Category Archives: Christianity

A series of essays on Christian human history, Christian philosophy and theology, and the search for God and Self.

The History of Bacone College Symbolized by a Single Work of Art

The Indian Christ in Gethsemane, a painting by Cheyenne artist Dick West, tells the story of the history of Bacone College. It portrays a young Plains Indian as Christ in western Oklahoma kneeling before God the Father, praying, “Thy Will … Continue reading

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Love and the Constitution

Love and the Constitution Is our society founded on Christian virtues and teachings? What is the greatest Christian teaching? What is the essence of Christianity? What is the one truth above all others that sums Christianity, Christian teachings, Jesus’s life? … Continue reading

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The Constitution and Religion

The framers of the Constitution developed their conceptions of religion and government based on a variety of sources: classical political theory, such as Aristotle; European political theory, such as Machiavelli; English political theory, such as Locke and Hobbes; but also … Continue reading

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The Pious Scientist Jeremy Belknap

Jeremy Belknap, who is featured in three of my books: Ebenezer Hazard, Jeremy Belknap, and the American Revolution, Passaconaway’s Realm, and the American Plutarch, was a pious scientist. He believed that piety is the most important response of the scientist to … Continue reading

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Pious Scientists

Oftentimes, missionaries in America were people of exceptional learning. Almon Bacone, for example, the founder of Bacone College, as a faculty member in the 1880s and 1890s taught an incredible number of subjects: Greek, Latin, rhetoric, English literature, logic, natural … Continue reading

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Missionaries and Love

Missionaries and Love: There were many missionaries of many denominations who brought the Gospel to American Indians in the United States and Canada: Anglicans, Catholics, Methodists, Lutherans, Moravians, Presybterians, and Baptists. They shared a similar interpretation of the compelling call … Continue reading

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Thinking–Fulbright Program

Thinking… I have done a lot of thinking on, and have become a scholar of, American Indian history. I backed into this field of intellectual endeavor by taking a job at Bacone College, where I began to have many Indian … Continue reading

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Thinking

“I think, therefore I am.” This famous sentence comes from Rene Descartes the seventeenth-French philosopher. Descartes, a skeptic doubting all, looking for the basic rudiments of reality, discovered a core of reality in the awareness of his own being. By … Continue reading

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In Praise of Alexander Posey

Alexander Posey, the Creek poet, was a student and librarian at Indian University, now Bacone College, in the 1890s. During his brief life (1873-1908), Posey published essays, satire, stories, and wonderful poems about nature, life, and death. He wrote whimsically … Continue reading

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The Messenger’s Way

Carved on the northeast corner of the Bacone College chapel is this passage from the Old Testament: Micah, 6:8: He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good: and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly … Continue reading

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