Bluegrass for Christmas

There is more to Christmas gifts than books. There's Bluegrass music. So, I thought I would reference some Bluegrass musicians and groups to help both newcomers and old hands in the field of the great all American music genre.

1. Bill Monroe was almost universally acknowledged as the Father of Bluegrass music. Of course, Bluegrass musicians had as many personal and principled feuds as Calvinistic theologians, so some debated Monroe's paternity. Still there is no debating Monroe's skill as a mandolin player, band organizer, and promoter of the music. His voice defines the "high lonesome" sound of Bluegrass music. Numerous copies of his music are available. Both the earlier and later work display an incredible range of skills. As he put it, "We pitched the music higher and faster than it had ever been done before."

2. Ralph Stanley became a superstar of sorts just a few years back with the popularity of the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?. Stanley was in his late 70s at the time and was then and still is performing. He is actually Doctor Ralph Stanley due to his having received an honorary degree for his contribution to preserving rich veins of American mountain music. Originally, Ralph performed with his brother Carter until Carter's death in the 1960s. Whether you listen to the Stanley Brothers or Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, you will be tapping into some really fine music. (By the way, Ralph S. and Bill M. were friends, but Ralph insists from the beginning he and his brother were playing a different genre of music than Monroe. The Stanley Brothers were performing Mountain Music, not Bluegrass Music.)

3. Ricky Skaggs made quite a name for himself in the 1980s singing country music. Then he turned back to his roots--Bluegrass. Skaggs and his band Kentucky Thunder perform some of the best of the works of Monroe, whom Skaggs idolized, and Stanley, for whom Skaggs worked. You can always be certain that at any moment of the day, Ricky Skaggs is somewhere playing music fast and furiously and having more fun than you are. Skaggs, who like many Bluegrass musicians is a dedicated Christian, has won several Grammy awards for his music. His newest album (seen down below), titled Honoring the Fathers of Bluegrass-Tribute to 1946 and 1947, has been both nominated for a Grammy and put on the short list in my letter to Santa Claus.

4. Alison Kraus broke the gender barrier in Bluegrass Music. She with her voice and fiddle and her band, Union Station, which includes Dan Tyminski, do some of the best of Bluegrass music. She does both traditional Bluegrass and more updated versions. Like all true Bluegrass singers, she also does gospel songs. What a voice from a really pretty lady.

5. Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs gained fame back in the 1960s from doing the theme music to the movie Bonnie & Clyde and for doing the theme song to the Beverly Hillbillies show (although it was sung by Paul Henning on the show itself). Scruggs, who still performs, is a banjo genius. Flatt was an excellent guitar player and singer. Both were originally part of Monroe's Bluegrass Boys. Their breakup as a group was a major fissure in the music world. Their proposed reunion was not to be due to Lester Flatt's untimely death in the late 1970s. Last year I asked Santa Claus for Flatt and Scrugg's album of their outstanding performance at Carnegie Hall in the 1960s, but having been bad, I did not get it.

Two other Bluegrass Boys who made it big on their own were 6. Jimmy Martin, sometimes called the King of Bluegrass music and 7. Mac Wiseman. Martin's most famous song is "Sunny Side of the Mountain." Martin was a powerhouse of a performer. He joined with Roy Acuff, Mother Maybelle Carter, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band to perform in one of the greatest musical live recordings ever done--Will The Circle Be Unbroken. The sequels, both excellent performances, were done in the Unbroken Circle series, but none matched the first one. Wiseman has a really smooth voice with a Burl Ives type sound. He does not seem to be remembered as much as some of his colleagues (and one of his finest pieces was titled "Tis Sweet to be Remembered") and that is a shame.

Electronics revoutionized the volume of music and Elvis Presley revolutionized the mood. Many of the older Country Music acts just about died on the vine in the wake of the Memphis Tidalwave that hit American music in the 1950s and 1960s. (Here again we have to mention Monroe who encouraged Elvis in his singing--and that after Elvis sped up Monroe's song "Blue Moon of Kentucky". Also, Monroe's fast style earned him a place in the Rock and Roll Songwriters Hall of Fame.)

8. The Osborn Brothers, Sonny and Bobby, responded by hugging up amplifiers to their banjo and mandolin, while 9. Jim and Jesse McReynolds held fast to the older ways. The folk music revival of the 1960s caught wind of Bluegrass musicians. This led to the advent of Bluegrass Festivals, the most famous of which was and still is in Bean Blossom Indiana (which was founded in large part by Monroe). Bluegrass music surged in the 1960s and has continued to enjoy wide-spread popularity. Neither of these brothers groups are still intact, due to Jim McReynolds' death a few years back and to Sonny Osborn's retirement. If you have never heard the Osborn Brothers perform "Ruby, Are You Mad?" you haven't lived.

Another student and former bandmember of Monroe's Bluegrass Boys was 10. Del McCoury. He and his sons have one of the most powerful bands around. I have to confess to lacking any cd's of their music, except for selections on a few anthologies. McCoury has the legendary high tenor voice that is so defining for much of Bluegrass music, and he and his boys have the speed and virtuosity on their instruments that never ceases to amaze watchers and listeners.

11. There are numerous musicians who have succeeded in other types of music, generally country, who either began in the Bluegrass field or have recorded some songs and records in the field. We can think here of such performers as Marty Stuart and Charlie Daniels. Daniels' gospel Bluegrass album, titled "Songs from the Longleaf Pines," features his singing and fiddle playing and includes guest performances by Mac Wiseman and Earl Scruggs.

It's hard to imagine a better Christmas morning than the one were you unwrap a few good books and couple of fine Bluegrass compact disks.

Now, there's an Eleventary for you that even old George Grant can't match.

Christmas Book List for 2008

Normally, I write an essay this time of year that calls attention to certain books that would make worthy Christmas gifts. But in this year, we have had an economic meltdown that is gargantuan in scope. Add to that, we had a candidate running for the Presidency who advocated extreme interventionism in the economy. That same candidate, however, lost to the even more interventionist, left-leaning Presidential candidate. A lot of mediocre Republicans have been replaced by liberal Democrats. We have now the most solid coalition of leftists now controlling the Senate, the House, and the Presidency since Roosevelt’s famed first Hundred Days in office.

There are only good two bits of good news. First, unemployment is way down. What I mean is that unemployment for former Clinton staffers is way down. “Change We Can Believe In” can be best translated as “the Clintons are Back.” The second bit of good news is that gas prices are down. I can afford to buy gas for the car and vacation that I cannot afford.

Normally, I just merrily go about rattling off book titles for idle, leisure reading, but we are in a crisis. My response: Buy some cheap gas and head off to a bookstore. Now more than ever is a good time to read.

Surely, everyone is exhausted from a whole year of Presidential primaries, caucuses, debates, and campaigning. Yet, I want to recommend two great reads on politics. The first is Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg of National Review Magazine. This book is aptly subtitled The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. Focusing on the Presidential administrations of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson, Goldberg uncovers lots of leftist ideas that are really better termed fascist than socialist. This book “rehabilitates” Mussolini, who is usually relegated as a buffoonish dupe to Hitler’s Axis political schemes. Mussolini was a really well read, really highly respected tyrant. He was a jerk, but he was the model for Fascism as practiced in many countries, including the U.S.
A book with similar, but not redundant themes is A Conservative History of the American Left by Daniel Flynn. American history is replete with examples of utopians, social reformers, social gospelers, socialists, and visionaries intent on remaking the world. Many have labored for their agendas with strong religious motivations, but their convictions rarely coincided with a sound, creedal and doctrinal Christianity. Flynn’s chapter on the extremists in the New Deal, the manipulative political scheming of FDR, and the failure of government interventionism in the 1930s is outstanding. His chapters on the radicalism of the 1960s is even better. Goldberg’s and Flynn’s books cover portions of history rarely discussed.

Some of my recent reading trends keep taking me back to the Great Depression. I hope these tendencies are historical and not psychological in intent. Whether they are prophetic or not remains to be seen. But I must add another book to this mix. Amity Shlaes has written a book called The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. This history is new in more than one sense of the word, for it takes on the whole accepted historiography that credits FDR and the New Deal with having answered and solved the problems resulting from the economic woes coming out of 1929 and afterwards. The opening portions of this book, along with recommendations from friends and reviewers, convince me that this is mind-altering material. (Yes, I know that Murray Rothbard and Paul Johnson previously delivered some really good counterblows to New Deal hagiography, but there is always room for one more good punch into the belly of a liberal icon.)

The writing of history itself is not as often studied or discussed as historical events and figures. Admittedly, a lecture on twentieth century historiography delivered by an Oxford don is not as appealing as hearing a military historian discussing the battle of Dunkirk. Yet, without historiographical presuppositions, life is, as Macbeth lamented, “A tale full of sound and fury, told by an idiot, signifying nothing.” A man whose vision of history greatly differed from Macbeth was Christopher Dawson. We are blessed with seeing an increasing number of his books being reprinted. In addition, we can rejoice in
Bradley Birzer’s intellectual biography of Dawson titled Sanctifying the World: The Augustinian Life and Mind of Christopher Dawson. Although Dawson lived through exceedingly interesting times, including both world wars, his own life was nondescript. He was a scholar who suffered from poor health most of his days. But Birzer follows the workings of Dawson’s fascinating mind and the writing of his books. Dawson was, in short, one of the most theologically centered historians of all time.

The subject of historians receives book length treatment in A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century by John Burrow. Whether considering the ancient historians like Herodotus, or the early Christians like Eusebius or Bede, or the Gibbon or Macauley, this book examines how these historians themselves made history or determined how we view history. It looks like a lot of fun.

For most of us our vision of history is centered on the United States, other English speaking lands, economics, culture, and religion. All of these issues are ably discussed in God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World by Walter Russell Mead. The world we live in, the economic prosperity of our times, and the prevailing world culture have been dominated by the maritime powers, which includes the Anglo-American alliance and the Netherlands. The rivals to these forces have been defeated throughout history. Mead credits this successful cultural power to the dynamic and open societies of the English speaking world and the flexible gyroscope-like interaction between Scripture, tradition, and reason. This book is chocked full of insights, although some, like Mead’s views of Calvinism, are not convincing.

For yet another look at the amazing American experience, consider Jay Winik’s really well written The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World. This book contrasts three simultaneous historical occurrences: The post-Revolution era of the United States when the Constitution was written and then enacted by the early Presidents, the French Revolution, and the reign of Catherine the Great of Russia. God has been good to the United States.

There is life beyond the study of history. Here I recommend Rainbows for the Fallen World by Calvin Seerveld. This classic work on developing a Christian vision for art and culture movingly sets out a vision for a Christian aesthetic life and artistic cultural development. Seerveld’s book has lots of useful information for Christian school teachers.

Now back to history: Anyone wanting some good Medieval reading should consider Barbarians to Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered by Peter Wells and Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe by Thomas Cahill. Both books set out to correct wrongful, simplistic, and distorted views of the Medieval world. (I cannot help but note that Christopher Dawson’s Medieval Essays tops everything else in this area.)

Not long after the Medieval period of history “ended,” Europe’s future was threatened then (as now) by Muslims. The difference was that in the 1500s, the Islamic threat was tied to a nation—the Ottoman Empire—and the war was waged conventionally. Europe turned back that threat in two key battles that are covered in a book I cannot wait to read, titled Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World by Roger Crowley.

One must forgive this self-aggrandizement, but I really think Punic Wars and Culture Wars: Christian Essays on History and Reading that I wrote is a wonderful Christmas present. Thanks to the publisher, Covenant Media Press, the book’s cover is quite attractive. The book itself is filled with information about historical people and events, along with information about historians and teaching history. The chapters can be read in any order. Along with those features, it includes a wonderful foreword by my friend George Grant and a lengthy annotated bibliography describing a host of books worth pursuing.

With many new books coming out each year, one still has to remember the literary classics, the famous theologians, historians, and poets, and the all too easily forgotten defining works of the past several years or decades or centuries.
After recent reading fictional experiences, I find myself wanting to read more of Walter Scott, Herman Melville, William Faulkner, and J.R.R. Tolkien. My worldview studies have created an insatiable appetite for the writings of R.J. Rushdoony, Cornelius Van Til, Francis Schaeffer, Gordon Clark, and Herman Dooyeweerd. The histories written by Paul Johnson, Victor Davis Hanson, Barbara Tuchman, Niall Ferguson, and Theodore White are timeless. The classic works I am teaching this year such as City of God, Canterbury Tales, Beowulf, and The Divine Comedy are never fully plummeted, even after repeated readings.

So, if the economy reduces us to a much less affluent state, all we really need are some candles, some coffee or tea, and a stack of books. Then happy days will be here again.

For Work, For Fun

In any time of crisis, it is better to look to God than to government, to seek eternal wisdom rather than current platitudes, to reassess the foundations rather than seek castles built on air. Change we can believe in comes from the Triune God of Scripture. We face lots of economic travails, uncertainties from the new administration coming to power, and a whole host of cultural deviancies and foreign enemies. What better time to begin taking my Humanities class along on a journey through Augustine's City of God. Cornelius Van Til once said, "I can hardly think of a more relevant book than The City of God." As usual, that ole Dutchman was right



When the homework is done and the kids have gone to bed, it is fun to spend some time reading some really weird fiction about some really kooky characters. Except, it is not fiction; rather it is this wonderful history of the Left. There is really nothing new about the Utopian optimism, the disdain for tradition, the reinterpreting of Christian doctrine, and the wacky notions spinning from a rejection of Original Sin. I only hope that when a revised edition of this book comes out bringing up to the time of around 2020 that things are not worse.

North to Alaska

My wife, Stephanie, and I will be trekking toward the northwest all the way up to Alaska where I will be speaking at a Reformation Conference on one of the greatest Reformations God wrought in history--raising up Groen van Prinsterer, Abraham Kuyper, and Herman Dooyeweerd. We are excited about seeing the beauty of Alaska and being able to fellowship with Pastor Jack Phelps, who is the newly elected moderator of the CREC. It is not often that an Arkansas fellow goes to Alaska to talk about Herman Dooyeweerd.

Spheres of Reformation:
God’s Great Work in the Netherlands
in the 19th and 20th Centuries





Spheres of Salvation:
The Conversions of Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer

Spheres of Sovereignty:
The Life System Labors of Abraham Kuyper

Spheres of Science:
The Philosophic Discoveries of Herman Dooyeweerd

Why the Left (and even some of the Center and slight Right) Hate Sarah Palin

I was just mild about John McCain back in the summer. Several of the Republican candidates had attractive views and features, but no one man stood out as the heir apparent to the party of Ronald Reagan. So, even though Sen. McCain is a bit too old (although I would hate to have to keep up with him), a bit too tied to Washington, too moderate, too cozy with liberal friends, he is pro-life and pro-America. His life story is incredibly moving.

Then he chose Gov. Palin to be on the ticket. I was in dread fear of a McCain-Lieberman or a McCain-Ridge or a McCain-Romney ticket. But I understand enough of political realities to see why such a ticket might have worked. Then McCain succeeded my greatest expectations in choosing Sarah Palin. Like lots of conservatives, I became estatic.

I went from being excited to apprehensive. After all, the media began their gauntlet. Then came Gov. Palin's convention speech and I was on board. Soon I was despondent again. It was the Charles Gibson interview. I never actually heard the whole interview, but I think having to talk to Charles Gibson would disqualify anyone from higher office.

All the sudden we heard the reasons why Palin should quietly step down from the ticket. Unqualified, unprepared, little experience, unclear answers...wait a minute... I am supposed to be talking about Gov. Palin, not Sen. Obama.

At last, Sarah had her chance to learn about government from a pro: Joe Biden. 253 years in the U.S. Senate. He was there when Pres. FDR went on television to interrupt NCIS and offer solutions to the Great Depression and Global Warming. With ease and skill, Sarah began by saying, "Glad to meet you. Can I call you Joe?" Gov. Palin won her debate.

But still we are told that she symbolizes McCain's rashness, inability to make decisions, caving in to the religious right, and ineptness for office. After all, if he needed someone young and inexperienced at government who often stumbled in interviews, well then he should have picked Obama to be his Vice President.

So the Left hates Sarah Palin. The political Center (at least we can admire the Left for having convictions)does not like Palin. Some conservatives, like Christopher Buckley, shy away from having to support Palin when sipping tea with east coast establishment friends at the country club.

Why do they so scorn this successful, attractive Governor?

1. She is not Hillary Clinton. Palin's existence on this political front is an affront to all Hillary worked for. Those 3 a.m. phone calls, all that sniper fire, those shots of whiskey with the boys, the enduring hairspray wars with John Edwards, and her indominable pant suits represented the cause of all women everywhere. And that means, Hillary and Hillary only.

2. She is pro-life. In modern leftist politics, women cannot by definition be pro-life. They can talk to their doctors and clergy about having an abortion; they might even mention it--after the fact--to the father of the child. But a woman who is pro-life is not a woman.

3. She does not just advocate pro-life positions, she lives them. She threw away two perfect occasions to tell the world of the difficult decisions she had to make as a governor and a mother when she decided to abort her recent child and future grandchild. The Left hates consistency and deep hearted belief in practice. (On the left, you can be for public education and send your own children to elite private schools.)

4. She was a mayor of a small town. The Left still utters the mantras of the drunkard Nobel Prize winning novelist Sinclair Lewis, who despised small town and rural America. He preferred Paris. (His Nobel Prize should be posthumously revoked--who reads him anyway?--and given posthumously to Donald Davidson or Robert Frost.) Small towns put you in contact with neighbors, small businesses, community needs, churches, scouts, sports teams for kids, births, deaths, weddings, and very common, ordinary people. What in the world does all that have to do with redistributing wealth, becoming more like Europe, and promoting tolerance?

5. She is the governor of a western state. The western part of the US, along with portions of the southern states, pose a real threat to the Liberal agenda. Westerners still have something of a frontier spirit. Courage, self-reliance, honesty, and hard work are still values in these more conservative, traditional societies. Alaska does not need Washington, D.C.

6. Her husband is a man. Had Todd proven to be effeminant, indecisive, anti-gun, and prissy, Sarah's stock in the Left would have risen. But Todd is even worse than you might think: He works, he belongs to a union (no fair, unions are for Democrats), he fishes, he hunts, and he loves his wife and children. The Left despises true manhood.

7. She has five kids. One of them is in the military. They are not perfect, but they are attractive. That's too many kids, too much patriotism, and too much mushy family stuff. (I bet they pray together.)

8. She hunts moose. It is okay for political leaders to don hunting gear and join John Kerry for a hunt in Ohio weeks before the election. But this woman is serious. Who knows, they may actually be hunting moose to put food on the table for all those kids.

9. She does not do daily meditations over a host of newspapers. Washington insiders and the media are an elite group. You and I cannot get in the door to their parties. But, if you want in, play their game. The biggest news in Washington is what the news says. They don't report the news, they are news. Reading newspapers for more than 30 minutes a day should automatically disqualify anyone from holding office. My advice: Look at the newspaper a week after it comes out. If a story is still relevant seven days after it hits the print, then look into it. Read classic literature and history a lot, but news only a bit.

8. She is a Christian. That would be okay if her faith were generic. Biden, after all, is a Catholic. Obama sat for 20 years under the preaching of Rev. Wright, hanging on every word, except for those that were inflamatory against America. But Palin is a Bible-believing Christian, a fundamentalist. She might actually do something in office based on the Bible.

Any one of these ten disqualify Sarah Palin. Taken all together, the case is settled.

Election 2108

It’s October. We better get serious quickly about getting the right people elected to office. Now is the time for us Christians to get busy turning this country around. There is no time to waste. So let’s start by considering what we can do to bring about change—no later than November 2108.

The year 2108 is no misprint. It is a century from now. American Christians regularly say that Christ is Lord, but we rarely think act as though He is Lord of Time and History. We rarely think seriously about time and history. Perhaps, it is due to the American historical experience. We won our War for Independence in eight years; we got our horribly destructive civil war completed in four years; we finished off the Nazi, Fascists, and Japanese Militarist empires in four years. Even the Cold War only occupied less than half a century. Americans put a man on the moon in about a decade after entering the space race. Like Caesar, we came, we saw, and we conquered. Now on to the next challenge, we think.

Perhaps it is American culture itself. We think in terms of speedy transportation, instant communication, and fast food. If we plant a magic bean today, we fully expect to climb its stalk tomorrow morning, slay a giant by noon, and enjoy his gold and wealth by tomorrow evening. We seem to think that politics can be cleaned up, redeemed, transformed in an instant, or at least in an election cycle.

American Christians entering the world of politics display all of the naivety, fears, and misunderstandings of a country bumpkin entering the big city for the first time: “Golly, let’s just go and vote.” Sometimes this naivety takes the form of finding Bible slogans to apply to political situations. Christians say, “We believe in miracles.” “Greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.” “All things are possible with God,” and so on. If Tony Dungy coached football with this mentality, he might have watched a few Superbowls, but would never have coached a winning team in one.

Then there are the Christians who got involved in politics several elections ago who have now “learned their lessons.” I cannot bear to read their confessionals. Generally the refrain is, “I got involved in politics and took my eyes off Jesus. Like Peter, I sunk in the waves.” All wet and recovering, they vow to never lose focus of the spiritual kingdom again. Politics turned out to be dirty and troublesome. Washington did not welcome them and the establishment did not accept Jesus, so they go back to the tried and true sawdust trail.

Sometimes, Christians decide to charge their lances full force toward yet another windmill. It’s the third party attraction. Perhaps it might work, but just to be sure, find and read the biographies of Presidents Henry Wallace, Strom Thurman, George Wallace, John Anderson, Ross Perot, and Pat Buchanan. (Look in the fantasy section for those books.) Successful third parties do two things in American politics. First, they cipher votes from the major candidate that most resembles them. Second, they may provide an issue or a voting block that one of the major parties successfully woos before the next election.

Those are the options for a genuine third party movement. Most alternatives to the two major parties are not third party movements, but fourth, fifth, sixth, and so on movements. These minor parties, like the Libertarians, the Green Party, the Constitution Party, and countless others, generally garner only the smallest fraction of the vote. Prior to the days of Internet access, you could not even find the final numbers such parties picked up on election day. Percentage wise, I got more votes for “Most Handsome” in my high school than most minor parties receive. Minor parties, which often involve some really sharp people and some pertinent issues, are politically irrelevant. It is like me shooting a few hoops here at home while the NBA playoffs are going on. I may make a great shot from the side, but it is irrelevant.

When Christians do edge toward politics, they are prone to shrill hysteria. Certainly, the political climate can easily engender both shrillness and hysteria, but that reaction never works. For Christians, it usually results in confusion over whether the current crop of evils guarantees a second coming before the next election cycle or whether we still have time for one more prayer rally in Washington.

As if the Christian community itself did not have internal angst and outer confusion over politics, the political and media establishment also misreads and misunderstands Christian involvement. The media love obituaries, especially those of political enemies. Every time a conservative Christian candidate loses or the more conservative and Christian leaning candidates are swept out of office, the media produces its last rites over the religious right, conservative talk radio, and conservatism in general. The media are genuinely bewildered when talking to serious Christians, and this means, serious in terms of the lowest American Christian common denominator. If a media person were to interview a Christian thinker who was on the level of an Abraham Kuyper or a Greg Bahnsen, they would be totally dumbfounded.

There are answers available to us. It is possible for us to adopt a one hundred year plan for Christian restoration. We can expect to begin seeing results long before 2108. But it will involve some hard work, some rethinking, and lots of theological and political education. Let’s first consider where we are.

The year 1973 was a watershed in American politics. Following his landslide trouncing of liberal George McGovern, President Richard Nixon began his second term under the shadow of the Watergate Scandal that would soon engulf him. America’s involvement in the Vietnam War was ending. The social revolutions of the 1960s were collapsing from exhaustion. In this climate, the Supreme Court once again sidestepped constitutional history and Christian common law consensus and blessed abortion on demand with legality through its Roe v. Wade decision.

It was 1980 before the Christian community was alert enough, incensed enough, and united enough to act. Thankfully, one of the three evangelical candidates for the Presidency, Ronald Reagan, had the foresight to unite the Moral Majority agenda to his anti-communist, pro-capitalist, conservative philosophy.
Christians who never previously knew what caucuses, bandwagons, and political campaigns suddenly became a political force. Twenty-eight years later, we find ourselves wondering why we don’t control both parties, both Houses of Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, and the media. We are like Gomer Pyle, who was able to fix flats at Wally’s garage back in Mayberry, but never got out of basic training in the Marines. Still some learning has gone on.

By the 1980s, Christians realized that the world of political actions, like ideas, have consequences. Since that time, Christian political action has netted some electoral changes. Christians sent some powerful humanistic and liberal political leaders to the unemployment lines. Christians elected some Christians and conservatives. The two political parties, but especially the Republican Party, began flattering, cajoling, and wooing evangelicals. Some politicians and some of the media began attacking. Some of our political agenda has made it to the table. Some of our issues have become the defining issues. Along with all that, we have seen promises broken, elected officials disgraced, our agenda ignored, our beliefs ridiculed, and our political work shredded to shambles.

These failures are among the reasons why Christians so quickly abort political involvement. When you play football, you should expect the other team to block, tackle, and to seek to score. When you grow a garden, you should expect weeds, weather, insects, and varmints to attack, hinder, or devour your crop. When you get involved in politics, you must expect failure, unjust attacks, ridicule, betrayals, and the like. In politics, success is short lived and disaster is ever present.

Christians need to realize how the world of politics functions. Politics must be distinguished from church and theology. We don’t walk into a room of religious types and expect to compromise the Ten Commandments and the Nicene Creed. In the field of politics, it is essential, however, to learn the processes, the compromises, and the rules—external and internal—to political success.

The political hardball, the rough and tumble, and the realpolitik of the legislative process may turn many of us away from actual involvement. That is okay. Not all Christians are constituted to be soldiers, surgeons, pastors, or politicians. But all Christians need to recognize that we need salt and light in all those and many other fields.

Christian education, now taking place in homes and Christian schools everywhere, gives us great hope for our political future. A renewal of sound Biblical theology and practice and the recovery of rigorous academic standards provide foundations for reformation in all areas of life, including the political realm. Christian students are now learning history in ways that highlight the Christian political and social impact upon culture. Christian students are mastering the great literary classics and rhetorical skills that created Western Civilization. They are, to use Dorothy Sayers’ words, learning how to learn.

Now we can focus on a generation of Christians who can specialize in the many fields related to political action. I know the bevy of criticisms leveled against Senator John McCain, for I have made them myself. He is not conservative enough; he is a moderate, a compromiser, a political insider, and is the epitome of status quo politics. I still puzzle over how and why the party of Ronald Reagan ended up with him. I don’t have great hopes of a McCain Revolution like that Reagan brought to the nation. But I think there are some good reasons to support Senator McCain.

I don’t want to deal with the usual and quite convincing conservative and Christian reasons for voting for McCain. I have no interest in reminding ourselves of the potentially disastrous consequences of an Obama Presidency. Here is my basic hope: President McCain will appoint and nominate several hundred people to fill cabinet positions and executive branch offices. He will also choose quite a few judicial nominees. Some, maybe a lot, of his choices will be good. Some will be awful.

But down below the list of cabinet secretaries, assistant cabinet secretaries, executive office holders, and political pawns, will be a nameless group of young college graduates who are learning the ropes of politics and power. Unknown, young, inexperienced, and working at low levels, young Daniels, Hananiahs, Mishaels, and Azariahs will be learning the “language and literature of the Chaldeans” (Daniel 1:3-7). In another generation, these novices will be the political pros, judges, cabinet officers, and leaders. For now, these low level positions are going to be held by young people who either have Abraham Kuyper and Ronald Reagan as role models or Bill Clinton and John Kennedy as role models. I am voting for the first group of young Turks.

If we Christians are to have an impact on the political future of this country, some Christians are going to have to get university training in political fields. This means law, economics, foreign affairs, and other areas of political science. Add to that, the need for degrees in journalism. This will also entail attending graduate school at some major universities, including the Ivy League schools on the east coast. Graduates of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and other prestigious schools frequently occupy positions of power from the White House to the Supreme Court. Our local Christian college may have some attractive features, especially for the undergraduate years, but a degree in religious ministries from Klunk County Bible Institute does not open doors in Washington.

If we Christians are to have an impact on the political future of our country, in some cases, we will be seeing our daughters entering politics. Part of political wisdom is realizing that the male-dominated world of colonial history is history. Presbyterian Condoleeza Rice, Presbyterian Ann Coulter, Catholic Laura Ingraham, and other Christian women are involved in policy making, the media, and the political world. We grant that most of our daughters will be wives and mothers, just as our sons will be husbands and fathers. Those called to politics will have to balance the demands of family with political careers. This is not essentially different from families involved in church work, for pastors and teachers have their own family and career balancing acts.

Christians will need to get involved in politics at many levels. We are enamored by the idea of electing a president who reflects our views. To the same degree, we are bored by the thought of attending a local precinct meeting. We love signing petitions forbidding same sex unions, but have little desire to register church members to vote. We pore over the red state/blue state patterns, but don’t know the conservative voters in our neighborhood. We get worked up in a frenzy every four years, but we don’t know how to implement a plan for one hundred years.

We rightly honor and almost idolize the generation of Founding Fathers.
Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Jay, Witherspoon, and others astound us with their intellectual wisdom, rhetorical depth, and political saavy. We forget that by the year 1776, the colonial legislatures had been honing political skills and practicing for independence for over a century. All of those men we regard as Founders were once students, readers of political books and journals, junior officers in the colonial militias, and local political leaders.

We have a hundred years of work to do. Let’s get started.

[This article originally appeared in the October 2008 newsletter for the Center for Cultural Leadership]

God graciously opened lots of doors so that Punic Wars & Culture Wars: Christian Essays on History and Teaching could be written. I prayed for several years that God was direct me toward writing a book. Facing a blank screen or sheet of paper and envisening a book is quite difficult. Providentially, all I was able to write were essays and book reviews. In time, they accumulated. With a little bit of arranging, they took on a particular order. Starting in the summer of 2006, I became intent on organizing these writings into a manuscript for a complete book. The essays--many of which appeared on George Grant's blog or Andrew Sandlin's Center for Cultural Leadership web-site--were revised and expanded. Some much older essays were woven in. Several new ones were added. The book began to come together. Of course, it then took several more revisings, proofreadings, and other work before the finished product arrived on October 1.

We should have a web-site up and running quite soon providing more information about the book and ordering copies. For now, if interested, e-mail me at Veritas@cableone.net. If you want to order using a credit card, order from Covenant Media Foundation at www.cmfnow.com.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. The Importance of Being Irrelevant
2. Punic Wars and Culture Wars
3. Classical Christian Ed: Some History
4. History After Grammar School: Teaching Jr. High
5. That Bully Sandie Pendleton

HISTORIANS & HISTORY TEACHERS
6. Eusebius --Father of Church History
7. Augustine and The City of God
8. Another Christopher, Another Christ-bearer
9. The Making of a History Teacher
10. Goads and Nails: Reformed Influences
11. Otto Scott and the Sacred Fools
12. Did You Hear the One About the Three Historians?

WESTERN CIVILIZATION: CHRISTENDOM
13. Greek to All of Us
14. It Takes a Monk to Save a Civilization
15. Some Not So Good Ole Days
16. The Great Siege: Then and Now
17. Light on the Enlightenment
18. The Crooked Road from Darwin to Hitler
19. The Saved Generation

AMERICAN HISTORY --A CALVINIST'S INTERPRETATION
20. The Protestant Reformation --American History
21. The Reformation in America
22. The Presbyterian War
23. 1776 and Washington's Crossing
24. A Southern Perspective
25. The Greater Depression
26. The Legacy of Francis Schaeffer

AFTERWORD
An Annotated Bibliography
Index

Defending Joe Biden

I feel compelled to speak up in defense of Joe Biden. He has had a rough year. After last night, he knows what it feels like to be an Alaskan moose inside the crosshairs of Sarah Palin’s sights. His year started out bad. Running for the Democratic nomination, Joe did so poorly in the Iowa caucus that he had to bum money off of Dennis Cusinich to get a bus ride back home to Delaware. And then he got chosen to be Sen. Obama’s running mate.

He had three things in his favor. First, he was not Hillary Clinton. Second, he was not married to Bill Clinton. Third, he has been in the Senate ever since the capital was moved from New York to Washington.

In recent weeks, he has been routinely blasted for alleged misstatements of facts. (Which is arguably an improvement over allegations of plagiarizing hapless left-wing British politicians.) We should begin by acknowledging that a misstatement of a fact must be properly defined as “stating a position contrary to those held by liberals.” By this acceptable definition, “Reagan won the Cold War” is a misstatement of a fact, but “President Kennedy was perfect” is a truth statement.

Yes, Hillary was under gunfire with missiles and a-bombs going off to the right and left of her. As Tennyson wrote of her, “Gunfire to the left of her; cannon fire to the right of her; into the tarmack of Bosnia, strode brave Hillary.” Yes, Barak Obama faithfully attended church for twenty years, but never once happened to be there when his pastor cursed and harangued America. Yes, Joe Biden’s helicopter in Afghanistan went down due to gunfire. The idea that it was merely the weather, which John Kerry has implied, obscures the way modern warfare is waged.
But most of all, let us notice that Joe Biden was right when he recently announced that Franklin D. Roosevelt went on the television to talk to the American people when the stock market crashed in 1929. The following historical facts will confirm this and elaborate on other often obscured historical facts.

Critics say that while the stock market crashed in 1929, Roosevelt was not elected until 1933. This is a blatant case of Chronologicalism. This malady, like biblical fundamentalism, causes people to absolutize male-dominated, white European chronological thinking. I can say that my wife attended elementary school in 1974. Chronologicalists pipe up and say, “She was not your wife in 1974.” Only one holding to outmoded Judeo-Christian views of time will insist on Chronologicalism. At the very least, one should recognize that liberal Democrats consistently both turn time back to correct mistakes, like the stock market crash, and move it forward to new technologies. Accept the facts: Liberals can solve problems. Conservative cause the world to be messed up, but Liberals usher in utopia.

Most insane is the notion that FDR could not have gone on television in 1929. Look, a man from Washington, from the Senate, of the Democrat Party, from the Left, who had working class parents, said FDR spoke on television. It is so.

It would only make sense that FDR would use the medium of television to outline his plan for dealing with the Great Depression. Look at the precedents set by his predecessors to the office of the Presidency:

When World War I was over in November , 1918, there was a need for an immediate U.S. presence at the Versailles Peace talks. President Woodrow Wilson arrived by helicopter just as the conference began to usher in an age of peace.

Some years earlier, then-Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, who was also the President at the time—along with William McKinley—put in his contact lens and climbed into his tank and captured San Juan Hill.

President Lincoln is credited to this day for his quick response when he called General Meade on the morning of the third day at Gettysburg and told Meade to expect a strong attack at the center. Meanwhile, Robert E. Lee got a busy signal when he tried calling General Pickett to tell him to hold off on the attack, due to a stalled out engine on one of the Confederate divebombers. Technology always makes the difference.

Of course, there are always technological failures. An e-mail sent to General Packenham, just outside of New Orleans, suggesting that since the war of 1812 was over, he should refrain from attacking, seemingly never arrived. There was lots of confusion over whether Packenham had a gmail or a yahoo e-mail address. Some think Andrew Jackson had hacked into the British general’s account.

Best known of all was George Washington’s texting siege orders to the various commanders surrounding Yorktown. British General Cornwallis, consumed in listening to his I-pod, never realized what was happening until it was too late.

Think of that: Not realizing what is happening until it is too late. It could happen to the best of us.

THE ANSWER

After several long years of working, writing, revising, proofing, further revising, corresponding, fretting, and waiting, Punic Wars and Culture Wars: Christian Essays on History and Teaching has arrived.

After having bought and read books for years, I now have a book I have written to add to the sagging shelves.

The nation may be verging on depression economic and otherwise at this moment, but I am quite giddy.

What are these beautiful people looking for?

Politics Present and Past: A Two Part Drama

Part One: Political Summary of the Present

My favorite spectator sport occurs every four years. While I cheer my own team on, I also just enjoy watching the competition, regardless of who is competing. I speak, of course, of Presidential politics. For a political spectator, 2008 has been quite a year, and it is far from over. The main event is yet to come.

This political year will be remembered for the drama, the new, the unexpected, and the surprising reversals. A few years back, pundits began saying that voters would see the war-hero and political maverick John McCain and a brilliant, articulate, courageous woman on the ballot. Just a few months back, political talk abounded about a dream ticket with the party’s Presidential nominee having a powerful woman in the second slot. And all that happened; however, no one realized that the woman would be Alaska Governor Sarah Palin or that she would be McCain’s running mate.

The latest drama is only the most recent highlight of an action packed political year. Beginning with the Republicans, first, we had the full field of candidates, each of whom seemed to exemplify some aspect of Reagan’s legacy, but not one of whom could lay claim to being either the choice of the Republican establishment or the rightful heir to Reagan’s mantle. Just a little over a year ago, one major candidate, McCain, was fading and one promised to dazzle the field if he entered (Fred Thompson). Mitt Romney was poised, experienced, and well supported by his favorite financial backer—himself. His politically flips as the governor of liberal Massachusetts had conveniently flopped into conservative positions. Mayor Guilliani boasted a record and reputation, and he was articulate, honest in voicing unpopular positions, and nationally tested.

The Iowa caucus changed the political dynamic for the Republicans. The evangelical right rallied on a cold Iowa evening around Baptist preacher and former Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee. In the strange twists and turns of politics, Huckabee’s victory in Iowa punctured the tires on the Romney machine before it got to New Hampshire where John McCain was waiting with his political bomber. The Republican Party began lining up in three camps: The evangelical social conservatives, who backed Huckabee, the economic conservatives who favored Romney, and the establishment/pragmatic/moderate conservatives who took a second or third look at McCain.

Fred Thompson threatened at one point to make a big splash into the crowded field of candidates, but he belly flopped. Rudy Guilliani, after a year of dazzling and impressive attempts to woo doubtful conservatives, chose the most insane strategy for the primaries. He would step back, let the others fight it out, and then capture the Florida primary. In other words, he would attempt to win by not competing. (His political advisors soon needed new careers.) He was history before the Florida race got underway and was less than a footnote after Florida went for McCain.

In an odd sense, religious beliefs marginalized Huckabee and Romney. Fundamentalists, evangelicals, and other elements of the social conservative religious right circled the wagons around Huckabee and gave him quite a few impressive wins and near wins. If there had been more states, like Massachusetts and Michigan, where members of the Romney family had been governors, and more states, like Utah and Idaho, with large Mormon voting blocks, Romney could have done better. McCain slid between these two candidates and carved out a series of victories in winner-take-all primaries.

Sen. McCain’s long trek to the nomination has proven to be a recapitulation of his greater biographical story. He perseveres; he outlasts the opposition; he endures; and in the end, he triumphs. We won’t know the next chapter until November.
The Democrat race was even more interesting than the Republican race. It seemed inevitable that the Democratic convention would witness the crowning of the soon-to-be Queen Hillary I. Senators Biden and Dodd, whose resumes were weighted with decades of legislative leadership, and Gov. Bill Richardson, who not only had been a governor, congressman, and cabinet member, but who also bore an ethnicity promising electoral appeal, all fell quickly and completely. The highly groomed John Edwards once again pranced upon the stage, mimicked serious political concern for the downtrodden, and for a time, seemed to attract voters. Alas, as we learned much later, he mainly attracted his highly paid filmmaker.

The bigger story was the rise, fall, second rise, greater fall, near rise, slow fall, and long, slow, too-little, too-late final rising, followed by the final fall of Hillary Clinton. Her husband, the former President Clinton, after his supposedly astounding popular victories of 43% in 1992 and 49% in 1996, proved his ever-resilient campaign appeal. Most certainly, his governing cost the Democrats control of the House and Senate in 1994 and his immorality cost Gore the Presidency in 2000, and his recklessness, innuendos, latent racism, and national stage presence wrecked his wife’s best chances. While sniper fire may not have actually endangered Hillary in Bosnia, the former President’s lip fire riddled her campaign severely in South Carolina and other states.

Of course, the biggest story remains the rise of Barack Obama. Riddled with charges about his anti-American pastor of twenty years and paltry political experiences, Obama inspired many with an oratorical skill that matches both his hero, Martin Luther King, Jr., and mine, Ronald Reagan. Just as Richard Weaver taught us that ideas have consequences, Obama taught Hillary that caucuses have delegates. Never again would a Clinton answer a three a.m. phone ringing in the White House. Perhaps that accomplishment is the best one on his resume.

Part Two: The Making of a Presidential Historian

The ups, downs, extremes, the predictable, the unexpected, the twists, and turns of the past nine months of politics reminded me of someone I miss, Teddy White. Theodore H. White was one of the most gifted political writers of his age. His popularity as a political journalist, chronicler, and commentator really took off after the 1960 election between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. That was an unforgettable election. Both men were young, aggressive, dynamic characters and campaigners. Both would leave unforgettable marks upon the nation and the Presidency. (Unfortunately, in separate ways, both harmed the office more than they elevated it.) Nixon carried the banner of the Republican Party of Eisenhower, while Kennedy lifted up the fallen banner of the Franklin Roosevelt Democrat coalition. Ironically, Nixon served under Eisenhower, but the two had an icy relationship. Ironically, Kennedy’s father had also fallen out with Roosevelt.

1960 was a year of political drama. Kennedy, after all, was a Roman Catholic, and Nixon, after all, was Nixon. The Kennedy family’s political machine captured the nomination. His closest rival, Senator Lyndon Johnson, was put on the ticket to help steal…oops, I mean secure, Texas’ electoral votes in the general election. Nixon managed to reconcile his major rival, Gov. Nelson Rockefeller of New York, and conciliate restless conservatives in his quest for the Republican nomination. The final election results were close. The pundits and pun makers could note that the results were a dead heat, considering the posthumous Democrat voting bloc in Chicago, or one could say Kennedy won by a razor thin margin because of the slightly grizzled look Nixon displayed in the first, ever Presidential debates.

It was Theodore White’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Making of the President 1960 that best captured the drama, the candidates, the churnings of the social and political waters, and the issues in people’s hearts of that election. White did more than give a narrative documentary to the election, for he carved out a niche for himself as the premier political analyst of his time. Many reporters covered events as they were unfolding, but White delivered the analytical verdict after the voters delivered the electoral verdict.

The sequel to White’s book was written after the 1964 election. Of course, it was easy to come up with a title; it was The Making of the President 1964. That year was filled with its own distinctive political Sturm und Drang. President Kennedy had been assassinated less than a year before that election; the Vietnam War was beginning to heat up, the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing, and the culture was reeling and rocking. An enterprising group of political amateurs, steeped in the then-supposedly obsolete philosophy of conservatism, pushed, dragged, and coaxed Sen. Barry Goldwater forward into the race for the Republican nomination. Their efforts and skills that culminated in Goldwater’s nomination are matched only by the incompetence and ineptitude of the group that replaced them to run Goldwater’s national campaign.

Theodore White surveyed the wreckage of Goldwater’s fiasco and pronounced western, ranch-style, populist, conservatism dead and buried. This shows that he was not a prophet, but at the time, what he wrote appeared to be indisputable.

White went on to write The Making of the President 1968 and The Making of the President 1972. Perhaps age slowed him down, or perhaps he or the public grew weary of the series, so he held off for a time. But in the early eighties, he wrote an account titled America in Search of Herself that summarized the elections of 1976 and 1980, in both of which Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter were the main contenders.

Just recently, I started reading White’s 1968 account, and it reminded me of his skills as a writer. He had a reporter’s eye for detail and an ability to capture in a phrase, quote or anecdote some defining picture of people and events. White was, I should add, a somewhat unabashed liberal. He loved the Kennedy’s. In fact, he dedicated his Making of the President 1968 to both the late President John Kennedy and his brother, Sen. Robert Kennedy, who was killed while seeking office that year. White’s liberal optimism while not destroyed, was certainly in anguish as he considered both the loss of President Kennedy’s vision and Sen. Kennedy’s compassion.

“Wait, stop!” some of you might be saying. “You like this writer and you admit he was a liberal?” The answer is yes. The further answer is that we must think deeply about the character and appeal of political liberalism of the 1950s and 1960s. The first point is that political liberalism tended to attract the best and the brightest writers and thinkers. (Yes, I know the exceptions and still read there, mainly Buckley’s, books.) Conservative magazine publisher Henry Booth Luce once complained that the best writers were liberals, and for that reason, his political magazine, Time, tilted far left.

Second, liberals of that era had their political faults, misguided beliefs, and big government expectations, but they were patriots. Ronald Reagan may have delivered the culminating coup d’etat to the Cold War, but he stood on the shoulders of liberal Democrats, like the Truman, the Kennedy’s, Johnson, Humphrey, and Scoop Jackson. The liberalism of the 1950s and early 1960s fractured into the rival camps of the late 1960s. Liberal radicals wounded California Governor Pat Brown badly enough so that Ronald Reagan was able to capture the governorship from him in 1966. The more radical, isolationist, leftists captured control of the Democrat Party in 1972 and denied the nomination to the older mainline liberals like Senators Humphrey, Muskie, and Jackson.

The old time liberals hated Communism and rightly so. They also, along with a coalition of Republicans, hated racism. One might disagree on sound and constitutional grounds with the Voting Act of 1964, but the alternative reality of that time with the bombing of black churches in Alabama and murder of Civil Rights workers in Mississippi was even more appalling.

In the days before Roe v. Wade, before discussions of homosexual “marriage,” before the “hate America” undercurrents of recent vintage, and before the cultural perversions of our time, political liberalism was much more attractive than now. Likewise, the political conservatism of Robert Taft or even of Barry Goldwater was less compelling than that of Ronald Reagan as he emerged in 1980 and that of his heirs.

So, I affirm again, I miss that lovable old liberal Theodore White. I wish I could look forward to him writing The Making of the President 2008. The crispness and freshness of his writing about the fortunes of candidates combined with his overviews of what was happening in the nation as a whole gave his books staying power.

The 1968 volume, my current read, includes a wide array of people and events that dominated several decades of American history. The Kennedy’s were still a force, for John Kennedy’s memory still haunted his followers and Robert Kennedy’s campaign and death raised and then dashed the hopes of millions; Nixon was redefining himself and re-emerging after a political hiatus; Eugene McCarthy was the liberal who was shaking up the establishment with a message of change that appealed to restless college students; to his far right was the populist George Wallace who both heightened the fears and reassured white working class and middle class people, especially Southerners; Nelson Rockefeller was the reluctant New Yorker who appealed to voters across the spectrum; the patient party stalwart who carried the most tattered Democratic Presidential banner ever and almost won with it was Hubert Humphrey; and the rising star on the political horizon who ultimately bested all of these others was Ronald Reagan.

Add to this cast of characters an unpopular war and an even more unpopular President. 1968 was a year of assassinations, a year of military disasters, a year of economic fears, and a year of domestic unrest. White could have never resorted to fiction and created a more exciting drama than was actually unraveling across the nation.

One minor comment in the book says a lot. White noted that September 2, 1963 was a turning point in American history, for it was that night when national news went from being fifteen minutes long to being a half hour long. How could thirty minutes possibly be filled with national news? And now, we have 24-7 news coverage.
With this barrage of news coverage, even in an exciting political year, this is a good time, to turn off the gadgets and read Theodore White’s books.

[Theodore White’s books are mostly out of print, but can be abundantly found in used books stores, in full sized, book club, and paperback editions.]

HUMANITIES 2008-09 MEDIEVAL CHRISTENDOM

“Our greatest inheritance, the very foundation of our civilization, is a marvel to behold and consider. If I tried to describe its rich legacy with utmost brevity, I should take the Latin word humanitas. It represents in the widest sense, the accumulated harvest of the ages, the fine flower of a long discipline of Christian thought. It is the Western mind of which we ought to turn our attentions to careful study.”
John Buchan


The basis of the Veritas Academy Humanities Program is found in Psalm 8, particularly in verses three through five, as paraphrased below:

When I look up and try to grasp the heavens,
Your finger work, God,
the moon in its phases and the stars uncountable,
all of which you ordained,
arranged, and placed above us in immensity,
I think of myself and ask,
“What is man?
What are we that You, O God, even think of and notice us?
And what are we sons of Adam that You stoop and incarnate to visit us?
Here we are—flesh, sins, and finitude, only slightly less than angels.
And on our heads—crowns of glory and honor!

Our humanity, our flesh and blood and souls formed in the image of God, defines us. All education, especially beyond the grammar stage of acquiring learning skills, is premised on our quest to know who we are, why we are here, and where we are going. This means that all education is religious. Every school in our community, not just Veritas and other Christian schools, is operating on religious presuppositions. Every school is seeking answers to the fundamental questions.

Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd said, “The question: ‘What is man? Who is he?’ cannot be answered by man himself. But it has been answered by God’s Word-revelation, which uncovers the religious root and center of human nature in its creation, fall into sin and redemption by Jesus Christ.”

The course of studies for Humanities for 2008-2009 reveals the dawning awareness of how Western Civilization came to realize the Creation, Fall, Redemption ground-motive, or basic explanation, for life. Our studies will begin with the Ascension of Christ in Acts 1. History had at this point in time radically turned. The Greeks sought for a wisdom or ultimate meaning that could not be found in their worldview. The Romans tried unsuccessfully to create a unified kingdom of power, and the Jews stumbled when the Messiah was revealed. Little did the powers and thinkers and religious leaders realize how fundamentally the course of the world changed in those short weeks between the arrest, crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. The soon to be realized pouring out of the Holy Spirit would complete this ushering in of a new age.

Externally, Rome was at its height when the followers of Jesus Christ were being commissioned to go into all the world. Outwardly, Rome was buttressed by legions, laws, and land. Inwardly, the tree was rotten and built upon idolatry and perversity. Jesus commissioned a small group of followers to bring about the demise of Roman power. Armed with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, these disciples began “turning the world upside down” (Ephesians 6:17 & Acts 17:6).

The Christianization of the Roman Empire will begin a long, rich, deeply variegated journey of the Christian Faith from a small band of Jewish disciples in Jerusalem to a largely Gentile, European network of churches, communities, and kingdoms. Repeatedly, Christians will echo Tertullian’s question, “What does Jerusalem have to do with Athens?” In other words, what do Christians need to retain from their pagan roots and what do they need to discard? The Ancient World produced both monuments of beauty and monstrosities of perversity. Sorting the gold from the rubble was an immense task.

The time period we study is called the Medieval Period, the Middle Ages, the Age of Christendom, or the time from the Early Church to the Renaissance. For ease of conversation, we will usually call our class Medieval Humanities. Many would wonder why we would want to invest a whole year in studying things Medieval. After all, the word Medieval is often riddled with bad associations, things to be avoided, stifled thought, cruel lifestyles, and horrors committed in the name of Christ.

Yes, Medieval times were ugly; the Medieval church hypocritical; Medieval society brutish. In other words, Medieval times were a lot like modern times. Our concern is to see how people were awakening from the darkness of the pagan world of idols, false gods, and superstition to a world created by God, fallen in sin, but redeemed by Christ.

The Medieval period can be a glorious mirror of the best that mankind has said, done, and thought. We have begun our readings with two books that will highlight these beauties of Medievalism. Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott, was written long after the Middle Ages. It is a novel of manners, or an idealized picture of virtue, goodness, beauty, and truth portrayed by knights like Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe. Scott uses the Medieval period as the backdrop as he deals with the clash of cultures and the call for chivalrous conduct amidst trials. Even to this day, our favorite fairy tales and children stories are still often told in a Medieval setting.

We are also working through The Ecclesiastical History of the English People by the father of English history, the Venerable Bede. This work highlights the missionaries, the church struggles, and the obstacles faced by Christians in the earliest times of the Christianizing of our theological ancestors. Church history is a vital part of our Humanities studies. Christians really came to dominate the field of history during the Middle Ages. History was not a separate subject, rather it was moral philosophy, and it had as its aim the discovery and proclamation of truth in time that reflects eternal truth revealed by God.

Listed below are the rest of the books we will read and discuss this year. Each title will be followed by a brief description.

Literary Works

Beowulf. Classic epic that reveals how the pagan worship of heroes and fears of monsters were transformed into Christian stories.

Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. The Christian journey includes a diverse range of people and a wealth of stories. Grace repairs only where sin has inflicted ruin.

LeMorte d’Arthur by Thomas Mallory. Tales of King Arthur, his knights, and Camelot are also sanctified and retold to highlight adventure, chivalry, morality, and faith.

The Song of Roland, translated by Dorothy Sayers. A brave knight gives his life to halt the onslaught of enemies—Muslims—of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Divine Comedy: The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso by Dante, translated by Dorothy Sayers. The ultimate epic story is the journey of the soul from sin to sanctification to salvation.

The Fairie Queene by Edmund Spenser. The task of the godly knight mirrors our battle against sin and heresy.

Selected tragedies, comedies, and histories by William Shakespeare. Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, Henry V, and other plays use Medieval settings for timeless truths.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien. With a historic and Medieval feel to it, this trilogy of Middle Earth shows the recurring battles for civilization and the soul.

Histories Medieval and Modern

Eusebius: The Church History, edited Paul Maier. Eusebius is the father of church history and this account is the foundation of all historic studies of Christianity.

The Story of Christianity by Justo Gonzalez. A thorough account of church history that we use for both this and the modern world class.

How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill. After reading this book, you will really celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day. They saved civilization with books, school, and preaching.


A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman. Bad things such as the Black Death and the Hundred Years War paved the way for a better world.

The Great Siege by Ernle Bradford. Brave Christian knights defended Christendom in the great battle for the island of Malta in 1565.

Theological and Philosophical Works

The City of God by Augustine. Acquaintance with this defining work and other selections by Augustine is a capstone of classical Christian learning.

The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. A classic by a Christian who is balancing the world of philosophy and Christianity.

The Rule of St. Benedict. These guidelines for being a monk will show us both the wrong-headedness of monasticism and its benefits for spiritual growth.

On the Incarnation of Our Lord by St. Athanasius. This work of a
Church Father reminds us of the true meaning of Christmas.

Selections from Thomas Aquinas & Thomas a¢ Kempis. Medieval theology was rich in thought and application, even when it was not exactly on course.

Of course, we will have discussions, lectures, writings, debates, music, films, feasts, and did I mention discussions? God has bequeathed us a legacy of over 1000 years that we call the Medieval Period. Eternity will give us occasion to praise God for the multiplicity of graces and redemptions that period wrought. For now, we will have to enjoy a mere school year devoted to it.

“We live in time so little time
And we learn all so painfully
That we may spare this hour’s term
To practice for eternity.”
Robert Penn Warren, “Bearded Oaks”

“Medievalism was forever a paradox. It was a romantic riddle. On the one hand it was marked by the greatest virtues of morality, charity, and selflessness; on the other hand it was marred by the flaming vices of perversity, betrayal, and avarice. It was often timid, monkish, and isolated; more often still, it was bold, ostentatious, and adventurous. It was mystical; it was worldly. It was tender-hearted; it was cruel. It was ascetic; it was sensual. It was miserly; it was pretentious. It gripped men with a morbid superstition; it set them free with an untamed inquisitiveness. It exulted in pomp, circumstance, and ceremony; it cowered in poverty, tyranny, and injustice. It united men with faith, hope, and love; it divided them with war, pestilence, and prejudice. It was so unstable it could hardly have been expected to last a week; it was so stable that it actually lasted a millennium.”
Dr. George Grant

“If, as I believe, religion is the key of history and it is impossible to understand a culture unless we understand its religious roots, then the Middle Ages are not a kind of waiting room between two different worlds, but the age which made a new world, the world from which we come and to which in a sense we still belong.”
Christopher Dawson
Medieval Essays

A Comprehensive Calvinist

A Comprehensive Calvinist—A Review of Historiography: Secular and Religious by Gordon Clark




Somewhere around 1970 to 1971, when I was a 9th grader in Mrs. Reed’s world history class, I decided that I would be a history major and from there become a history teacher. Unknown to me, in 1971, a philosophy professor at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, named Gordon Clark published a book titled Historiography: Secular and Religious. Directly and indirectly, Clark would in time come to influence my understanding of history. Unfortunately, I was not a child prodigy and I could not have understood Clark’s book back in 1970. I am a slow learner, but an appreciative one.

History majors generally have a bit of explaining to do. It’s easy enough if you justify majoring in history as background for law school. Perhaps, you can also pass muster if your goal is being a college professor. Generally, history is viewed as a field you study simply so that you can teach it to others. Generally, the ultimate motivation for majoring in history is given in that profound answer: “I find history interesting.”

Fair enough. I certainly hope my dental surgeon finds teeth interesting. But at some point, in the study of history a person must think beyond names, dates, chronologies, and part time jobs to supplement a meager income. The question “What is history?” is somewhat more illusive than it appears. The simple answer is, “That which happened in the past.” There are at least two major problems with this answer. First, there are a seemingly infinite number of things that happened in the past. Second, many of the facts from the past, such as the fact that I rode a bicycle as a young boy, are not the stuff of history.
There is a place in the study of history for archives. Much of archival history is local history. Some small towns, particularly those isolated from the sprawling, engulfing monsters of progress and growth, commemorate their local historic landmarks, old houses, and perhaps famous residents on engraved monuments. Recollecting the past and noting those places where Washington slept are worthwhile.

There is an entertainment value as found in books, movies, and the history channel. Also, we have a recurring sense that knowing our national heritage helps preserve the ideals of our country. Then there are the platitudes, such as “history repeats itself” or “those who do not learn from the mistakes from history are bound to repeat them.” The first one implies a sort of determinism that precludes human decision and the second one implies that the history faculties of a few major universities could solve all problems.

Maybe the view of history as archives, entertainment, and interesting material explains the lack of attention in the topic of historiography. Most history majors are not required to take a course in historiography and few elect to do so. Historiography is defined as “the body of techniques, theories, and principles of historical research and presentation.” That definition is enough to send most history students scurrying back to the Civil War seminar discussion of the third day of the battle of Gettysburg.

Dr. Clark’s book will not satisfy those looking for historical and biographical facts and anecdotes that draw students to history, His book will not actually satisfy those needing to understand historiography itself. In some ways, this work, like much of Clark’s writing, is concerned with the presuppositions governing thought. As a professor of philosophy, Clark was also concerned with demonstrating the inescapable bonds between philosophy and history. Clark said, “[H] istory must, with all other subjects, be fitted into a comprehensive system of philosophy” (page 22) and his sense of the utility and justification for studying history as found in “the position it holds as a part of an all embracing philosophy” (pages 18-19).
He also said,

Of course no one denies that there are many historians who pay no attention to metaphysics or theology. However, this is not a good reason for supposing that history is independent of philosophy. It merely means that many historians have not examined and are unaware of their philosophical presuppositions. (Page 191)

But Clark did not envision a walkway between the philosophy and history departments as the cure for ailing or degenerate views of history. Noting that “presuppositionless experience is an impossible philosophy,” he lined the key choices as “naturalistic scientism, existential hunch, or the Biblical revelation with its miraculous supernaturalism.” (Page 371) As a thoroughly Calvinistic thinker, Clark was convinced that apart from a Christian approach to history, the whole field of study was meaningless. He said, “Augustine’s acceptance of divine revelation, the Biblical plan of divine predestination, with its final judgment…, gives a more consistent view than any other…. (page 371)

Clark did not write the kind of book that deals with traditional historiographical topics. Such topics would include schools of historical views, use of primary and secondary sources, causality, and matters of style and viewpoint. He was more concerned with critiquing the problems with deterministic views of history, Marxism, Positivism, and progressivism. Also, he examined such issues as objectivity and moral judgments in historical studies. Since Clark was by profession a philosopher, it is aptly noted on the back cover of the book that some who read the manuscript thought it included “too much history to suit philosophers and too much philosophy to suit historians.” The blurb goes on to commend the book and author for being willing to “mix religion, politics, ethics, and epistemology all on the same page.” It goes on to say, “The interdepartmental, comprehensive viewpoint is needed.”

Those words “interdepartmental” and “comprehensive” explain something about Clark and a host of his spiritual intellectual colleagues who dominated Calvinistic thought in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. James Jordan, in his essay “The Closing of the Calvinistic Mind,” and more recently, Andrew Sandlin in his essay, “The De-Intellectualization of the Reformed Movement” both discuss the intellectual firepower of those Calvinist worldview thinkers of the twentieth century. I have discussed the same thinkers in my “Calvinist Worldview Thinkers in the Wilderness Years” series of writings and lectures.

At the time that Historiography was published, Clark was the editor of a series of works called the University Series (Philosophy Studies) published by Craig Press. Joining Clark were such Calvinistic thinkers as R. J. Rushdoony, David Freeman, E. L Hebden Taylor, Henk van Reissen, William Young, Herman Dooyeweerd, and Cornelius Van Til. Locked in a room together prior to their current congregating at Jesus’ feet, their particular theological differences might have led to a major brawl. United by the publishing vision of the illusive Charles Craig, they—and others—formed an incredible brigade of Calvinistic intellectual thought.

Harry Blamires brilliant book The Christian Mind, which appeared in 1961, opened with the words, “There is no longer a Christian mind.” In the main he was right. And 31 years later, Mark Noll was right when he began The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, saying, “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” But both of those works overlook those interdepartmental and comprehensive viewpoints then being formulated and published by Calvinist thinkers.

As has been pointed out by Jordan and Sandlin, it is not as though these men were producing polished completed works. These men were explorers, not artists. They are all theologically grounded and myopic in their Calvinistic convictions. Scriptural foundations were ultimate and unchanging and Scriptural presuppositions guided their writings. Clark himself argues his positions for three hundred and seventy pages and then concludes that the intellectual differences can only be solved by conversion. As he says, “One must be regenerated. One must be born again. And the change is something logic cannot do. God alone is able.” (Page 370)
These Calvinist writers were, in many senses, as out of step with their times, as an Amish carriage going along a major interstate. The books they wrote were often weighty, plodding, and heavy with footnotes and scholarly discussion. There was little in their titles, subjects, style, and viewpoints that catered even to that smallest of audiences—Christians of Reformed persuasions. Still they read, thought, wrote, and taught others. They were models of scholarship, intellect, and faith.

In Historiography, Clark does not teach his reader what to think about history as much as he teaches him how to think about history. The particular historians and schools of history, particularly Marxism, are now dated and forgotten. In an age before the end of the Cold War, the rise of computers, feminism, deconstruction, and other current trends, the issues and concerns were different. Clark’s focus on Barth and Bultman might even seem far out of place in a book on history.

But Clark’s writing seems more like a conversation in his study; however, a conversation that is much more monologue than dialog. Clark’s entire book is an extended number of reviews and analyses of scholarly books he had read. He quotes long sections of the authors he analyzes, emphasizes key points relevant to historical thought, branches off continually into philosophy, and throws out a few theological objections along the way. Much of the book is difficult reading unless one is familiar with the author that Clark is discussing. Even his humor is often so dry that one can easily miss it. Parts of the work either echo or are taken directly from Clark’s book A Christian View of Man and Things, which would be the better work to start with.

The high point of the book is chapter nine where Clark discusses Augustine’s City of God. He says, “Too obvious to escape notice and too important to escape mention is Augustine’s constant relating of history to ethics, of ethics to theology, of everything to everything so as to form a comprehensive system.” (page 234) From this book and the larger body of Clark’s writings, it is obvious Clark too thought in terms of a comprehensive system. He went on in this section to criticize secular writers who wanted to divorce history from ethics, ethics from theology, and epistemology from academic knowledge.

One wishes that Clark had written a more extensive study of Augustine’s approach to history. Surprisingly, his section on religious theories of history goes from Augustine to such modern theologians as Karl Barth and Rudolph Bultmann. One wishes that Clark had dealt with more Christian historians, like Herbert Butterfield and Philip Schaff, rather than with theologians. Clark devoted his life to battling the theological and philosophical fads and perversions of his day. He was much more concerned with theological liberalism and neo-orthodox theology than he was with history. But his ultimate connection of modernist theology to historiography is telling: Secular historians may have been wrong at many points, but they did not disregard the historical documents with the “arbitrary and inconsistent abandon” that theologians treated the Bible.

Clark quoted Augustine statement, “We must lay down holy scriptures first as the foundation of our following structure.” (page 245) The recurring theme of Clark’s study of historiography that emerges throughout his discussions of men and issues is this necessity of recognizing Scriptural revelation. Amidst the fog of intellect and the haze of scholarly discussion, Clark’s insistence on Scripture for the understanding history blazing and clear.



Historiography is now published and distributed by The Trinity Foundation in Unicoi, Tennessee (http://www.trinityfoundation.org/).

The Cure of Souls: Recovering the Biblical Doctrine of Confession

R. J. Rushdoony once sought to establish a Christian university. In this vision, he both failed and succeeded. While there exists no actual campus, Rushdoony did something greater. In books, essays, sermons, and lectures, he reasserted the unity of truth. For such a unity to exist, all truth must have a common basis. For Rushdoony, building upon the foundations of Augustine, Calvin, and Kuyper, that foundation was Scripture. Visualized graphically, Rushdoony’s university resembles a wagon wheel where the hub of the wheel is God’s revelation to us the Bible and every academic department is a spoke connected to that central revelation.

Had he authored have a dozen books, Rushdoony would still have been a pivotal thinker in one or more specific areas. As an interpreter and popularizer of Cornelius Van Til’s presuppositional apologetics, Rushdoony could have rested upon his own writings in apologetics and philosophy. Likewise, his essential writings on Christian education, which have had a major impact on the growth of Christian education, could have sufficiently established him as an educator, or he could have been a historian. Certainly, his theological writings earned him the title of theologian. As it happened, Rushdoony’s prolific mind and writings hopped across academic disciplines, sometimes tying disparate ideas together, exploring thought from a variety of angles, and always gathering in a huge net a wide range of insights to be gleaned and inanities to be scorned from his encyclopedic reading and memory.

The term Christian Reconstruction became the identifying mark of Rushdoony’s thought. Rarely has such a theological term engendered so many different reactions. For many, it was an oasis of delight after suffering from overly pietistic forms of Christianity. It was also a call to action. It was not a humanistic “Yes, we can,” but rather a God-breathed cultural mandate. For many Christians, the liberating force of Christian thought rescued their minds and brought thought itself under the law-word of God. For many, Christian Reconstruction enabled them to see that the collection of Bible stories for moral edification, commonly called the Old Testament, was a blueprint for godly dominion.

Such were the reactions of those who found delight in Rushdoony’s works. But others recoiled from his writings. For his most virulent opponents, Christian Reconstruction beckoned frightening images of an oppressive theocratic state, armed with a ready supply of stones for every deviation from Rushdoony’s theological pronouncements. Rushdoony’s writings were triumphal biblicism, revived postmillennial social gospel, law-works salvation, and extreme rightwing fanaticism. Since Rushdoony’s writings were voluminous and his pronouncements unreserved, it was always easy to find a point of disagreement with Rushdoony and from that splinter, posit a whole logging industry.

Time will both preserve Rushdoony’s books and calm the passions on both sides. While Rushdoony preached a slow, postmillennial salt-and-light cultural infiltration of Christianity, some of us zealots yearned for an immediate theonomic kingdom. In recent years, Rushdoony’s opponents, perhaps as shrill as ever, have generally lost their audiences. So we have time to think out the implications of Rushdoony’s writings and consider where they take us.

For this reason it is good that The Cure for Souls: Recovering the Biblical Doctrine of Confession by Rushdoony has been published by Ross House Books. In word association, when someone says, “Rushdoony,” we say, “Ten Commandments,” “Christian Reconstruction,” “Dominion,” “Postmillennialism,” and so on. We describe him as a theologian, a cultural critic, or as a philosopher, but it is important to remember that Rushdoony’s foremost calling and labor was as a pastor.

Rushdoony never lost sight of this pastoral calling as he explored and discussed many topics and issues. Rushdoony’s life-long labor for Christian Reconstruction, a labor that began long before the term itself was applied to it, was pastoral in scope. All too often forgotten is the fact that Christian Reconstruction is based on “the cure of souls.” It was never premised on a political takeover, for that would simply be one more version of the same humanistic statism that Rushdoony deplored. It was never merely an intellectual paradigm, for that would have been the same intellectual elitism (or gnosticism) that plagued the church since its earliest times. It was never just unrestrained Calvinistic theological dogmatism, for that was the theological impotence Rushdoony rejected all his life.

Christian Reconstruction was premised on spiritual regeneration, on the one-by-one conversion of lost men, the mustard seed growth of the kingdom, the gentle change wrought by the Holy Spirit over the whole earth. Rushdoony said, “The most effective cure of souls is the preaching of the Word of God. It is not only faith that comes by hearing, but also repentance, a change of heart and life, humility, a submission to correction, and more.” Souls responding to the preached Word of God would become the laborers for Christian Reconstruction in the fields of church, family, school, state, and for all of society.

This book is subtitled Recovering the Biblical Doctrine of Confession. The recovery of confession is necessary because Catholics have warped the doctrine into an act that implies self-salvation. But Catholics are not alone in being in error. Protestants have sidestepped confession, in part, by trading it for personal testimonies. The world has aped confession, especially the world of celebrities. For those imprisoned by cable television, there is a never ending dialog of the rich and famous, right along side the obscure and lowly, proudly confessing the most sordid and degenerate lifestyles, past actions, and personal beliefs.

Rushdoony said, “The word confession is not primarily associated with the confession of sins but with confessing Christ.” He emphasizes this point repeatedly, saying later, “By this simple act of confession of faith in Jesus Christ, the whole burden of sin is forever removed. By this simple act of confession of faith in Jesus Christ, we step from the realm of sin into the realm of God’s righteousness in Jesus Christ.”

He does not deny the necessity of confessing our sins, but he notes the dangers in this type of confession being primary. He says, “To confess sins, to deal with confession of sins at length, is to continue struggling in terms of the law, trying to make atonement by word of mouth, by acts of contribution or penance, trying to gain a personal righteousness in terms of our own nature.”

Divided into forty-nine short chapters, this book lends itself to devotional reading. But it is not the sentimental or “spiritual” type of devotional; rather, it fits C.S. Lewis’ preferred type of devotional reading. Lewis said, “I believe that many who find that ‘nothing happens’ when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.” The Cure of Souls can surely cause the heart to sing unbidden.

Being a book so focused on pastoral and experiential faith, The Cure of Souls may seem different from the “normal” writings of Rushdoony, but it still has several of his key writing characteristics. First, it takes a central theme—the contrast of Biblical confession with sinful humanistic confession, in this case—and then replays that theme with variations of approach and application. Second, it displays the typical Rushdoony sweep of expansive reading and decades of human observations. Footnotes site sources ranging from news magazines to theological studies to topical books of all kinds. Third, it includes much historical research, particularly regarding both proper and improper uses of confession in the history of the church. Fourth, it continually builds upon Rushdoony’s adherence to Reformed theology, Reformed standards, and the basic Reformed emphasis on the sovereignty of God and sufficiency of God’s grace.

The Cure of Souls takes its place among the numerous works that comprise the university that Rushdoony built. Basic to the failure of the modern university—including all too many Christian universities—is the error of trying to build a tower of Babel, rather than community united on God’s Truth. The soul, and not the mind, is the center of man’s redemption. It is by confessing Christ as Savior—savior in the cosmic, rather than just the ecclesiastical sense—that the way is opened to truth and hope. It is by confessing Christ that one truly begins studying in God’s university.