During his reign as Roman emperor, Nero had an affair with a woman named Poppaea Sabina. Poppaea wanted Nero to divorce his wife and marry her, but one person stood in her way: Nero's mother, the powerful Agrippina.

Poppaea nagged, pled, and taunted Nero, calling him a "mere ward" of his mother. Nero crumbled and started avoiding his mother, encouraging her to spend time at her distant estates. Then ...

In The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Christian author J. R. R. Tolkien portrays the classic conflict between good and evil set in a mythical land called Middle Earth. After a great battle in ancient times, the Dark Lord Sauron was temporarily defeated and his most dreaded weapon, the Ring of Power, was lost for many ages.

A character named Bilbo Baggins found the ring and, unaware ...

Our reliance is in love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defense is in the spirit which primed liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your door. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost ...

The great need for anyone in authority is courage.

There is nothing quite like a presidential election year to reveal how empty and dissatisfying our political process has become. ... Television has taken over the role in choosing candidates that party bosses once played, but that can hardly be called reform.

Our age finds it difficult to come to grips with figures like Winston Churchill. The political leaders with whom we are familiar generally aspire to be superstars rather than heroes. The distinction is crucial. Superstars strive for approbation; heroes walk alone. Superstars crave consensus; heroes define themselves by the judgment of a future they see it as their task to bring about. Superstars seek ...

Aqaba in 1917 seemed impregnable. Any enemy vessel approaching the port would have to face the battery of huge naval guns above the town. Behind Aqaba in every direction lay barren, waterless, inhospitable desert. To the east lay the deadly "anvil of the sun." The Turks believed Aqaba to be safe from any attack. But they were wrong.

Lawrence of Arabia led a force of irregular Arab cavalry across the ...

The great agony of the Christian statesman turns on the proper use of great power for moral ends.

Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.

Religious liberty consists of the civil magistrate's comprehending and acknowledging that it has no rightful authority over a man's soul. A proper understanding of religious liberty requires the civil authority to understand that a man's religious beliefs are beyond the purview of the state. Consequently, the state authority does not merely tolerate religious beliefs and activity, nor can it grant ...