Freedom Begins at Home

If a people would be free (and very few people would be free) there are two things they must do, two foundations they must lay and that firmly. First, they must love their neighbors. Second, they must honor their fathers and their mothers. There is a third as well. They must not commit adultery. And [...]

Junkers, Hitler, Efficiency, and Leisure

In my research into Hitler’s rise to power, I came across this in Shirer’s locus classicus on the matter, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich For centuries [Prussia] had lain outside the main stream of German historical development and culture. It seemed almost as if it were a freak of history…. By [1701] [...]

Patrick Henry Explodes

Patrick Henry famously demanded of the Virginia House of Burgesses, bending down on his haunches like a lion about to leap, then exploding upward as the words passed out of his soul through his mouth and into the stunned chamber: “Give me liberty, or give me death.” Increasingly, I am persuaded that those really are [...]

A Contemplation of Liberty

Can we be free without God? I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. The history of western Europe from the 16th through the 20th centuries is supposedly the story of increasingly secular and increasingly free societies. With the fall of the Berlin wall and the Soviet Empire, the world was supposed to be ushering [...]

Can we be free without grace?

One thing stood out for me at our conference this year: that education without grace – that human society without grace, cannot be free or healthy. If education excludes religious discourse, then it cannot include the grace of God as an energizing factor. Yet American education is trying to build a perfect society. Consider what this means: [...]