Culture

I went to listen, to get a lay of the land. What I heard was, humanly speaking, both frightening and exasperating. Perhaps you have heard of my community in the news, which is just north of Pittsburgh in Western Pennsylvania. Recently, it appears that the Superintendent of the School District along...

An American sermon on a choice morsel from the book of Revelation . . . associating corruption with hierarchies . . . and warning the church to resist sycophantic governments in league with that . . . and, further, that sermon was not from a late 20th century evangelical pulpit but rather from a...

Not only did Calvin’s shadow continue at the founding of America, but an erudite Swiss pastor led southerners in the faith and in application of scripture to the times. John Joachim Zubly was born in St. Gall in 1724 and ministered in London and Charleston, prior to serving as the first pastor of...

Allusions to Reformation themes abounded in early American sermons. The Waldensians, the eradication of the French Huguenots, Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli were all referred to in Samuel Davies’ 1756 sermon, “The Mediatorial Kingdom and Glories of Jesus Christ.” The Calvinist college at Princeton,...

What is God’s view on certain political matters or events? That is a question often asked . . . and often mocked. Centuries earlier, however, preachers and their audiences were more sympathetic with the notion that God might actually have moral opinions on the acts of human beings. Earlier...

The great grandson of several New England families (John Cotton’s among them), Elisha Williams (1694–1755) graduated from Harvard in 1711. After a brief career of teaching and tutoring in 1722 he became the pastor of a congregational church in Wethersfield, Connecticut, prior to becoming and...

When World War I erupted in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson was committed to a policy of neutrality. However, Germany was not committed to the same policy. German submarines had attacked several civilian European vessels killing many, including Americans. In the April 15, 1916 edition of the New...

The Rev. Jasper Adams was an Episcopal Minister and President of the College of Charleston when he preached this 1833 message to the Diocese of South Carolina at St. Michael’s church in Charleston, South Carolina. This sermon occurred a little over a half century after the American Revolution. In...

Originally a lawyer (and cousin of an early President), the clergyman James Madison (1749-1812) had high academic potential (even teaching philosophy and math at the College of William and Mary) and was ordained to the Anglican ministry in 1775. Shortly thereafter he was appointed to the presidency...