Reflections on God … Man … Life
The financiers who provided the funds for the Pilgrims’ voyage to America had as one of their requirements that the farming in the new settlement be set up communally. No individual or family was to have their own land. Rather, everyone had to work on communal land and receive an equal share of the crops. This wasn’t the Pilgrims’ idea, but they felt bound to the arrangement. For a while, at least. As governor, William Bradford had to make a… Read more »
President Obama has now returned from his Martha’s Vineyard vacation. It’s possible that no other president has ever been criticized so much for devotion to a vacation. While the Middle East literally goes up in flames and an American journalist is beheaded, the president seemed more intent on perfecting his golf game than anything else. One photoshop making the rounds puts a spotlight on the criticisms: The critique hasn’t been one-sided; it’s not emanating from Republicans only. Members of his… Read more »
I’ve been on this Christian journey for most of my life, seeking to grow in relationship with the Lord. Now that I’m older—not old, mind you—the longing for eternity, which will far eclipse what we currently consider “life,” has become more real. C. S. Lewis’s The Weight of Glory sermon has, for many years, captured for me the sense of expectation that I sometimes feel as I look forward to the end of this temporal existence and the entrance into… Read more »
One aspect of Pilgrim history that everyone seems connected with is the harmony that existed between the settlers and the natives. Was that the case, or is this another legend that has become supposed fact? Let me provide the best analysis I can on this question. Upon arrival, as I mentioned in an earlier post, the Pilgrims made a big mistake by taking some buried corn from one tribe. They did so out of their need, and they comforted themselves… Read more »
I’m glad having a black president and a black attorney general has taken care of the racial issues in America once and for all. Yes, I’m being slightly sarcastic. I’ve watched the unfolding events in Ferguson, Missouri, as I’m sure everyone else has also, but have refrained from commenting until all the facts are established. That may not happen for some time, though, so I do want to offer some thoughts on what is already obvious. First, the killing of… Read more »
My “travelogue” of my Wheaton trip continues today. While researching there, I realized I wasn’t too far from the town of Dixon, which was Ronald Reagan’s boyhood home. The town is quite proud of its most prominent citizen, so one of the houses Reagan lived in has been restored to what it would have looked like in the early 1920s. I decided, once I concluded my Billy Graham and C. S. Lewis research, to journey to Dixon to see the… Read more »
Charles Finney always spoke out of his vast experience dealing with those who needed to hear the Gospel. In his Revival Lectures, he pinpointed just what Christians are supposed to be doing to help the world understand truth. Here’s his perspective: One grand design of God in leaving Christians in the world after their conversions is that they may be witnesses for God. It is that they may call the attention of the thoughtless multitude to the subject, and make… Read more »