Reflections on God … Man … Life
Chicago public school teachers are out on strike. They’ve been treated so unfairly there was just no other option. After all, in a city where the median income is $47,000 per year, they make only $76,000. Sure, they get all their benefits on top of that, but since they are the most important people in the city, they deserve more. So you can understand why when they were offered a measly 16% raise, they hit the roof. How insulting. Wouldn’t… Read more »
Today, the faculty of Southeastern University begins its traditional two-day meeting at the beginning of a new academic year. I feel reflective today as I prepare for my twenty-fourth year of teaching at the university level. It may be a bit easier for me; I’m no longer serving as chair of my department. That diminishes my responsibilities significantly, and at a time when my wife, Jan, is still recovering from surgery, a reprieve from some responsibility is welcome. Most of… Read more »
Last Friday, I wrote a post about the controversy over Thomas Nelson ceasing publication of David Barton’s latest book, The Jefferson Lies. My aim was to offer a balanced perspective: I appreciate Barton’s ultimate goal of restoring the knowledge of our nation’s Biblical heritage, yet I take issue with him over trying to force someone like Jefferson into the Christian mold. From my own study of the Founding era and of Jefferson himself, I cannot subscribe to the view that… Read more »
The Fourth of July used to be one of the premier American holidays. People celebrated it because they understood the principles behind the resistance to taxation without representation and the potential for government overreach. Those were lessons we used to know. Things have changed. But if you were to take a survey of our current knowledge of America’s founding and the principles upon which it was based, you might get a variety of responses, few of them heartening: If some… Read more »
As a professor of American history for more than twenty years now, I have ceased to be surprised by the lack of knowledge our students bring to the classroom. American history—particularly early American history—is like a foreign language to many. The majority can still identify George Washington, and most know there was a Civil War, but they’re not sure when it happened. The Constitution is virtually an unknown document when it comes to its basic provisions. This year we celebrate… Read more »
I don’t know much about Shorter University in Rome, Georgia. What I do know is what I read yesterday—that it’s a Christian university associated with the Georgia Baptist Convention and that it has decided to be consistent with that convention’s beliefs by asking its employees to sign a pledge indicating their agreement with the basic tenets of the church. To me, that’s only common sense. If you say “this is what we believe and this is what we seek to… Read more »
The Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case has put racism back on the front page again, at least in the minds of some. One can argue, however, that it has never left the front page with the current administration. The Eric Holder Justice Department is setting a record of sorts by challenging a number of commonsense laws, from photo IDs for voting to Arizona’s attempt to stem the tide of illegal immigration. Yet it dropped a case of voter intimidation by the… Read more »