The ship that shaped a nation
On this date, 405 years ago, a ship anchored on the coast of what is now Massachusetts, in what is now known as Plymouth Bay. Of the 102 passengers who crowded aboard the Mayflower, just under half were English separatists who, having broken from the Church of England and attempted to settle in Holland, joined with a […]
Remembering Rosa Parks’ quiet courage
Seventy years ago today, a quiet Christian woman changed history. Rosa Parks, born in 1913 in the segregated South, was raised by her mother and grandmother. The descendant of slaves, she began working on a plantation in Alabama at the age of six. Raised in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), Parks grew up memorizing Scripture, singing hymns, and […]
The ballroom that ends democracy?
When Harry Truman and his family moved into the White House after the death of Franklin Roosevelt in the Spring of 1945, the 33rd president found a building in serious need of repair. The New York Times described the conditions: The ceiling of the East Room, elaborately done in the frescoes of fruits and reclining women and weighing […]
An advocate for Ukrainian children
Recently First Lady Melania Trump revealed that she’s maintained an open line to Russian dictator Vladamir Putin for one purpose: persuading him to return the estimated tens of thousands of children kidnapped from Ukrainian families as part of the ongoing war between the two nations. Eight children have so far been reunited with their families as a result of […]
Charlie Kirk’s murder unmasks the myth of the dangerous evangelical
“Christofascist.” “Hateful.” “Violent.” Leftists have ominously warned for a decade one group of people represent a unique threat to the American experiment: conservative evangelicals. Progressive elites published book after book, with titles such as “The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy,” “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals […]
Faithful living at the end of the world
In the wake of a worldwide pandemic and the corresponding government shutdowns, in the midst of war in Europe and the Middle East, and in an age of technological advancement moving at lighting speed, many people are asking, Are we at the end of the world? Apocalyptic movies such as the Mad Max franchise, Don’t Look Up, or 28 […]
Waking up to terrorism
If you are of a certain age, you knew exactly where you were that fateful day, 24 years ago. I was just graduated from college and was working at a Christian ministry. The broadcast on a local Chicago talk show was interrupted by the news anchor, first with a low-key announcement that a “plane of […]
FIRST-PERSON: Remembering Charlie Kirk
It will be a tragic moment I will never forget. I was nearly finished teaching a class, ironically, on Christianity and culture to an eager group of Christian young people, when a text came across my iPad with the news that Charlie Kirk, champion for Christ, communicator of conservative values, and patriot, was shot at […]
James Dobson Was Right
Last week, James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and a longtime social conservative leader, died at 89. He devoted himself to many causes in his life. Perhaps chief among them was the importance of marriage and the family. There was a granular, practical element to this: He spent a great deal of time dispensing marriage […]
A foundation for law
In a recent episode of his popular podcast, Joe Rogan had a discussion with Texas Democratic State Sen. James Talarico, a seminarian at a Presbyterian school whose Christian language has some pundits and media outlets enthusiastically predicting he could “turn Texas blue.” I have my doubts that a politician who claims that Scripture declares life only begins […]