The Pragmatist Pamphlets

Martin Luther King, Jr. provides truthful, forthright thoughts on faith, culture, and politics in the United States. Coretta Scott King says that, of all her late husband's writings, Strength to Love is the work that people most consistently describe as life-changing. Here are the key insights from his book.  The complete human is a combination of tough-mindedness and tenderheartedness.   A strong human being is one that has sets of opposing traits working simultaneously within him. "It is when thesis and antithesis are powerfully present within a person, creatively interacting, that life is at its fullest." Most people do not strike this balance between opposite traits.  Jesus seemed to recognize the need to blend opposites. Jesus instructed his disciples to, "be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves." It does not seem possible but, it is what Jesus expects. What does it look like to maintain this blend? Jesus' teaching is a call for us to have both a t...

"Many people living in the West are dissatisfied with their own society. They despise it or accuse it of no longer being up to the level of maturity by mankind...This causes many to sway toward socialism, which is a false and dangerous current." - Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who spent 11 years in Soviet gulags.  ( A Quick Comment : I highly recommend reading Alexander Solzhenitsyn's book  The Gulag Archipelago . I think everyone should be as familiar with this chapter (as well as others) in world history as we are with the rise of The Third Reich in Nazi Germany during the 1930s.) Alexander Solzhenitsyn, born in 1918, was one out of the many that were arrested under Stalin's regime. He was detained for writing a letter criticizing Stalin and was sent to the Soviet "gulag" labor camps where he spent the next 11 years of his life.  He began secretly accumulating stories of the horrendous life in the gulags. In prison for several years, he was denied paper and pen ...

For a while now, I have been wanting to delve deeper into the reasons that led up to the French and American revolutions. I also wanted to carefully examine the details of each and seek answers to questions such as, "What was the purpose behind each one?", "How were they similar?", etc.  As I was reading into the subject with the expectation that each country revolted for the cause of “liberty and equality", to my surprise, I discovered that my expectations could not have been more wrong. When actually, the reasons that fueled each revolution were far more dissimilar than I realized.  Os Guiness, a best selling author, stated in an interview with Dr. Albert Mohler, (Thinking in Public, June 5, 2017): "The culture war now at its deepest roots is actually a clash between 1776, what was the American Revolution, and 1789 and heirs of the French Revolution." The American Revolution was preceded by a Great Awakening Christian Revival, but in contrast, Franc...

Why does it feel like a foreign concept to speak plain truth? Why does it feel so intimidating and daunting to openly speak up for truth? Why are the founding principles of the United States openly ridiculed? Why is it that this very nation, "that has protected the God-given rights of hundreds of millions of people ALL over the globe" is openly criticized?  Why am I bringing up this particular point? Because I see many individuals that are becoming anti-American and morally backward and the only person that can set it right is YOU! It is a heavy, burdensome task that is asked of us but, I believe it is something we are capable of conquering. I am convinced of it. I believe that there are still people out there that have a strong, intuitive love of our country and knowing this makes me optimistic for the future of our country but, I realize and understand how hard it is to speak out.  Academic and other establishments are against us. The task at hand will not be easy but, it i...