The Appropriate Response to the Death of bin Laden

  

I’ve had a couple of different questions directed at me after the news of Osama bin Laden’s death. Let me use my post today to give my perspective on these questions. One of the questions is ancient—not new at all—dealing with the concept of a “just war.” There has been a strand of Christian thought that rejects the idea that any war is just. This viewpoint, normally labeled pacifism, says it is always wrong to take up arms regardless of… Read more »

The Wilkerson Testimonial

  

One day in the late 1960s, when I was in high school, somehow—and I don’t remember the details—I came across a book that made a major impact on my thinking and my understanding of a relationship with God. It was a book that also took me into a world of which I had no knowledge. It was called The Cross and the Switchblade. It was the story of a rural minister in Pennsylvania who sensed that God had called him… Read more »

God & Cancer

  

I’ve never wanted to use this blog as some sort of personal diary of my family’s life, but sometimes events are worth mentioning. I hope you will indulge me today. My wife, Jan, was recently diagnosed with a very aggressive breast cancer. She has now begun chemo treatments. We expect surgery to follow later. When something like this occurs, one certainly must do what the name of this blog enjoins—ponder principles. As a Christian, I view all of life as… Read more »

Qualifications for the Presidency

  

I’m glad President Obama is an American citizen. Otherwise, we would have had a major constitutional confrontation on our hands. There would have been a multitude of voices declaring that the provision in the Constitution that requires the president to be a natural-born citizen is discriminatory and should be ignored. The saddest part is that they might have won with that argument, given our national ambivalence toward fidelity to our Founding documents. So Obama has met the minimum requirements for… Read more »

Teachers’ Unions & Education

  

I haven’t said anything about education for some time, so I’ll enter that territory briefly today. Fortunately, the teachers’ unions can help us understand our current state of affairs. A little commentary on how those unions operate can perhaps show us how we ought to reform our education system. Or perhaps not. Hmm … could it be that some of the problems we’re experiencing could be because of the teachers’ unions? As someone who has taught at the university level… Read more »

Worthwhile Reading

  

If you have been a regular reader of this blog, you can’t have escaped noticing that two of my academic interests are Ronald Reagan and Whittaker Chambers. I have worked for a number of years on a book comparing the two; the manuscript is finished now, and I’m in the process of trying to find a publisher. That may be a backward way of writing a book, but I never knew when or if I would actually have time to… Read more »

Resurrection Day: The Significance

  

No one who was present on that first Good Friday would have given it that name, not even the Pharisees and Sadducees who sought Jesus’ death. The earthquake and the veil of the Temple being torn in two probably put a damper on their celebration. Dismal Saturday was, if possible, even worse for the disciples than the day before. It was a day without hope. But hope was coming sooner than they knew. Resurrection Day made the two previous days… Read more »