Author Archives: Dr Snyder

Historic Jamestown: The Latest

  

Since last Wednesday, I’ve been in one of my favorite areas of the country: the Historic Triangle of Virginia. Staying just down the road from Colonial Williamsburg, I’ve had the honor and opportunity to show some college students the most significant sites in early American history. Last Thursday and Friday, we focused on Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the New World. There are actually two sites: the re-created settlement to show what it probably looked like and the… Read more »

Finney: False Hopes

  

Some people rely on very flimsy rationales for assuming they are right with God. Charles Finney relates this story in his autobiography, a story that has been repeated endlessly in different forms in all times and places. During that revival my attention was called to a sick woman in the community, who had been a member of a Baptist church, and was well-known in the place; but people had no confidence in her piety. She was fast failing with the… Read more »

Lewis: Not Ashamed of the Gospel

  

In his customary pithy way, C. S. Lewis reminds us that we do stand for something, and that we had better make that stand: As Christians we are tempted to make unnecessary concessions to those outside the Faith. We give in too much. Now, I don’t mean that we should run the risk of making a nuisance of ourselves by witnessing at improper times, but there comes a time when we must show that we disagree. We must show our… Read more »

Shlaes’s Coolidge

  

Amity Shlaes is a very good writer. She’s also a top-notch researcher. Her niche is showing how the 1920s and 1930s are not what many people think they were. Tackling academic political correctness is not for the fainthearted, so she apparently has a rather stout heart. I first became acquainted with her writing in the book The Forgotten Man, which lanced effectively the liberal-progressive theme that FDR was the nation’s savior during the Great Depression. Now she has struck again…. Read more »

Up from Slavery: The Character of Booker T. Washington

  

I’ve been reading the autobiography of Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery. The story of his childhood in slavery, the privations he suffered both under slavery and in the years after its abolition, would have made many men bitter. Washington, though, never lost the vision planted in him by God that someday he would be able to rise above it. He learned, along the way, that one’s goal was not to be selfishly motivated but to become the best for… Read more »

Exposing Abortion

  

It’s always difficult getting the mainstream media’s attention on a real life and death issue like abortion. As I’ve noted numerous times, they aren’t interested because the majority are in favor of abortion on demand. Even the horrific practices of Kermit Gosnell were ignored until the roar of the alternative media finally was heeded. The remnant who still believe in the sanctity of innocent human life made their voice heard. Gosnell was justly declared guilty, but a plea deal allowed… Read more »

Memorial Day 2013

  

As I reflect on Memorial Day, I try to make it as personal as I can. That’s not easy because I never served in the military. My dad was in the newly formed Army Air Force after WWII, so he didn’t see combat. His brother—my uncle—was in the service during the Korean War, but I don’t recall any particular information about that; I don’t think he actually went to Korea. If he had seen combat, I assume I would have… Read more »