Today (October 28) is the day in the year 312 that Constantine defeated his rival Maxentius at Pons Milvia, the Milvian Bridge outside of Rome. This decisive victory (in which Maxentius himself drowned in the Tiber) put Constantine on the path to consolidating Roman power again into the hands of one emperor, himself. The victory is commemorated by the Arch of Constantine, an i...
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C.S. Lewis' biggest book, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, runs to nearly 700 pages. It has one 45-page chapter with the title (I am not joking here) "Drab and Transitional Prose," full of quotations and learned discussions of authors nobody has ever heard of (Harpsfield, Starkey, Bullein, Peacham, Tilney... who?). It's a hard book to get through.
But Alan Jacob...
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Biola's Torrey Honors Institute is a great books program. Our students get their general education by reading and discussing the hundred or so greatest hits of western civ, and everybody who works here teaches that whole curriculum.
But the phrase "great books" doesn't always instantly communicate what we mean. In common usage, when people use the phrase "great books," they ...
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Some atheists and agnostics are coming to Washington and urging America to be more reasonable. I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from commending reason to our government leaders, but we are unlucky in our messengers.
For these "new" atheists to preach sweet reason is like listening to Elmer Gantry teach chastity: the idea is sound, the delivery is inspiring, but the messe...
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Phoebe Age Seven interprets the first line of the third psalm as an actual question --"How many are my foes?"-- though it was apparently intended as an exclamation: "Wow, that's a lot of foes!"
Phoebe Age Seven adds the exclamation point, but you can tell she's thinking "give me an approximate count" because the center of the composition is a large cat (probably the Lord) s...
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Some sins are easy to start doing, but hard to quit. Gluttony is like this. The more I eat, the less satisfied I am, but the harder it is to eat properly. The first three weeks of a diet are so difficult that quitting “cheating” is easier than continuing.
Even when the weight is lost, my immoderation toward food may not have changed. My self-denial might seem real given ...
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It's time for another report on the ongoing discussion prompted by my new book, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything. There have been several developments in the past few days, as the book is finding readers hither and yon.
Doug Wilson at Blog & Mablog gives Seven Reasons Why "The Deep Things of God" is An Important Book. Wow! Here are three of the...
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Okay, war is not really swell. But today (October 25) is the anniversary of two battles that live on in our memory because of the martial virtues conspicuously displayed in them. These battles conjured poetry from two of the greatest poets in the history of the English tongue.
First, the Battle of Agincourt, on the Feast of St. Crispin, 1415. Henry V's outnumbered troops wh...
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The future is bright.
Why?
Jesus is Lord.
The American Christian future is bright.
Why?
The American foes of the Faithful are part of a fading generation and a youthful global population is turning to Christianity. Global Christianity will save the fading West, because of their Christian charity. Don’t head for the hills of Idaho, but for the cities of America,...
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What's the most popular and influential book in the history of California? An 1884 romance called Ramona, by Helen Hunt Jackson.
It's a longish book that follows the misfortunes of a beautiful young orphan who is half Scottish and half native American. She is raised by the Spanish rancheros of Alta California in the days before the Americans had fully infiltrated the region...
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It's not all Psalmtooning around the house these days. The artists known as Freddy Age Ten and Phoebe Age Eight are nothing if not prolific, and their work cannot be confined to any single medium or genre. The resident curators (also known as parents) are constantly finding art scattered around the studio/gallery area. Here are a couple of scraps from recent days.
Here's som...
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One of the most important ventures in religious publishing and theological education in the twentieth century was The Fundamentals, an interdenominational publication that marked the conservative evangelical revolt against modernism in the early years of the century. Published serially in twelve volumes over the course of five years, they were sent free of charge to Christian ...
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