Character and Ethics
Items on personal character and public action
How to Vote for the President
Wed 20 Aug 2008 • Responses: 1 • by William Edgar
Character, discernment, trust
Senior Fellow William Edgar looks at the factors we should consider in the upcoming U.S. elections—or any election, for that matter.
The Greatness of Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008)
Mon 11 Aug 2008 • Responses: 0 • by David Aikman
A Second Look
David Aikman looks back at his three interviews with the great Russian writer and offers a different assessment of his life, message, and influence.
Evangelicals, AIDS, and the Presidential Race
Wed 06 Aug 2008 • Responses: 0 • by Joseph Loconte
Megachurch pastor Rick Warren will deliver questions about faith, values, and human rights at a forum this month with presidential rivals Barack Obama and John McCain. Given the vapid media treatment of the presidential campaign so far, Mr. Warren’s event could raise the political profile of issues such as Sudan and global AIDS, issues that he and his evangelical congregation care about deeply. Yet it runs the risk of inviting political pandering and blurring the real ideological divisions between the candidates.
Failure is Not a Sin
Thu 10 Jul 2008 • Responses: 0 • by T. M. Moore
Flesh-and-Blood Jesus: Learning to be Fully Human from the Son of Man, by Dan Russ (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2008), 192 pages, $14.99.
Reading Dan Russ’s excellent and provocative new book about Jesus I was reminded of an incident in which I was involved during my preparation for ministry.
I went to seminary a complete theological novice. I’d been a Christian for only a few years and had never read any theology nor had any introduction to the theological traditions of the Christian heritage. On the advice of trusted pastors, I enrolled in a seminary in the reformed tradition, where it immediately became apparent to me that how one articulates what one believes is just as important as what one actually believes.
The Benefits of Conflict
Fri 06 Jun 2008 by Jo Kadlecek
Learning to Listen, Ready to Talk: A Pilgrimage Toward Peacemaking
by Harold Heie
(iUniverse, 2007), $19.95
Steep Trajectory
Wed 07 May 2008 by Al Sikes
Free Lunch Writ Large
We are deep in the blame game over the housing bubble, writes Al Sikes. Mortgage brokers, banks, rating agencies, property flippers, and regulators have all made the list. Perhaps somebody should go upstream in a search for the real culprit.
China, Tibet, and the Olympics
Mon 05 May 2008 by David Aikman
Placing the Olympics above world politics is a valiant but vain hope.
When the French nobleman and historian Baron Philipe de Coubertin revived the idea of the Olympic Games in Paris in 1894, he was motivated by both nationalism and idealistic internationalism. He felt the French had lost their war with Prussia in 1870 because of their poor physical conditioning. But de Coubertin had also been inspired by an English physician, botanist, and magistrate, William Penny Brookes. Another eccentric idealist and philanthropist, Brookes had first organized an “Olympian Games” in 1850 in the English rural village of Much Wenlock, Shropshire. De Coubertin visited the Much Wenlock Olympics in 1890, and returned to France inspired.
Obama’s ‘Bitter’ Comments
Sun 27 Apr 2008 • Responses: 3 • by David Aikman
The rigors of the campaign lead to what may be a landmark moment.
Every presidential campaign cycle has its landmark moments. Television viewers watching the debate in 1960 between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy were shocked by how unattractive Nixon’s five-o’clock shadow appeared. He lost the debate on television, even though those who heard the debate on the radio thought Nixon had scored more points. Then there was the moment when Ronald Reagan seized the microphone during a 1980 Republican primary debate in New Hampshire and announced that he had “paid” for the microphone and was going to hold onto it. And who can forget Michael Dukakis, George Bush’s opponent in the 1988 election, trying, by driving a tank on camera, to look manly and in-charge and to demonstrate he was commander-in-chief material? Unfortunately, he simply looked absurd.
Barack Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright
Tue 01 Apr 2008 by David Aikman
By many observers’ reckoning, Senator Barack Obama’s major speech on race in the U.S. at Philadelphia’s Constitution Center March 18 was one of the rhetorical highlights of the 2008 presidential election season. Obama’s 5,000-word address was skillfully crafted, eloquent, and a powerful attempt to bring balance—and the views of both blacks and whites—into discussion of “America’s original sin” of racial injustice over the centuries. As the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya (which raises the question why people of mixed race with one black parent and one white parent are almost always deemed to be black and not white), Obama is certainly in a good position to shed light on this often poorly illustrated topic.
A Life Worth Emulating
Fri 07 Mar 2008 by Luder G. Whitlock, Jr.
John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace, by Jonathan Aitken (Crossway, 2007), 400pp., $22.
Jonathan Aitken, a skilled biographer and author of the award-winning Nixon: A Life and, more recently, Charles W. Colson: A Life Redeemed, has produced a valuable biography of John Newton illumined by important, unpublished letters and diary entries. He embellishes a compelling narrative by inserting thoughtful assessments of Newton’s life and ministry at appropriate points.
A flurry of books, articles, and films about William Wilberforce have been published recently in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. Appropriately so, for in addition to his pivotal role in Parliament leading to decisive action against the slave trade, Wilberforce was an extraordinary figure of great influence in England.
