Reflections on God … Man … Life
How do we respond when we think we are on the edge of death? It happened to me once in a car accident on a lonely, and icy, country road. As my car careened across the middle line straight into the headlights of a car coming from the other direction (we were the only cars anywhere in sight), I wondered if this was it. Was I ready spiritually to be face-to-face with my Lord? As I was teaching my course… Read more »
Recently, I was reminded of one of C. S. Lewis’s essays that I hadn’t thought about in quite a while; in fact, I couldn’t recall if I had read it. Yet, as a professor of history, I must have perused his “Is History Bunk?” at some time or other. So I checked into it as if it were a new piece of Lewis’s corpus that I hadn’t seen before. The essay is found in the collection called Present Concerns, the… Read more »
Yesterday was Good Friday. We take time on that day to consider deeply what Jesus suffered for us. There are many paintings of Christ on the Cross, but few that try to show what He saw as He hung there. This one, by Jame Tissot, is, I think, thought-provoking. From the Cross, Jesus uttered some very dramatic words: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”; “This day you shall be with me in Paradise.” Other words may… Read more »
It was forty years ago today, and I remember it well. I was working at a radio station in Norfolk, Virginia, and part of my task was to read the news. The news that day was rather shocking. As President Reagan walked out of the Washington Hilton, gunman John Hinckley waited in the crowd. Shots were fired; a scramble was on to grab the assailant and protect the president. No one knew at the time that Reagan had been hit…. Read more »
Over the years, I’ve taught my “Witness of Whittaker Chambers” course many times. It never gets old or stale; in fact, each time I sense that the Lord uses it to help me see even more of His mercy and grace. The life of Whittaker Chambers exemplifies God’s grace while simultaneously challenging readers of his masterful autobiography, Witness, to seek ever more earnestly the face of God. In teaching the course this semester, the depth of Chambers’s personal path and… Read more »
January 6, 2021, at the United States Capitol, was not a protest by American constitutional conservatives. American constitutional conservatives do not storm the Capitol building in an attempt to stop the counting of electoral votes in an election that was certified by all fifty states, both Republican and Democrat, to be a reliable vote count. American constitutional conservatism does not reject the decisions of courts, both state and local, that ruled on the multitude of cases that sought to overturn… Read more »
For all of my adult life, I have been a strong advocate for what I believe are the true values of American conservatism. Constitutionalism and the rule of law formed cornerstones of my political philosophy early on. The natural outgrowth of those beliefs are policies that keep the federal government dealing only with federal issues. Those beliefs allow state and local governments to rule in their respective spheres. The greatest cornerstone, though, has been my Christian faith. When I look… Read more »