Posts with the category “history”

The recent movement of Hitler-love is full of moral stunts and scoops, intellectual bargaining, and self-promotion. It is a world as spiritually dead as the world of the PWC, also rejecting metaphysic...  Read More

Daniel’s RecommendationPatrick Kavanaugh, The Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1992).We live in a culture where the forces of expressionism, postmodernism, nihilis...  Read More

When the Mayflower landed at Cape Cod on November 11, 1620, William Bradford wrote these words, a pseudo-prayer fitting for all who have suffered....  Read More

Martin Luther was disappointed he wasn’t the first martyr of the Reformation. That honor falls to a group of Augustinian monks in Antwerp. During the 1520s, the Netherlands was under the control of Qu...  Read More

IntroductionEveryone has notions of history. Some even pretend to despise it. Yet Carl Becker (1873-1945), the famous American historian, offers a poignant retort when he says “Everyman is his own his...  Read More

The American side of the Scrooby congregation was without a pastor. John Robinson stayed with the Leyden side of the congregation in the Netherlands. The ruling elder, William Brewster, came over on t...  Read More

IntroductionCharles Chauncy was the Grand Poo-Bah of the Old Light coalition that opposed the New Light evangelists George Whitefield, Gilbert Tenent, and James Davenport during the First Great Awaken...  Read More

Saint Augustine lived in a pluralized environment where the coming-of-age story was that of embracing all the gods except Christ. As a young man, he set out to achieve cosmic significance through worl...  Read More

The month of Thanksgiving means we are obligated to think about the Plymouth Pilgrims. But instead of reflecting on the First Thanksgiving, let’s remember the wise words from the first pastor of the S...  Read More

In the summer of 1620, the Pilgrims stalled out in Dartmouth because of the cunning and deceit of the ship’s captain and his crew. They were hired to take the Pilgrims across the ocean and stay with t...  Read More

Every man is a reformer; only it so often happens that he has the wrong reform. Except for Martin Luther. His 95 theses especially target the practice of selling indulgences. What are indulgences and ...  Read More

IntroductionThe Industrial Revolution changed the world. In some ways, the changes have been good. In some ways, they haven’t been. The changes are more than just HVAC units and electricity. The Indus...  Read More

Since the beginning of days, people have hankered to rank things. The caveman ranked the loincloths of their fellow cavers. Northern Europeans of ancient times debated the most esteemed Nordic poetry....  Read More

IntroductionIt’s ironic that Americans think King George III was mad when they’ve been going mad over the “last king of America”[1] for over 200 years. The two Thomas’ started the mania. First, Thomas...  Read More

The Second Great Awakening, beginning at the turn of the nineteenth century, established Christianity as the cohesive moral force of the country, but it failed to unite Christians as one people. Rathe...  Read More

This week is Veteran’s Day and there are distinct Christian reasons for honoring our military Veterans. Christians are commanded to give “respect to whom respect is owed” and “honor to whom honor is o...  Read More