Is the story of America one of manifest destiny? God forbid. Is the story of America so great that a global church should cry: “America first!” Never. Yet the story of the United States of America is also not the story of oppression that my college students bring to me. Every nation needs a myth to unify and give meaning to our actions. A myth in this sense of the word is what Plato created: a likely story. It is not just... Read more
This is not a gentle time. People of the Word turn to words to step back from the events in the hopes of making sense of them. What to read in such a time as this? 1984 is too late, Brave New World still a bit early. Ugly times demand a good work and It Can’t Happen Here really isn’t very good. Let me suggest Watership Down, the most gentle of books on courage, culture building, and conflict. Richard Adams proves that... Read more
The Bible foretells the coming of Donald John Trump. This is obvious enough that friends keep sending me links to the proofs. Sadly, many of these sites lack academic credibility or overstate their claims. The case, my friends, is bigly enough without needing exaggeration. The cases generally hinge on the Bible codes, but these are never repeatable by outside researchers and so I shall have to rely on more publically available exegetical principles: use the English Bible. The text may... Read more
I hope not, but this post could be the last one you will ever read. It is possible and if my media feed is any indication, what is possible is now probable if it is one of the worst conceivable outcomes. It is very possible that this will be the last post I ever write or the last post you ever read. I am sorry. While this is true, it is unlikely. I am in good health, but more importantly, there are many... Read more
President Trump has turned the Bully Pulpit, the bulliest pulpit that ever was, into a podium from which to educate America on Black History (a month dedicated to the history of African-Americans). There is a reason we have Black History Month. What is that reason? There are, President Trump points out, many of them and they made some great history. Big time! It isn’t little time like people such as David Duke would say, if the President knew Duke’s name.... Read more
The hard thing about the truth is that it offends every kind of error. Some people in some places at some times blame Christianity for having a low view of humankind. Some people in some places at some times have attacked us for being too optimistic about human redemption.* If you think you are the “worst,” then you need God. If you think you are the “best,” then you need God. Normal people know that they have some good traits... Read more
Sometimes clarity is needed. A problem is so bad that we must speak out: Bannonism exists, is in the White House, and must be destroyed. If it is not, then the Trump Presidency slowly will lose the support of decent citizens. If Bannonism is not removed, we face the peril of a Constitutional crisis. For those of us who could not vote for President Trump, Bannonism was a key problem. For those who did vote for President Trump, they should... Read more
If one were to develop a clickbait test for Austen nerds, What Austen Character Should You Marry?, then teenage me would (almost) surely end up in love with Marianne Dashwood, the romantic, dramatic, frenetic character in Sense and Sensibility. Marianne adds the biggest dose of the sensibility to the text and most of the fireworks. Marianne might burnout or burn up, but nobody will ever wonder if she is alive. Of course, the downside of seeking great happiness is that you certainly will find... Read more
There are three daughters in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and on the surface that is one too many. If you have only watched the movie (and it is worth watching), you may not realize the work done by the film to create a character out of Margaret, the book’s forgotten child. For pages of the book, a reader can forget her and wonder if she has disappeared like Chuck on the television show Happy Days. Every college student thinks Marianne Dashwood is... Read more
The best failed movie Disney ever made was The Happiest Millionaire. The talent is there and the movie begs to be compared to the practically perfect Mary Poppins, but Poppins has London and the Millionaire has Detroit. QED. How you can fail to entertain with Greer Garson and Fred MacMurray is hard to imagine. The music by the Sherman brothers is often as good as the best of Poppins (Fortuosity, Let’s Have a Drink on It, Let Them Go). He did not make many movies,... Read more
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