Author: Fred Sanders
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Happy Birthday, B.B. Warfield
Today (Nov. 5) is the day when Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield (1851 – 1921) was born. The title of “America’s Greatest Theologian” is pretty universally ceded to Jonathan Edwards, and after him there is a tight race for “Second Greatest.” In my opinion, Warfield is a contender for that second slot. He even edges out fellow…
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Happy Birthday, Augustus Toplady
Today (November 4) is the birthday of Augustus Montague Toplady (1740-1778), the Anglican clergyman who wrote “Rock of Ages,” one of the greatest English hymns ever. The hymn was first published in March 1776 in the magazine of which Toplady was editor, the Gospel Magazine. It was appended to an article about that most unedifying…
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Reflections on the Recent Revolution in France
Today (November 1) is the date in 1790 when Edmund Burke published his Reflections on the Revolution in France. It’s a book that is still worth close study, because Burke’s insights into politics have proven to be perennial, maybe permanent. But the book itself was provoked, as the title says, by a political event in…
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Star Wars Halloween Dance Party!!!
What are you dressing as, and what dance are you doing? Astromech Droid Artoo Unit Waltz (Bleep Blaap Blooop Danube) Ewok Sabre Dance (but Ewoks don’t have sabres, so here’s a spear) Begin the Boba Beguine (or is it the Jango Jig?) Poppin and Lockin Protocol Droid (fluent in over six million forms of electric…
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Constantine at the Milvian Bridge
Today (October 28) is the day in the year 312 that Constantine defeated his rival Maxentius at Pons Milvia, the Milvian Bridge outside of Rome. This decisive victory (in which Maxentius himself drowned in the Tiber) put Constantine on the path to consolidating Roman power again into the hands of one emperor, himself. The victory…
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"We want, above all, to know what it felt like to be an early Protestant"
C.S. Lewis’ biggest book, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, runs to nearly 700 pages. It has one 45-page chapter with the title (I am not joking here) “Drab and Transitional Prose,” full of quotations and learned discussions of authors nobody has ever heard of (Harpsfield, Starkey, Bullein, Peacham, Tilney… who?). It’s a hard book…
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What Makes for a Great Book?
Biola‘s Torrey Honors Institute is a great books program. Our students get their general education by reading and discussing the hundred or so greatest hits of western civ, and everybody who works here teaches that whole curriculum. But the phrase “great books” doesn’t always instantly communicate what we mean. In common usage, when people use…
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Psalmtooning 3: "How Many?"
Phoebe Age Seven interprets the first line of the third psalm as an actual question –“How many are my foes?”– though it was apparently intended as an exclamation: “Wow, that’s a lot of foes!” Phoebe Age Seven adds the exclamation point, but you can tell she’s thinking “give me an approximate count” because the center…
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Evangelicals and the Deep Things
It’s time for another report on the ongoing discussion prompted by my new book, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything. There have been several developments in the past few days, as the book is finding readers hither and yon. Doug Wilson at Blog & Mablog gives Seven Reasons Why “The Deep…
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War is Swell: Crispin’s Day
Okay, war is not really swell. But today (October 25) is the anniversary of two battles that live on in our memory because of the martial virtues conspicuously displayed in them. These battles conjured poetry from two of the greatest poets in the history of the English tongue. First, the Battle of Agincourt, on the…
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California's Bestseller, and Its Author
What’s the most popular and influential book in the history of California? An 1884 romance called Ramona, by Helen Hunt Jackson. It’s a longish book that follows the misfortunes of a beautiful young orphan who is half Scottish and half native American. She is raised by the Spanish rancheros of Alta California in the days…
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Nonconformist Droid
It’s not all Psalmtooning around the house these days. The artists known as Freddy Age Ten and Phoebe Age Eight are nothing if not prolific, and their work cannot be confined to any single medium or genre. The resident curators (also known as parents) are constantly finding art scattered around the studio/gallery area. Here are…