, to a great extent. In his essay “The Poison of Subjectivism,” Lewis states, Many a popular “planner” on a democratic platform, many a mild-eyed scientist in a democratic laboratory means, in the last resort, just what the Fascist means. He believes… Read more »

God’s Law & Man’s Law

  

Sir William Blackstone wrote Commentaries on the Laws of England, volumes published from 1765-1769. They became the standard for understanding how English laws were to be applied. The timing of these volumes was opportune for the American colonists, as they also looked to Blackstone for their basis in law. The preface, or introduction, to these volumes lays out the foundational beliefs that were supposed to govern English laws. They were as follows: The Law of Nature=The Will of God; Man’s… Read more »