Maybe I'm Afraid of the Way I Love You

Yesterday morning I finished reading God's Politics. I would recommend the book to anyone, particularly Christians, who is feeling dissatisfied with the current state of political affairs and wondering if politics could mean more than the often shallow partisan fighting that characterizes the current modus operandi in Washington.

Once God's Politics was finished, I began The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris. Morris' masterpiece detailing the first portion of one of the most fascinating lives in American history won the Pulitzer Prize in 1977 and has not been out of print since that time. In the prologue, Morris paints a picture of a man whose boundless energy and interests changed the face of the United States and brought our nation to a comparable international level with the European monarchies and East Asian empires.

Teddy and Winston Churchill have always been my two favorite historical figures. The sheer force of their will drove their lives and the lives of those around them. I can understand how that type of will has the chance to take an Actonian turn, but they were able to understand their place in the turn of the Cosmos, and did not press their nations into tyrannical states of servitude. There is something terribly noble and honorable about understanding one's place in God's infinite plan and playing that role to the best of one's ability.