Reflections on God … Man … Life
Commentary, from a Biblical perspective, on current events that are primarily cultural. There may be some overlap with politics and government, but the emphasis is on broader societal developments apart from politics, which also includes analysis of specific individuals.
This is the third in my series revealing the results of a survey I took of Americans’ debt to C. S. Lewis. Conducted in conjunction with the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College, the goal was to provide testimonies to the influence of Lewis on those who responded to the survey. Two weeks ago, I shared how the respondents had first become aware of Lewis and his writings. Last week was devoted to which of Lewis’s writings had the… Read more »
What led Whittaker Chambers to become a communist? His university education was one source, not because it taught him communism per se, but because it offered nothing to believe in. Faced with a choice between nihilism and communism, he chose the latter. Here’s an excerpt from my new book that I hope you will find enlightening with respect to the decline of higher education. Chambers chose to attend Columbia University, close enough to home that he could save money by… Read more »
Last Saturday, I began sharing some of the results of the survey I conducted in tandem with the Wade Center on how Americans have been influenced by C. S. Lewis. As I noted, I asked a number of questions, the first of which was how they were introduced to Lewis. My second question was a natural follow-up to the first: Which of his writings have had the greatest impact on your thinking and/or spiritual development? In all, twenty of Lewis’s… Read more »
On a visit to Wheaton College’s Marion E. Wade Center in August 2014, I read through the results from two surveys (conducted in 1986 and 1996, respectively) on how C. S. Lewis had impacted the lives of Americans. Since nearly two decades had passed since anyone had tried to document such testimonies, I thought the time might be right to do so again. Consequently, in concert with the Wade Center, which posted a notice on its website and on its… Read more »
Those who have read this blog long enough know my affinity for Whittaker Chambers, a man I consider one of the true heroes in American history. That’s why he is one of the subjects of my new book The Witness and the President: Whittaker Chambers, Ronald Reagan, and the Future of Freedom. He had joined the Communist Party in the 1920s, thinking it was the answer to all the world’s crises. Only later did he come to grips with his… Read more »
This new outbreak of campus unrest is more than slightly reminiscent of the turbulent period between 1964-1973, which coincided with the Vietnam War. Along with the war protests, however, we also experienced a major shift in culture. Traditional morality based on Christian faith was largely jettisoned on campuses, and in the intervening years, hostility to Biblical faith and morality has only increased. While the ostensible rationale for the current unrest is racial, what we are seeing is a bandwagon effect… Read more »
No, Donald Trump is not a racist because he is concerned about illegal immigration. Neither is Donald Trump a fascist because he believes radical mosques ought to receive greater scrutiny. Those are not the reasons I don’t favor him as the Republican nominee for president. I have deeper reasons. I’ve written before about what I consider to be Trump’s iffy conversion to conservative policy positions, his supreme arrogance with respect to how much money he has, his assurances that all… Read more »