Myth is powerful and every people needs tales to picture what could have been or what might be. Yet there are also true events that are so important, so powerful, so symbolic of deep truth, that they take on a mythic quality. March 1 near a place called Adwa the facts are so inspiring they became legendary: a myth that is true history. Racist colonizers were whipped by an unconquered African Empire in the Name of Christ. The Christians were surrounded... Read more
Gregory of Nazianzus wrote, Conviction you see of a thing’s existence is quite different from knowledge of what it is.* A child can ask for candy without understanding what candy is. She can even love candy, have a favorite candy, and still have only the subjective notion that “candy is the sweet food I like.” As she grows older, she will want to learn what candy is so she can predict what she might like in the store. A jar... Read more
Thinking well is hard work, and easy answers from quick Google searches can cause us to forget this. If we are wise, we’ll remember that we cannot dismiss or even correctly discuss an idea we do not understand. To give a simple example: I have met people who “know” the modal version of the ontological argument is wrong, but have no knowledge or training in modal logic. They could not, if asked, even read the philosophical argument. Having had it... Read more
Friendship is romantic. In many cultures, the bond between friends was more celebrated than any other relationship. Ever since a Valentine’s Day three years ago, I understand. Hope and I were starting a great adventure in doing something new, but there was no money, building, or even a written plan. My Mom, Dad, brother, and adult children were there, because they are family. What else can a good person do, but stick with their family? Yet a small group of... Read more
Jane Austen is the teacher we need, the thinker we ignore at our peril. God gave humankind two voices: male and female. Refusal to listen to either is to miss half of wisdom that God makes incarnate in His image bearers. Jane Austen does not reduce men to women or women to men. She has a sturdy and philosophically sophisticated understanding of civilization. If academia has ignored her importance as an educator, then this may be because she speaks of... Read more
Do something good today, something positive, that will set captives free. That’s a February 12 kind of day! Three years ago on February 12, Hope and I got a chance to try something new. It was fitting that this freedom came on Mr. Lincoln’s birthday: a family hero. Our greatest President led us through a rebellion to a “new birth of freedom.” Reynolds’ family memory extends to that time when Abraham Lincoln, greatest for his Emancipation of the slaves, also gave... Read more
“Manners” were annoying to me as a kid. This will strike nobody who went to high school with me as false. I brought sardines to lunch in our tiny school where we had our meal in the classroom. The smell would fill the room and the downside of having married a person I first met when I was in tenth grade and she was in ninth grade is knowing what people thought of my food choice. Needless to say, she had... Read more
Today I said “until next time” to a good man who served his nation and the church: my uncle, Charles Harris. As I listened to his eulogy, the phrase that came to me was: Christian Victor, Uncle Charlie, Christian Victor. He was victorious, especially as I saw him sleeping in death waiting the hope of the resurrection. His country sent him around the world serving the Strategic Air Command (TSGT) and his service helped win the Cold War and free... Read more
King Kaleb of Axum is a hero we need: a man willing to defend his brothers and sisters in parts of the world where they could not defend themselves. Christianity did not come to Africa with colonialism. Northern Africa, especially Egypt, was a center of Christian theology and culture within a generation of Jesus. Ethiopia became one of the first Christian nations and was a major power in the region for centuries. It produced works of Christian thought that are... Read more
Look too long into the shadows and we might despair. Instead, I choose mostly to look at the sunlit realm. Humanity has men and women who got the big question of their day right, but every so often we must note that we have also given power and privilege to men who got the big question of their day wrong. Why? We might pretend that our problems were long ago, back then, and that when echoes of those evils bubble... Read more
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