R. Keith Iddings, PhD
On September 14, 2023, my 97 year old mother, Joy Iddings, peacefully passed away. She had been ready to leave for some time. The following is what I shared at her funeral on the 22nd. A little over a month ago, some good friends who attend our Sunday School class in Kentucky traveled to New…
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After decades of battles and truces, 1386 CE arrived with both French and English wanting to put an end to the drawn out war that had caused such misery in both countries. Despite victories at various times on both sides of the Channel, neither kingdom could seem to bring the war to conclusion. As Spring…
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I’ve decided my wife and I watch football very differently. Last Sunday we were both watching the NFL AFC playoff. It was an exciting game complete with everything even a sporadic sports fan like me would enjoy. There were moments of suspense, reversals, close-calls, athleticism, and displays of amazing skill. It was a visual feast!…
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I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. Matthew 10:16 (NIV) I’ve finally gotten around to reading A Distant Mirror, Barbara Tuchman’s splendid history of what she calls “the calamitous 14th century.” The book was a bestseller in the late 1970’s but I’ve…
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I remember watching the movie The Truman Show a number of years ago. If you remember, the show depicts a young man named Truman who has grown up within a carefully controlled studio set designed to create the illusion of real life. All of the people inhabiting this world were actors except Truman. His whole…
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In 1748, John Wesley established a school near Bristol, England to educate the sons of local coal miners and Methodist preachers. His brother, Charles, wrote a hymn for the occasion. It contains many elements of the Wesleys’ philosophy of education. The fifth stanza, I think, encapsulates an essential part of any Christian education aimed at…
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Well, September is the time of year when recent high school graduates are beginning to wrestle with their freshman year of college. My eldest granddaughter is one of those new university students this year. I wrote her some pointers that I thought might be helpful to others as well. Feel free to share these with…
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One of Christianity’s early Desert Fathers, St. Anthony, instructed a follower as follows: “In whatever place you live, do not easily leave it.” I haven’t always followed that advice. For various reasons, I’ve dragged my family around the world. During over forty years of adult life, my wife and I have settled for a time…
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The time has come–and past. We in the American evangelical church have to call a unilateral ceasefire. The culture wars may have seemed like a good thing at one point, but we have to stop. Too much is at stake. I’m not minimizing the importance of the issues central to the long battle. Of course…
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Soon after the catastrophic failure of the Texas electrical grid during February’s frigid weather, Paul Krugman took aim at the deregulation of essential utilities. Krugman, a nobel prize winning economist, contended in the New York Times (February 22, 2021) that Texas politicians’ ill-conceived commitment to the application of unregulated free market principles led to much…
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