Frankly Speaking

According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the word teach derives from an Old English term that means "to point out" or "t...

I read a few dozen books in 2012. (See photo above!). You can see some of those books at my Amazon list for this year . Almost all of t...

Every semester, I teach a freshmen-level course at Amarillo College titled "Introduction to World Religions." It's the toughes...

Charles M. Sheldon was born in Westville, New York in 1857. He was one of five children of a Congregational minister. Like a lot of preacher...

Next week, I'm supposed to make a presentation about the Christian classic,  In His Steps , by Charles Sheldon. At this point, I'm p...

Since I last posted about the life and times of R[obert] W[allace] Officer, I have been able to discover additional information about him an...

A few days ago I was flipping through the channels when I came to a live broadcast of the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. There s...

This post is a follow-up to the previous one which reproduces the obituary for Lota Venable Officer. It appeared in the newspaper serving At...

Related to my on-going project on R. W. Officer (1845-1930), I’ve made a new friend at the Atoka County (Oklahoma) Historical Society. Somet...

May, Henry F. The Enlightenment in America . New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. May says that before he wrote this book he went expl...

"To the eyes of the Puritan faithful, Scripture presented a dramatic panorama which moved from Creation to Redemption to Resurrection ...

Knight, Janice. Orthodoxies in Massachusetts: Rereading American Puritanism . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994. In this caref...