TTF Staff
Senior Fellow Wilfred M. McClay has the cover story for the January/February 2009 issue of Humanities, the magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The piece is titled “Lincoln the Great (Though He Didn’t Look That Way at the Time).”
In the 1950s, this country-boy Lincoln had morphed into the wise, prudent leader who steered the ship of Union between the wild excesses of ideologues: abolitionists on the left and proslavery fire-eaters on the right. In the 1960s, Lincoln was at first thought of as a civil-rights pioneer, but soon became criticized, even reviled, as a racist and a proponent of timid half-measures, a forerunner of the pragmatic liberalism that was so thoroughly drubbed by the New Left. Today, Lincoln is revered for his combination of faith and epistemological modesty, a skeptical believer who sought to do God’s will without ever claiming to know it—a view that requires one to overlook the fierce and relentless way he conducted the war that defined his presidency.
We too will have our own Lincoln, or Lincolns, and there is good reason to believe that ours will be as partial as anyone else’s. But we should not be content with such easy relativism. Out of respect to the man, we should at least try to recover a sense of both the grandeur and the contingency of the history that he lived through, and helped to shape.
Sightings, Being Human, Leadership, Wed 11 Feb 2009
They change their climate, not their soul, who rush across the sea.
Horace
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, foreword by Alonzo L. McDonald.
Our Reading of selections from Democracy in America includes some of Tocqueville’s most pointed insights into faith and freedom and the once-unimaginable American experiment.
Decoding the Language of Faith
Forgiving Enemies in Northern Ireland
President Obama’s Proposals for a Second Fiscal Stimulus: Senior Fellow Prabhu Guptara: “Is there anything short of divine miracles which will be good for job creation, good for the small business sector, good for the economy as a whole, and good for President Obama?” (Renaissance: Insights for Action in Today’s World • 2010 02 09)
How the Victoria and Albert Museum dealt with the dying of Christianity: “This situation is unprecedented in western civilisation: even 50 years ago, when these galleries of one of the richest collections in the world were last displayed in the V&A, they could assume that everyone was familiar with the rudiments of Christianity. Now, in a twinkling of an eye, 2,000 years of culture in the profoundest meaning of the word have been largely forgotten.” (Anna Somers Cocks, The Art Newspaper, December 2009 • 2010 01 05)
The God that Fails: David Brooks: “Many people seem to be in the middle of a religious crisis of faith. All the gods they believe in — technology, technocracy, centralized government control — have failed them in this instance.” (New York Times, December 31, 2009 • 2010 01 05)
From Winchester to Westminster: Jonathan Aitken discusses Sir John Templeton recently in the American Spectator; here’s a quote from the late philanthropist on gratitude: “Thanksgiving opens the door to spiritual growth. If there is any day in our life which is not thanksgiving day, then we are not fully alive. Counting our blessing attracts blessings. Counting our blessings each morning starts a day full of blessings. Thanksgiving brings God’s bounty. From gratitude comes riches—from complaints, poverty. Thankfulness opens the door to happiness. Thanksgiving causes giving. Thanksgiving puts our mind in tune with the Infinite. Continual gratitude dissolves our worries.” (The American Spectator • 2009 09 11)
• Welcome, National Affairs (2009 09 08)
• Looking for an Honest Man (2009 09 08)
• Why AI is a dangerous dream (2009 09 08)
• Restoring the Fresco of Progress (2009 08 28)
• The Case for Working With Your Hands (2009 06 04)
A Spiritual Pilgrimage by Malcolm Muggeridge, Foreword by Alonzo L. McDonald.
A life in perspective, offering questions to consider and a path worth exploring.
