Another “Holiday Season” is behind us. And every such season, the purge of religion in our public schools just gets worse. In fact, the season now serves to remind us of one thing for certain: the God-purgers are on an … Continue reading
Faith & Society
The Top 10 of 2015 (Part Two)
2015 has been a banner year for The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. We celebrated an all-time high in website traffic, an exponential growth in social media (approaching 25,000 Facebook fans), and a record number of … Continue reading
The Top 10 of 2015 – Part One
2015 has been a banner year for The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. We celebrated an all-time high in website traffic, an exponential growth in social media (approaching 25,000 Facebook fans), and a record number of … Continue reading
Good Grief, Charlie Brown! Secular Fundamentalism Takes on Linus at Christmas
You may have heard about the Kentucky school district that ordered its administrators to scrub any religious references from its various Christmas productions. Most infamously, an elementary school in the Johnson County School District removed the lines from “A Charlie … Continue reading
When Hollywood Celebrated Christmas and Marriage
A few days before Christmas, I checked the schedule for Turner Classic Movies, one of the few TV channels I watch. I was looking for Christmas movies, maybe the 1938 Reginald Owen version of “A Christmas Carol” or something like … Continue reading
Question of Semantics: What Do “Radical Islam” and “Terrorism” Really Mean?
President Obama and his administration’s spokespersons continue to explain the eruption of bombings and mass shootings as “lone wolf attacks” or “work place violence.” The cause, they often say, is too many guns in society. Their response is a further … Continue reading
Trumpism and Elitism
In “The Myth of Sisyphus,” Albert Camus’s exploration of the role of suicide in the modern world, the philosopher of the Absurd states, “That universal reason, practical or ethical, that determinism, those categories that explain everything are enough to make … Continue reading
My Pervasive Egocentrism: I Am Possessed with Self
In “Pleading Guilty,” best-selling novelist Scott Turow wrote, “What kind of ethical social system takes as its fundamental precepts the words ‘I’ ‘me’ and ‘mine’? Our two-year-olds start like that and we spend the next twenty years trying to teach … Continue reading
Giving thanks at Thanksgiving … but not to God
In 1789, America’s first president proclaimed a “day of public thanksgiving and prayer.” George Washington implored the heavens to “pardon our national and other transgressions” and urged the citizenry to practice “true religion and virtue.” In 1863, Abraham Lincoln urged … Continue reading
Tears for Gosnell’s House of Horrors
I recently saw the documentary “3801 Lancaster: An American Tragedy.” I went home and cried. I don’t mean tears of joy. No, I cried. The last time I cried was when my dad died. The last time before that I can … Continue reading
Paris, Brussels, and 21st Century Europe
Some time ago a former student emailed me a video clip that I now show my Major European Governments course. It’s a five-minute news piece by Dale Hurd of CBN News, a conservative Christian outlet—the rare kind of place where … Continue reading
Obama’s College ‘Scorecard’ Doesn’t Measure Up
Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The Department of Education has released its “College Scorecard,” a searchable college-affordability database that President Obama described as containing “reliable data on every institution of higher education.” Unfortunately, that simply … Continue reading
Surviving Hitler’s “Hell-Hole” … Remembering Frank Kravetz
“Just existing became what was important.” So said Frank Kravetz, World War II veteran and former captive of Nuremberg Prison Camp, or what Frank called the Nazi “hell-hole.” “Yet even as I struggled with the day-to-day sadness and despair,” said … Continue reading
Grove City College – Trustee Scholarship Program
Do you know an exceptional high school student? A student who may be interested in a tremendous scholarship opportunity? The Trustee Scholarship Program at Grove City College provides our highest performing students with a rich academic experience rooted in scholarly … Continue reading
Humility in New Hampshire
In his 1850 short story, “The Great Stone Face,” Nathaniel Hawthorne described the legend of the Old Man of the Mountain: “At some future day, a child should be born hereabouts, who was destined to become the greatest and noblest … Continue reading
Feeling Good About America on a Chilly Autumn Evening
Don’t you love it when something heartwarming happens to you unexpectedly? That happened to me on October 1. My friend Ron invited me to go with him to Cleveland to see the game that night between the Indians and the … Continue reading
Tracking America’s Suicide
Amidst a plethora of sensational news reports elbowing each other to seize first place in America’s national consciousness, there is a story that has lurked beneath media radar that teaches us much more about the status of our country than … Continue reading
Tethered to Technology—Escaping the IT Trap
Increasingly, we often expect each other to be smartphone-available nearly 24/7. Or we act as if this is the case. Over time, this can lead to feelings of exhaustion and a sense of entrapment. Time to just focus on our … Continue reading
Pope Francis vs. the “Demon” of Gender Theory
Editor’s note: A shorter version of this article first appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Pope Francis has returned to Rome after a historic trip to the United States. It was a fascinating endeavor. There have been many papal visits to … Continue reading
Cherry-Picking Pope Francis
While papal visits to the United States are increasingly common, what is uncommon is to see political-ideological battle lines drawn around a pope. The tendency this time is especially acute among liberals, who eagerly frame Francis as one of them—a … Continue reading