Is America a better place today than it was back in 1956?  Of course many Americans living right now couldn’t even imagine a world without cell phones, Facebook or cable television, but was life really so bad back then?  60 years ago, families would actually spend time on their front porches and people would actually have dinner with their … [Read more...]

In His Olivet discourse as recorded by Matthew in chapter 24, Jesus said that as the age draws to a close, society will be like it was in the days of Noah and Lot. The fact that Jesus prophesied that “As the days of Noah were, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be,” it is important to understand what these days included. But before that, we … [Read more...]

Several decades ago, Saul Bellow wrote this: For the first time in history, the human species as a whole has gone into politics. Everyone is in the act, and there is no telling what may come of it. At this point, however, we can say what has come of it: failure. Politics has failed to deliver on nearly every promise it has made since the 1960s, … [Read more...]

Alexander Solzhenitsyn who sustained long years of imprisonment and exile in Russia wrote that: Are we prepared to learn from the past? Are people living in freedom able to learn from those living in need? Can the lesson they have learned be taught to the free world? Yes it can, but who wants to learn? Our proud skyscrapers point heaven ward and … [Read more...]

The words of the Teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. “Utterly pointless,” says the Teacher. “Absolutely pointless; everything is pointless.” What does a man gain from all of the work that he undertakes on earth?— Ecclesiastes 1:1–3 (ISV) Settling unhappily into his Super Bowl seat, high behind the end zone, Joe spots an empty seat low … [Read more...]

Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an … [Read more...]

I’m spiritually stuck. We are stuck people. We get distracted, pulled down, undone. God feels distant and irrelevant. Dane Ortlund says, “You are not abnormal. So relax. We all go through this from time to time.” Seasons of spiritual darkness are common — even when many pretend it’s an anomaly. Even when indifference pirates our most pious … [Read more...]

Another American election cycle is upon us, and large numbers of people are lining up to pour their time and money into the sewer of politics, to be lost forever. This system will not be fixed. Period. This is Rome in 460 AD. The rulers, as in Rome, are liars, mad, or drunk (these days, drugged)… or all three. The “fall of Rome,” of course, was … [Read more...]

Although the generalization is usually applied to republics, according to Sir John Glubb, a British author and lecturer, most empires don't last longer than 250 years. Or as Sir John said in summation: As numerous points of interest have arisen in the course of this essay, I close with a brief summary, to refresh the reader's mind. (a)We do not … [Read more...]

Republican 2016 presidential candidate Ben Carson recently made the assertion on a Iowa conservative radio show that the "purpose" behind Margaret Sanger's founding of the abortion giant Planned Parenthood was to "eliminate black people," and also questioned whether or not President Barack Obama realizes that. While the 63-year-old retired … [Read more...]