Church and Religion
America the Republic: Why We Were Never Constituted as a Pure Democracy
TweetShareShare Lately, there’s been a lot of chatter about our democracy or democratic form of government. Some political commentators use fear to suggest our “democracy is in peril” if certain people from the opposing political party are elected. Unfortunately, this type of fear mongering has been around since America was constituted. The problem with that…
Read MoreHorace Mann: The Visionary Pioneer of Free Public Education in America
TweetShareShareIn the history of American public education few persons were more influential than its pioneering founder Horace Mann. Born on May 4, 1796 in Franklin, MA, Mann grew up in poverty. His dad was a farmer who produced little income for his family. Between his tenth and twentieth birthdays, the teen Mann received about six…
Read MoreAlexis De Tocqueville: The French Man Who Saw America’s Past, Present and Future
TweetShareShare “[It’s] the most comprehensive and penetrating analysis of the relationship between character and society in America that has ever been written.”[1] That’s how one historian described Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America; a work many consider among the most influential literary works of the 19th century. Published in two volumes between 1835 and 1840,…
Read MoreAmerica the Secular? Flipping the Script on the Founding of a Nation
TweetShareShareSince the 1980s, it’s been a popular refrain to refer to America’s founding as secular in nature. Proponents of secularism often use selective quotes to promote their nonreligious agendas (1). Many Founding Fathers are now considered “Deist” (read: agnostic, atheist). These include heavyweights like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and George Washington. Perhaps we…
Read MoreHarlan Sanders: The Kentucky Colonel Who Made Chicken Finger-Lickin’ Good
TweetShareShare The story of the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken is one worth knowing. Harlan Sanders (1890-1980) was a true late bloomer. He was also a man who relentlessly refused to give up on his dreams. And later, even his own soul. Sanders didn’t open his first restaurant until he was 40 years old, and…
Read MoreNazism: How Hitler Used Fascism and Eugenics to Transform 1930s Germany
TweetShareShare Few four-letter words spark more fear, insult and outrage than Nazi. And well it should. Nazism carries a boatload of baggage, even for generations that never experienced the Holocaust and fascism of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. “Nazi” is a nickname linked to a political ideology characterized by dictatorial rule, forcible suppression of opponents and…
Read More“God Helps Those Who Helps Themselves”: The Eclectic Faith of Benjamin Franklin
TweetShareShareBenjamin Franklin was a scientist, patriot, politician, diplomat…and Deist. That’s a fact according to many modern historians. After all, Franklin himself advocated for Deism. He once wrote that his skepticism of Christianity made him “a thorough Deist.”[i] Of course it should be noted he wrote that conviction at the tender age of fifteen in a…
Read MoreHark! The Herald Wesley Wrote: How a Christmas Hymn Transformed America
TweetShareShare In 1739 a young colonial Georgia preacher wrote a “Hymn for Christmas Day.” His opening line was “Hark! how all the welkin rings.” Welkin is an old Dutch word for “heaven.” The lyricist’s name? Charles Wesley. In the late 1720s, he and his older brother John had founded a new form of Protestant Christianity…
Read MoreThe Santa Chronicles: How A Man Named Nicholas became Santa Claus (Part 1)
TweetShareShareHis name was Nikolaos or Nicholas…St. Nicholas in the Greek Orthodox tradition. You and I know him better as “St. Nick.” Around the world he has other names: Sinterklass (Dutch), Kris Kringle (English), Papa Noel (French/Spanish), Weihnachtsmann (German), Grandfather Frost (Russia)…and SANTA CLAUS. Most of what we know about this “jolly old elf” and his…
Read MoreJohn Locke: How a Great Philosopher Influenced the Founding of America
TweetShareShare The Founding Fathers of the United States of America had many influences, but possibly none more than John Locke (1632-1704). Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and John Madison revered Locke. John Quincy Adams penned, “The Declaration of Independence [was]…founded upon one and the same theory of government…expounded in the writings of Locke.” But who was…
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