Columbus, Racism, & Protests

  

Wealthy football players claim America is oppressive. Their protest over the national anthem goes viral. The nation gets thrown into turmoil. Columbus Day arrives. We have our annual Columbus-was-a-genocidal-maniac theme trumpeted from the mouths of those who, like the football players, believe America is the bastion of systemic racism. As a historian, I know that our history includes some terrible things. Yet we need some sense of comparative analysis, not emotional outbursts, to deal with what has happened. We also… Read more »

I Will Not Be Ashamed

  

I was at an early morning Bible study last Friday when a certain Scripture passage burned its way into my spirit. It’s not that it was a new passage to me, but the Lord has a way of taking a verse one has read hundreds of times and turning it into His Word of the Day. That’s what he did for me that morning. It’s found in the gospel of Mark, chapter 8, verse 38: For whoever is ashamed of… Read more »

Lewis: Mere Survival Is Not the Goal

  

One of the traits I see in C. S. Lewis, and what makes his writings so endearing—at least from my particular take on life—is the way he can critique a predominant belief in society at large, yet do so in a manner that is not merely some kind of self-righteous invective. He can skewer a prevailing untruth with winsome words that can make a person think seriously about the untruth’s inherent untruthfulness. In his essay, “On Living in an Atomic… Read more »

Guns or the Evil Within?

  

I try to follow a policy of waiting a while before commenting on news that is not fully vetted. As we all know, much of what is said at first is speculation, and many early accounts are found to be discounted rumors as the fog dissipates. That’s why I’ve written nothing until now on Stephen Paddock and his reign of unmitigated terror and murder in Las Vegas. What I particularly despise, as I’m sure many of you do also, is… Read more »

A Dual Spiritual Biography

  

I spent parts of ten years researching the links between Ronald Reagan and Whittaker Chambers. Those years also were spent documenting the difference in outlook between the two conservative icons: Chambers the brooding intellectual who doubted the wisdom of men and their commitment to truth; Reagan the optimist who always saw a bright future ahead. Yet despite that basic disparity in outlook, Reagan was deeply appreciative of what Chambers had taught him, primarily through his autobiography, Witness. Pearls from Chambers’s… Read more »

Chad Walsh Meets C. S. Lewis

  

In last Saturday’s C. S. Lewis post, I related how Chad Walsh, an English professor at Beloit College in Wisconsin, turned from atheism to Christianity and how Lewis’s writings, particularly Perelandra, played a prominent role in his conversion. This led Walsh to want to know more about his new favorite author. He wrote an article about him in The Atlantic Monthly but sought to make the thesis of that article into a book, explaining in greater detail how Lewis’s writings… Read more »

A Tale of Magnificence & Depravity Well Told

  

When I was on my “Irma Vacation” a couple of weeks ago, I stopped by a Barnes and Noble to browse the history books. Often, when I’m in a bookstore, I feel a little rushed. This time, with nothing but time on my hands, I did some genuine browsing. I came across Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America. I had been tempted to buy it before; after all,… Read more »