What We're Reading

We have been reading another Henty book, “During the Reign of Terror” in the evenings. All of his books have been so good. When you read a good book as a family you have the potential for so many great things to happen. First off the family all gets to know some new friends, the characters in the books do seem like friends and as you then talk about them, this becomes another way of tying strings between the hearts of your family. It helps with understanding on different issues, …”remember what happened to so and so…” It becomes another tool.

These books have been a great springboard for all manner of discussions on worldviews, mindsets, you put “life” into different periods of history with Henty books. This book is a great illustration on what a society looks like when it deliberately abandons God, saying he doesn’t exist. “Reign of terror” is such a good description of what happens when man becomes the measure, when right and wrong is decided by whoever controls the power. We point out how more and more our culture wants to go this direction. That everyone may decide for themselves what is good and what is evil. It is great to contrast our nations birth as compared to the French revolution. Instead of abstracts about how or why mankind is how it is, with these Henty books we get that in a way that is much more tangible.


Speaking of books….We are about 60pgs into Swanson’s “The Second Mayflower” book. Reading it with the family after some meals or whenever. It's turning into a worldview Primer of sorts. Lots of whats and whys on “why” our nation had the foundation we started with. His recent series on biblical economics, the first three mp3’s are here for free, (part 4 is tomorrow) has probably sprung from the research of his book. This series and the book are resonating together. So far he has shown how a people who took serious, God's word for all of life, and gave us what has been the most blessed Nation on earth and why (which is interesting) and how, the following generations lost the vision and brought the nation to where we are today. He presses home the depth of the tyranny we are under. But because we have our leeks and garlic, we are content with our bondage. He is talking about building a Nation, within a Nation. Very good stuff.

Gary North one of the movers and shakers of what became the religious right, did this 3 part DVD series on the Unknown History of the 20th Century for Gary Demar at American Vision. After showing how we became content with our “spiritual walk” we stepped aside to let the world push forward with not only making us and our kids their disciples, but they have been “making disciples of the nations” ever since.

He laments that our biggest weakness is that you cannot beat something with nothing. Gary North knows that modern evangelicalism is adrift because it uses a “shorter Bible”. That for the most part we run behind the world trying to sprinkle holy water, as it were, on what the world is doing and hoping that we might be able to get a few more saved.

This Second Mayflower book is laying out that other vision. A different lifestyle from a biblical worldview. It might be first “one stop” book about this new way back to the old paths. Vision Forum has been trying to wake us up with this type of vision too, with 100’s of different talks and conferences. I am curious to see how much Swanson can flesh out in one book.

And now Botkin's “The Battle for Civilization” TV series will be another componant in trying to equipt men to first see that a battle has been going on and then to join the battle while it is still daylight. This looks good. Check out the trailer and the ENN report his young son did for Vision Forum.