Words have the ability to build up and tear down. They can inspire and demoralize. They can turn away wrath and also incite the most visceral responses. Words are just one of the many things that separate humanity from animals. They give us the ability to think and express our thoughts; to imagine and create; to expand our understanding; and to direct our sensibilities. They give shape to ideas, fire to our souls, and unction to our actions. Consider the impactful oratory of great statesmen, the poetry of great bards, and the sermons of great preachers. Printed or spoken words carry weight, force, and impact, so they should be chosen carefully with the knowledge that they will carry consequences. Words are organic to our humanity and to the faith of Christians who believe God “spoke” the world into existence (see Genesis 1–2). The Bible is replete with teachings, exhortations, and examples of the power of words. The book of Proverbs alone contains approximately 45 verses speaking to the power of words. In that book, words are inextricably tied to wisdom and understanding. The New Testament book of James refers to the tongue as a fire. The Bible itself is called the “Word of God.” And Jesus is presented as the “Word made flesh” in John’s gospel.

The tone of our language matters a great deal, but I think there is a need for us to consider the technical meaning of words as well. Words are only powerful because they carry meaning—meanings that we agree to as a culture and meanings that make language efficient and effective. We catalog these meanings, learn vocabulary, and use words skillfully. At least, we used to. Today, there is a general sloppiness around language. And it is not simply a matter of becoming less formal. It is dangerous. Dictionaries, which unfortunately have fallen out of favor, have been supplanted by subjectivism and relativism even when it comes to the definitions of terms. This is dangerous. And not so simply because it undoes conformity to a standard, but because it unleashes irresponsibility. I remember learning in school that words carry denotation and connotation. The former refers to the technical definition of a word. The latter is associated with the cultural significance of a given word and the feelings evoked. This is part of the beauty of words. But it means using words on purpose—with a knowledge of what they actually mean and the effect they have.

Consider the looseness with which people are throwing around the word “fascist.” This is a technical term, associated with a particular political philosophy, but also one with historical associations with those who killed millions of Jews, in the most horrific of conditions, simply because they were Jewish. If we allow ourselves to use that term to refer to those we disagree with because it effectively associates them with some of the starkest manifestations of brutality in modern history, we should consider the potential impact of that choice. The term has a very efficient denotation and a very effective connotation. The entire free world decided that those forces of fascism spreading like darkness across the globe in the middle of the last century needed to be stopped at all costs for the good of humanity and the preservation of civilization. Even theologians and pastors found themselves involved in the assassination plots of that time. Consider also the degree to which the word “hate” has overtaken our social, political, and cultural rhetoric today. We refer to people we disagree with as “haters”, those who spread hate and incite hate crimes. At the same time, we hate those we consider hateful. It is not difficult to see that irresponsibility with language is evidence of irresponsibility with our thoughts and emotions.

Finally, consider the word “virulent.” This word adequately describes much of our world today. Technically, this word refers to a dangerous and destructive disease, injury, or poison. It also refers to hateful and violent opposition. The irony here is that the second definition refers to something that has the figurative effect of the first. What we are experiencing as a society today is hateful and violent opposition to those with whom we disagree. This has an injurious impact. A free society requires disagreement without the threat of harm. It requires citizens to act responsibly, both in terms of their actions and their words. Opinion, passion, and conviction should be tempered and used to strengthen a good and free society. This is wisdom, and wisdom is inextricably tied to words. So, we should choose them wisely.

On Monday, September 29, 2025, Dr. Todd J. Williams, president and CEO of 91łÔąĎ, and Dr. Adam J. Porcella, senior vice president and provost, were invited to testify before the U.S. Religious Liberty Commission.

The hearing was held at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC. The hearing included a tribute to Charlie Kirk and then shifted to a focus on religious liberty in education, bringing in the perspectives of public school faculty and faith leaders.

Dr. Williams testified as a guest on the third panel, “Religious Liberty in Education: Protecting the Religious Identity and Autonomy of Faith-Based Schools,” highlighting the vital role faith-based institutions of higher education play in preserving religious freedom.

The Religious Liberty Commission was by President Trump under Executive Order 14291 and is tasked with producing a comprehensive report on the foundations of religious liberty in America, increasing awareness of and celebrating America’s peaceful religious pluralism, highlighting current threats to religious liberty, and developing strategies to preserve and enhance protections for future generations.

“It was a privilege to testify today to the president’s Religious Liberty Commission,” said Dr. Williams. “There are many good people doing good work to not only defend religious liberty but shape the conversation on the value of it for a free society.”

91łÔąĎ is proud of Dr. Williams’ and Dr. Porcella’s leadership and contributions to a national dialogue on religious liberty. A recording of the event will be made available at

will be held as a follow-up to the September 8 hearing with President Trump. The hearing will include two parts: A Tribute to Charlie Kirk as a Man of Faith, and An Exploration of Religious Liberty in Education: Public School Faculty Perspectives and Faith Leader Perspectives. Dr. Williams and Dr. Porcella are invited to speak during the latter part of this event, which has an objective to “understand the historic landscape of religious liberty in the educational setting, recognize present threats to religious liberty in education, and identify opportunities to secure religious liberty in this context for the future.” As guests on the third panel, “Religious Liberty in Education: Protecting the Religious Identity and Autonomy of Faith-Based Schools,” Dr. Williams and Dr. Porcella will highlight the vital role faith-based institutions of higher education play in preserving religious freedom.

The Religious Liberty Commission will gather again on Monday, September 29, 2025, at 9 am. Those interested in watching the proceedings can watch it live at .

About the Religious Liberty Commission
The Religious Liberty Commission was by President Trump under Executive Order 14291 and is tasked with producing a comprehensive report on the foundations of religious liberty in America, increasing awareness of and celebrating America’s peaceful religious pluralism, highlighting current threats to religious liberty, and developing strategies to preserve and enhance protections for future generations.

After a forklift accident derailed his military ambitions, Williams eventually enrolled in what was then the Philadelphia College of Bible, now 91łÔąĎ. He continued to graduate school at Temple University but ultimately returned to his alma mater, serving first as a professor and then climbing the administrative ranks.

As president of the University, he now works to keep higher education mission-focused and cost-effective while expanding the university’s academic and post-graduate offerings.

Where were you born, and where did you grow up, Todd?

I was born in Trenton, NJ, and when I was three or four, we moved to Middletown, PA, near Three Mile Island, just south of Harrisburg and north of Elizabethtown. That’s where I grew up.

What did your mom and dad do?

My dad had been in the Navy right out of high school. He loved that and struggled to find his way afterward. He retired as a civilian Personnel Clerk for the Navy depot.

My mom did many different things to make ends meet and ended up as a Bookkeeper for a lumberyard on the West Shore in Lemoyne.

Where were you in the pecking order?

I’m the oldest. I have twin brothers who are two years younger than me.

What memories stay with you from growing up in Middletown?

It was a great place to grow up. We lived in a typical suburban development there, where the farms had given way to ranch houses. I used to hang out at the Star Barn, just north of our development. I’d fish in the pond and feed Mr. Hoffer’s horses.

We were outside all the time and had lots of friends running around the neighborhood, riding bikes, playing sports nonstop. I graduated from high school with people I went to kindergarten with.

Were you particularly good at any one sport?

I enjoyed all of them. I played baseball and soccer as a kid and then tried football in middle school and high school. I joined the Middletown High School soccer team when they started one, and for my last two years of high school, we were 0-18. They won the state championship years later, but we were the pioneers, and we lost a lot.

Is there one game that stands out in your mind?

Yeah, I took a pitch to the head, and I went down. It was at that moment that I realized not every blow is fatal. You can get hit and knocked down. You just get right back up and keep going. That’s a defining moment for me.

But when I started working with horses, all the other stuff fell away, including sports. I’d been going to a camp for two years where they had these three-day pack trips, and at 16, when I was old enough to work there, I did.

That first summer, I was general staff, but every time we got a break, I went to the barn and cleaned the horse stalls. The guy running the horse program eventually took me under his wing. I learned to train horses, teach horsemanship, and lead pack trips. It was a game-changer for me.

What drew you to horses? You connected with them in a way that most men never do.

As a kid, I watched old cowboy movies with my dad, who was from the Hopalong Cassidy generation. But there wasn’t a lot of stability in my life as a teenager. My parents loved and took care of us, but they didn’t always have a great marriage, and when I was in ninth grade, they separated.

Ultimately, as a result of their personal faith as Christians and other work, they got back together. But the separation broke the chain of things. I had to move out of the neighborhood I grew up in. I was struggling, and the camp came along just at the right time.

The first time I worked with a horse, I saw a lot of myself in there, in terms of the yielding of will and learning to trust and respond to authority. I learned more about myself when I learned about horses.

In my role now as a university president, there’s not a day that I don’t draw on that.

What about music? Was music a part of your life back then?

My dad was in the drum and bugle corps, and I wanted to be like him, so I played the trumpet in elementary school and sang. Even while traveling 40 miles every weekend to work at the camp, I managed to be involved in musicals, plays, and the chorus in high school.

What about college? Did you go to college right away?

I was a pretty good student, and I was in a college prep program in high school. My teachers had me reading Solzhenitsyn, Buckley, Kirk, and Burke very early on. One took me to see Tom Sowell and Walter Williams give a lecture in Philadelphia.

But no one in my family in any generation had gone to college, and I didn’t see how I’d pull it off. I thought I’d join the military, and they’d pay for me to go to law school, and then I’d get into politics. I was one of those Reagan teenagers.

But right after high school, I was run over by a forklift that busted up my left leg and shattered my ankle, and that was the end of my military dreams. That’s one of my biggest regrets, never getting to serve.

But I  was eventually running the horse program at Camp Hebron, and that’s how I met my wife. She showed up as a Nurse. I was sick a lot that summer.

After we were married, she said, “Let’s go to college. I’ll work. I’m a nurse. I can get us through.”

Where did you go?

I’m presiding at 91łÔąĎ, my alma mater. At the time, it was the Philadelphia College of Bible.

Why did you choose 91łÔąĎ?

I’d been on campus before, recruiting students to work for the camp. And I was reading a book by Cardinal John Henry Newman about higher education, and he believed that one of the things that had gone wrong was that a serious study of theology had been removed from the curriculum. I wanted that component in my undergraduate work. We didn’t have a lot of academic options then, so I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Bible.

When did you become religious?

In 1979, my dad, who was an alcoholic, drove his car off the road, trying to end his life, and didn’t. He ended up in a court-mandated rehab center, and a pastor who lived down the street from us went to visit him. My father became a Christian, and soon after that, the rest of the family followed.

I was 13 or so, and it was transformational for me. It was like encountering the horse. It reframed my whole understanding of myself and the world.

When I got to high school and started reading all these other books, I saw threads running together about moral authority and universal truths and principles that govern human experience and human nature. These political theorists and historians weren’t necessarily evangelical Christians, but they were talking about the same larger topics.

Looking back, who were the people who saw promise in you and opened up doors for you?

My dad and others did a lot to instill in me a sense of discipline and perseverance. There were a handful of teachers at Middletown High School who were incredible, and then there was Greg Pike, who mentored me at the camp.

When I got to college, a faculty member asked me about grad school and directed me to a group and organizational psychology program at Temple University. It was one of two programs in the country still working off the theoretical foundation laid by Kurt Lewin, a Jewish Prussian Psychologist who came to America in the ’30s.

Going to Temple was another of those epiphanal moments that sharpened my perspective on the world. I gained a psychological perspective on human dynamics, how people work together, and how systems work.

There were a couple of professors there, Sue Wheelan and Larry Kraft, who changed my life. They had polar opposite worldviews from mine, but they saw promise and let me do good work for them, and I learned a ton. Sue Wheelan took me on almost every consulting job that she went on. I became a good research methodologist and analyst.

How did you end up back at 91łÔąĎ?

I did my master’s in one summer and two semesters. When I finished, there were folks who wanted me to work at Temple as a research analyst, and folks who wanted me to come back to Cairn and teach social and behavioral sciences.

My wife reminded me that we started this because of the love of teaching I’d found at camp, so I took the position at Cairn in ’94 while I entered the doctoral program. Teaching is how I’m wired, and at a place like Cairn, you’re not just teaching the subject matter, you’re investing in students and getting involved in their lives.

It was such a great experience. But three or four years later, there was an opening for the senior vice president for undergrad and dean of undergraduate education.

The president at the time asked me about moving into administration. I said, “I feel like I’m really good in the classroom.” Another faculty member came to me and said, “If it’s not you, who’s it going to be? And can you work for them?” I went back to the president and said, “I’ll do it.”

Tell me about how you want 91łÔąĎ to be perceived by the outside world.

It would be great if people could understand that higher education students have lots of different interests and needs.

We serve evangelical young adults who come here to learn from people who share those commitments and teach from that perspective. Other Christian colleges want to serve a broader audience, and that’s not who we are, but at the same time, this isn’t a cloistered, separatist thing.

We believe in full engagement with the world and that all truth is worth pursuing. We just do it within the parameters and scaffolding of a Christian worldview.

Cairn is an academically sound, fully accredited regional university with a diverse array of academic programs and robust co-curriculars. Our fastest-growing programs throughout my presidency have been the business programs.

I think we’re showing that it’s possible to be a good neighbor and a good member of society without capitulating on our convictions.

What are you focused on? We’re halfway through the year, halfway through the third quarter.

We’re launching a new doctoral program and seeing growth in other programs. We started some pre-med programs a few years ago, and our first graduate is moving through his medical training.

We’re in the process of changing my job to allow me to explore speaking and writing and extend the reach of the university.

Higher education is a mess. Enrollments are down because there are fewer high school graduates in the populations most of us serve, and kids are questioning the value of a college education.

I’ve brought a mission-focused perspective to my presidency the entire time. People think college is like business: If you’re not growing, you’re dying.

But what happens is that schools overextend themselves with long-term debt. Then the demographics drop, and you have a problem. The Eisenhower administration pushed higher education to accommodate a population surge, but the baby boomers came and went, and many schools found themselves overextended.

I think colleges have to be true to their missions and not let that growth mentality cloud our judgment. You have to stay solvent to serve your population. I’m proud that we’re in a really good spot in terms of cash reserves. Long-term debt is less than 50 percent of net revenue. We live within our means.

What do you do with all your free time?

I love the outdoors. I started fly-fishing when I was a kid. I have a bird dog, and I do upland hunting. I took a sabbatical last year and got a couple of horses at my place in Upstate Pennsylvania, for the first time in 30 years. Three days in, one of the horses threw me twice. I got back on and rode him until he calmed down, but I’d broken four ribs, three of them in two places.

Just like the baseball to the side of your head?

Yeah, exactly. You get back up and get back on.

Your kids are out of the house, right?

I have a son in the Special Forces. My daughter is a Musician who’s working as an Administrator at a local business.

Are you a reader?

I read all the time, mostly histories and biographies. I have an Audible subscription because I spend so much time in the car. I just finished re-reading Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August.

Do you have a favorite biography?

John Adams by David McCullough. Anything on Churchill is special to me.

I once saw David McCullough in Old City Philadelphia and ran down the street to catch him, just to tell him how remarkable a book that was.

Three last questions for you, Todd. What’s something big that you’ve changed your mind about over the last 20 years?

I can’t fix everything. I can’t control everything. For most of my life, I thought, “I’m smart enough, strong enough, and right enough that I can fix everything. I can fix my family, people. I can fix institutions.” That was a big thing for me to let go of.

It’s a crazy world. How do you stay hopeful and optimistic?

Being honest about history. People are talking now like this president is the worst person that ever set foot on the planet, and I’m thinking, “Did anybody read about Nero? He lit the streets of Rome with human bodies painted with red pitch.” Some real evil has visited us as human beings, and we keep plowing on. Keep things in perspective.

I also have an honest view of human nature, our propensity to do ill, and the capacity to do good. I believe in a good and gracious God, and that all that’s good in the world is by his good hand, and all that is not because of what’s gone wrong with humanity.

There’s a proverb in the Bible that says, “Let your eyes look directly ahead of you. Don’t look to the left or the right.”

You’re not distracted by what’s on either side, you’re not looking over your shoulder at the past, and you’re not trying to see the future you can’t control. You keep your eyes straight ahead of you and keep going.

Finally, Todd, what’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

My mentor in college told me, “Take your work seriously. Yourself, not so much.” I repeat it to everybody I can.

This article was orginally published under the title “Delaware County Leadership: Todd Williams, PhD, President and CEO, 91łÔąĎ” by Ken Knickerbocker on .

There is no room here to exhaust the biblical references tied to material matters. Even among people of faith, there is ample disagreement regarding interpreting many passages dealing with money and property. But I would like to take a swing at a few things worth considering based on conversations with friends, what young people are talking about, and the messages we are all ingesting via social media. Firstly, the growing sympathy for socialism and socialist thinking is very troubling. I know (and have for more than 40 years) many who believe Christianity and the Bible even endorse a collectivist outlook on economy. I categorically disagree. The early church held all things in common out of necessity and in Christian love and community. They did not argue for governmental control of personal wealth and property. They had a profound concern for the poor and took action to care for those in need. But they did not advocate those things falling to the government. Perhaps the most penetrating words I have read addressing this come from Winston Churchill, who was no saint but did know his Bible as most in his era did. To paraphrase, he said that Christianity holds that what is mine is yours; Socialism today holds that what is yours is mine (or ours).

Generosity, compassion, charity, benevolence, and frugality are Christian virtues that carry with them expectations for thinking and behaving laid upon people of faith from which there is no exemption. Likewise, greed, avarice, envy, and covetousness are ill-conceived virtues that carry the same implications for which there is no justification. Forming a perspective or philosophy of personal and social economic ideas takes work. Christianity and the Bible offer thinking that is not overly simplistic and is often marked by paradox. For example, Jesus teaches with some force that the poor should be cared for with compassion and exhorts the rich young man to sell all he has and give the proceeds to the poor in Mark 10. However, in Matthew 26, he also corrects his disciples, who were upset about what they thought was a lavish and wasteful display by a woman anointing his head with expensive oil that could have been sold to help the poor. Jesus says to them, “The poor you will always have with you.” So, which is correct? Both. The Bible teaches to feed the poor, as in Isaiah 58, and that those who will not work should not eat, as in 2 Thessalonians 3. Compassion and benevolence do not cross out personal responsibility and hard work. Other striking references speak to the aversion to wealth and property manifesting in our culture presently. The Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 include protections for wealth and property. You cannot steal it or covet it. This says something about God’s perspective on property and human nature. We must also remember that money is not the root of all evil but the love of money, as 1 Timothy 6 teaches. A faith perspective on money and material matters requires wisdom, intentionality, and humility. 

This article first appeared in-print in Bucks County Courier Times on February 16, 2025.

As an evangelical Christian educator and social theorist, I have observed that culture and society have progressed in a particular direction since 2016. I have noticed for longer than that how polarized the country is on any number of political and cultural issues. But in the last eight years, the divisions in America have become more pronounced and visceral. Polls on matters ranging from candidate preference to abortion, gun control, and immigration show Americans are sharply divided, with the majority margins rarely above three or four by percent. In addition to this, the emotion expressed on any given issue makes it easy to see why communities, workplaces, churches, and families are experiencing tension, division, and even fractured relationships. These observations have led me to ask whether something more fundamental is underneath these disagreements and this division. And are we divided over something deeper than the issues? I believe the answer to both questions is yes.

From a faith perspective, as a Christian who believes in the teaching and authority of the Bible, I also conclude that in the person of God, there is a higher moral authority according to whose standards and expectations our individual lives and our society should be ordered. There is a lot to unpack there that this column does not allow for. But for people of the Christian faith who have this view of the Bible and believe in God’s moral authority, this is a major dividing line, one on which we cannot compromise without compromising our core beliefs and values, the things that we hold central to our faith, living, and thinking. Our moral reasoning is inextricably tied to our faith.

At the same time, we live in a secularized and pluralistic society where a significant number of people have embraced subjectivism and moral relativism. Many people believe there is no absolute, objective, or knowable truth. They believe individuals decide for themselves through reason and experience what truth is. So, it stands to reason that moral relativism is a good fit for moral reasoning. This is a difficult place to find ourselves as a society; on any given issue of a political or cultural nature, we have people taking sides who may disagree on a more fundamental level—not about policy or even what is right, true, or moral, but on what basis they decide what is right, true, or moral. All you have to do is think about the words used by those who disagree on the issue of abortion: pro-life versus pro-abortion or pro-choice versus anti-abortion. The assignment of these terms to those who hold a particular view with which we disagree underscores that what we disagree about is not merely how we respond to an unplanned or compromised pregnancy but how we understand the basis on which that decision is made and how we decide who decides. Perhaps one step to navigating this divide is to acknowledge more precisely what divides us on this more profound level. It is difficult to find a way through if we are misidentifying the problem.

This article was originally published in the in-print issue of Bucks County Courier Times on October 27, 2024.

To be fair, there have been times in our history when Easter took on more significance or seemed more profoundly encouraging or inspirational. Think only of the dark days at the close of the Civil War in 1865. Following four violent and tumultuous years that tore the country apart, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox on Palm Sunday, bringing hostilities to a close. But on Good Friday, a few days later, John Wilkes Booth fatally shot Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater, threatening the recent promise of peace, casting a pall over the country, and undermining a more promising reconstruction. 

It is hard to imagine that church pews weren’t a bit fuller that year, sermons a little more somber, and hope a little more hoped for. In fact, it is worth noting that in America, Easter wasn’t really officially celebrated until after the Civil War. Some historians note that many Americans reacquainted themselves with the Easter season following this time in our nation’s history, when they may have found some degree of hope and healing in the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus.

It is understandable that this would be so. The history of the resurrection is epochal for the followers of Jesus and for the world. And so, it stands to reason that people in distress would look to it as a source of encouragement, inspiration, and hope. But the resurrection of Christ is more than inspirational for Christians. It is true and an essential to Christian teaching—integral to the gospel of Jesus—because the death, burial, and resurrection are inextricably tied to the belief that in these things atonement is made, forgiveness and redemption are offered, and the promise of eternity is secured for those who believe. This is why it offers hope and healing. For the men and women who had been following Jesus, these were dark days indeed. Their teacher, their Lord, had been arrested, tortured, and hung upon a cross to suffer in agony for long hours before succumbing. They scattered, went into hiding, feared their own arrests, and were experiencing excruciating grief and loss as the one they loved was laid hastily in a borrowed tomb. So overtaken by their own fear, confusion, and grief, they did not recall that Jesus himself had foretold these events and promised to return to life in three days. They had, as humans tend to do, lost hope.

In the Gospel of John, we read that Mary Magdalene finds the stone rolled away from the tomb entrance and runs back to the disciples to tell them that Jesus’ body is missing, perhaps stolen. So, Peter and John, along with Mary, go running back to the tomb. The Bible tells us that after finding Mary’s report to be accurate, Peter and John go home. Mary stays, weeping. She looks into the tomb and sees two angels, who ask her why she weeps. She tells them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” She then turns to see a man, whom she supposes to be the gardener. He says to her, “Woman, Why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” In desperation and confusion, she beseeches the supposed stranger to tell her where the body is. This gardener is, in fact, Jesus. He simply responds to her by saying her name, “Mary.” In that moment, she recognizes not only his voice but the manner in which he says her name, as one who knows and loves her. And in that moment, her fears, doubts, and grief give way to unspeakable joy as she runs to him, crying “Teacher!” He is alive! 

This is the impact of the resurrection for the Christian: Jesus actually lives, he has conquered sin and the grave, and he gives new life. This is more than a mere picture of healing and hope in the dark times of life. In the Christian faith, everything hinges and hangs upon the resurrection, and because of it, we believe all the claims of Jesus. 

The article was originally published in the in-print issue of Bucks County Courier Times on March 31, 2024.

When thinking on such things, ranging from personal loss and suffering to the world-weary burden bearing down upon humanity, it is completely understandable to ask what has Christmas to do with any of this? Is there nothing more to Christmas than the temporary distraction from our individual and collective human woes? Are the notions of generosity and kindness, of peace and joy only fleeting pretenses to make us feel better about ourselves and the world for just a bit? Or, is there something more, something deeper and more lasting to Christmas? As a committed Christian, I say emphatically, and without apology, yes, yes, yes. The state of our world and lives today is precisely the sort of broken and sorrowing world into which Jesus was born over 2,000 years ago. From shepherds to Magi, from those living under Roman occupation to those burdened by the harshness of life in the ancient world, the good news declared by the angels that blessed night was welcomed hopefulness and joy.

When I think on Christmas this way, I cannot help but think of the poem, “Christmas Bells,” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The story of this poem is a powerful and inspiring one. Longfellow was no stranger to suffering, no stranger to world-weariness. His wife, Fanny, died tragically from burns suffered when her dress caught fire. The recent widower’s son who volunteered to fight for the Union was grievously wounded in December 1863. Longfellow’s pen fell silent. Despite being a man of faith, he lost the will to write, let alone celebrate Christmas. But the following December in 1864, on Christmas day, the bells of the local church pierced the silent darkness of Longfellow’s despair and called him to write a poem that would eventually be set to music and sung at Christmas every year since. As you read it, think not only of its eloquence, but of the individual and collective contexts from which it comes. Think on how that compares to the individual and collective contexts into which Jesus was born. And think finally on how this message speaks to our own individual and collective contexts today. 

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
    And wild and sweet
    The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
    Had rolled along
    The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
    A voice, a chime,
    A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
    And with the sound
    The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
    And made forlorn
    The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
    “For hate is strong,
    And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
    The Wrong shall fail,
    The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

This article was originally published in-print in the Bucks County Courier Times on December 24, 2023.

Dr. Todd Williams was recently featured on Stand in the Gap Today, a radio show led by the American Pastors Network that seeks to discuss cultural issues from a biblical perspective. One of the latest episodes, which aired on Tuesday, August 29, asked the question “Can Gen Z-ers Become Civic-minded?”

Stand in the Gap Today host Jamie Mitchell presented the issue that more and more academic institutions were neglecting to teach students about civics. The disconcerting statistics Mitchell shared shed light on students’ subsequent lack of civic knowledge, including facts such as only 12 percent of college students surveyed could articulate the relationship and difference between the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment; only 15 percent correctly identified James Madison as the father of the Constitution; and 39 percent could name three branches of government, 14 percent could name two, and 25 percent could name only one.

These grim facts point out not only the problem of uninformed citizens, but it also reveals the problem of uninformed Christians. Dr. Williams discussed on the show how his own experience in teaching has made him personally aware of these sentiments and has given cause for him to address the problem at 91łÔąĎ, most notably by ensuring that the undergraduate curriculum includes a robust civics course for every student who comes through the University doors, regardless of their major.

As many accept an apathetic attitude toward American civics, Dr. Williams first cited the apostle Paul’s invoking his rights as Roman citizen as an example of the practical need for the knowledge of American government, ultimately to “instill a commitment to be an informed citizen.” But the importance of understanding American civics does not have implications just for practical knowledge. Dr. Williams also motivated students, parents, pastors, and other leaders to adopt this “civic-minded” attitude as they considered what it meant to be a Christian. Dr. Williams recognized that “what we can do is actually help our people understand that they have a dual citizenship and that they have an obligation to seek the welfare of the city that God has placed them in.” He concluded that “the Lord could have taken us home at the moment of conversion. He chose to leave us here as His ambassadors, to do good work. And that good work isn’t just carrying out ministry in the church or parachurch ministries, it’s being good neighbors and good citizens, people who are striving for a good society…to not take advantage of those things is to squander our resources.”

You can listen to the full recording of “Can Gen Z-ers Become Civic-minded” and other Stand in the Gap Today episodes .