Church and Religion
The Oregon Trail: How Christianity Carved a New Path West
TweetShareShareOregon. Washington. Idaho. Parts of Montana and Wyoming. It’s nearly 300,000 acres of majestic, rugged land known as the Oregon Territory, a portion of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The infamous Oregon Trail snakes through this vast estate, connecting the Great Plains to the Pacific Ocean. Thousands of westward wagons once traveled its corridors and…
Read MorePublic Education, America and Religion
TweetShareShareAmerica’s schools are a mess. Teacher morale is low. Disrespect, truancy and discipline problems are rampant. Today’s kids are more profane, angry, hurting, confused, violent…and ignorant (especially of their history). But a failing education system was a problem our Founding Fathers knew was possible. In a rather inconvenient quote about American education. Dr. Benjamin Rush penned:…
Read MoreThe Summer of ’77: When a Bible Shortage Forced the Hand of Congress
TweetShareShareThe summer of 2022 was a season for shortages. From fuel to rental cars, certain food items to paper goods, stock was low and prices were high. Gasoline, for the first time in U.S. history averaged more than $5/gallon. In some places a gallon of petrol could run as high as $10/gallon! But it wasn’t…
Read MoreThe Yale Man: How One American Preacher Lit the Fuse for the First Great Awakening Revivals
TweetShareShareAmerica’s first colleges were in the Ivy League. And they were created for a distinct purpose. The original 1636 purpose of a Harvard education was to “…advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity: dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust.” Essentially, Harvard trained the…
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.” That’s how one historian described Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America; a work considered among the most influential books of the 19th century. Published in two volumes between 1835 and 1840, Alexis de…
Read MoreThe Pain of Thomas Paine
TweetShareShareIn 1776 Thomas Paine was a “rock star” among American patriots. His writings inspired a loosely united thirteen colonies to revolt against the great British Empire. But Paine lived down to his name. He’d die a “penniless drunk in Manhattan,” scorned by most of the Founding Fathers. Only six people attended his funeral. Thomas…
Read MoreHiram R. Revels: The Tar Heel Who Became America’s First Black U.S. Senator
TweetShareShare Some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen. And some people wonder what happened. And then there are people like Hiram Rhodes Revels (1827-1901). He’s a cut above. A leader’s leader. A highly-accomplished man. One of black history’s dusty and oft-forgotten heroes. Rhodes was a freeborn black in North Carolina.…
Read MoreBiddy Mason: The Mormon Slave That Became a Californian Treasure
TweetShareShare“Biddy” spent nearly forty years as a slave for a Mississippi slave master. She never learned to read or write. And yet she saved her midwife salary to become a wealthy Black real estate magnate…and revered philanthropist. It’s quite the story. It’s also an inspiring tale that proves it’s not how you start life that…
Read MoreSamuel Sharpe: The Jamaican Slave Preacher That Sparked Abolition
TweetShareShare“I would rather die upon yonder gallows than live my life in slavery.” Those were the passionate words of a young Black Jamaican slave preacher. His story changed the world…and that makes this tale worth telling. His name is Samuel “Daddy” Sharpe and he was born on a plantation owned by Samuel and Jane Sharpe…
Read MoreThe True History of Valentine’s Day
TweetShareShare Valentine’s Day is February 14. It’s traditionally a day of love. But what’s the story behind the day? A man named Valentine of Terni lived in the 3rd century AD. It was a period of deadly plagues and severe Christian persecution. The great Roman Empire was starting its long disintegration. With a small pox…
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