In his classic account of the battle of Arnhem in World War II, Cornelius Ryan details that though the Allies won the battle, they extended themselves more than they should have by going one bridge too far in their planning, causing unnecessary loss of life. Charles Leiter has written a helpful book on justification and regeneration, one that fills a gap at the layman's level. This book has many helpful things to say about the [...]

We have all heard about how environmentally friendly electric cars are. The federal government is giving $7,500 tax credits for those who buy them. They are the wave of the future, and everyone who really cares for the environment will buy an electric car, will recycle their trash, and will Go Green! in every way. On the subjects of electric, cars, environmental expert Bjorn Lomborg has just published an article in the Wall Street Journal [...]

Today my wife Tina and I, along with several friends from Magoffin County, KY, had the chance to see Spielberg’s new film on Lincoln. Movies like this often garner mixed reviews from both critics and casual film goers, so I was not sure what to expect. I am something of a Civil War buff (though I do actually study other things), so it was fascinating to see how the famous film-maker handled this subject, and [...]

[Today marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Emancipation Proclamation. It was a defining and very important document, whatever the reasons that President Lincoln had for publishing it. In commemoration of that, the following is an excerpt (minus the footnotes) of a short section of the forthcoming book, Seeking the City, by Tom Pratt and me. It deals with what Mark Noll has called the "Theological Crisis of the Civil War," but includes [...]

OK. I was unable to see The Hobbit (TH) the first week it was out due to sick family, Christmas, etc. But last night we went to the theater and watched the 3D version. Because of my life-long romance with Tolkien’s writings several of my friends wanted my thoughts on the film. If you have not seen it, you ought to stop reading here and watch the film first, since I do not wish to [...]

My father-in-law early on was not altogether proud to have a preacher in the family, but on one occasion when I told him that I was on my way out to preach, he urged me, “Well, give ‘em hell.” I tried to retort that this was not really what I was supposed to do. On later reflection, though, it seemed to me that I certainly was intended to give them, or at least display to [...]

For me, the ‘Seventies were virtually bookended by Francis Schaeffer. I read The God Who Is There for the first time in 1972 and my intellectual life was transformed. Though I struggled with some of the ideas in the book and at times I wished the author might have given a bit more background material to explain his assessments, I had the overwhelming sense that I had crossed over into a new world. Then in [...]

John Locke on Limited Government “A limited government is one that levies just enough taxes to provide for national defense and police protection and otherwise stays out of people’s affairs.” “The free society is an experiment not a guarantee.” Michael Novak The notion of limited government in early thinkers such as Aristotle, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Calvin is clear, but in the last three thinkers the notion is tied to a symbiosis between church and [...]

[The following is a guest blog, written by my daughter, Sandra Bradford. You can follow her on Twitter at @SandraLenay.] America has changed. We cannot put the total blame on Obama or the Democrats or even the media without taking some of the blame for ourselves. We do not live in the same America as my grandparents and we do not face the same issues they did. The America we live in, its citizens who [...]

The Blaze has just reported on Evergreen State College in Washington state, a school that has a non-discrimination policy, following state mandates that transgendered persons cannot be discriminated against. In other words, persons who have a set of genitalia belonging to one gender, but who perceive themselves to be the opposite gender, must be allowed to use campus facilities restricted to that gender. At Evergreen the uproar is over 45-year old wo/man Colleen Francis. Francis [...]