Many of us are somewhat disconnected from history. The recently released Report: Student don’t know much about U.S. history is but one example.

“Just 13 percent of high school seniors who took the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress, called the Nation’s Report Card, showed a solid grasp of the subject.”

The study revealed that most students couldn’t identify Martin Luther King Jr or Abraham Lincoln and couldn’t say why they are important. Being somewhat a student of history I can say, I am not overly surprised. Since the 1930s Continue reading …

(This originally appreared in the March/April 1997 edition of the MCOI Journal)

I was raised in a Christian home but, in my teens and early twenties, I became very skeptical of Christian claims, the good book, and especially of God Himself. Looking back, I cannot say I really doubted the existence of God, although I think I made that claim. No, as I reflect on it, I did believe that He was there, but I did not like Him very much, or at least not the God I thought He was at the time. I can honestly say I did not know who I was rejecting, because I really did not know Him as I do now. I did not see Him as a Father, but as a judge; not as a friend, but as a powerful bully.

I truly enjoyed doubting God, finding supposed problems in scripture, Continue reading …

I received a phone call last week which began, “I am not one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, but …” This is nearly always a tip off that the caller is a Jehovah’s Witness who is currently disfellowshipped, or for some other reason not meeting with the Jehovah’s Witnesses at the local Kingdom Hall, but still believes the teachings of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. He called after seeing the YouTube video Young Jehovah’s Witness Dies Over the Weekend. When these calls come in, I have to make assessments. Is the caller asking real questions or just taking up time? I wrote on this last year in Only Real Questions Deserve Real Answers – Pt.1,Part 2 and Part 3.

Being a missionary, like being an evangelist, pastor or teacher, requires that we are good stewards with our time as well as our finances and talents. One of the more frequently asked questions I receive is, “How much time or energy should I put in to someone who seems to be unreachable?” The answer is not simple or clean. Different settings dictate different responses on a case by case basis. Continue reading …

Matthew, Mark and Luke recorded the words of Jesus when He said:

YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ (Matt. 22:37)

Mark adds “strength” (Mark 12:30) and Luke adds “strength:” and loving your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:27). IN spite of this, the mind in the life of faith is an aspect of the faith that has largely been lost over the last 200 years or so within the church on the whole. In the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, the life of the mind was still held to be an important aspect of faith. Harvard University was established in 1636 for the purpose of training Christian ministers. Ten years later they adopted their “Rules and Precepts”:

2. Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the maine end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17:3) and therefore to lay Christ in the bottome, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and Learning. And seeing the Lord only giveth wisedome, Let every one seriously set himself by prayer in secret to seeke it of him (Prov. 2:3).

3. Every one shall so exercise himselfe in reading the Scriptures twice a day, that he shall be ready to give such an account of his proficiency therein, both in Theoreticall observations of Language and Logick, and in practical and spiritual truths, as his Tutor shall require, according to his ability; seeing the entrance of the word giveth light, it giveth understanding to the simple (Psalm 119:130).

In 1701 a collegiate college was founded by several ministers in the New England colony of Connecticut “to the end that they might educate ministers in their own way.” It is said that the Mather family “also were among those in Boston who welcomed and labored for the establishment of a seminary of a stricter theology than Harvard” This Collegiate School of Connecticut was named Yale in 1718 after a wealthy benefactor by the name of Elihu Yale made a fairly substantial donation to the institution. Although arts and science were an important aspect of the instruction, they were to be viewed theocentrically (God centered) and grounded in sound theology:

The charter of 1701 stated that the end of the school was the instruction of youth in the arts and sciences, that they might be fitted for public employment, both in church and civil state. To the clergy, however, who controlled the College, theology was the basis, security and test of arts and sciences. In 1722 the rector, Timothy Cutler, was dismissed because of a leaning toward Episcopacy. Various special tests were employed to preserve the doctrinal purity of Calvinism among, the instructors; that of the students was carefully looked after. In 1753 a stringent test was fixed by the Corporation to ensure the orthodoxy of the teachers. This was abolished in 1778.

It is approximately here that a theocentric (God centered) and specifically a Christocentric (Christ centered) view of Scripture and life began to be replaced with an anthropocentric (man centered) view. By the time we get to the nineteenth century Continue reading …