From Southwest Ledger In December 2022, outgoing Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor dropped a bombshell opinion that, if upheld by the courts, has the potential to change education forever. He wrote his opinion at the request of the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board who asked if the restrictions against religious organizations sponsoring charter schools remained … Continue reading Questions about Religious Charter Schools
Author: James Finck
Dr. James W. Finck was raised in the shadows of history in the great state of Virginia. Growing up it was difficult to travel too far without running into a monument or battlefield from the Revolutionary or Civil War. In this environment, Finck developed a love for studying the past and from his youth knew that he wanted to make it his life’s work. Finck received a B.A. from the College of William and Mary in Virginia. He then studied under James I. Robertson and William C. Davis at Virginia Tech, while earning a Master’s degree. Finally, he received his Ph.D. at the University of Arkansas, under the direction of Daniel Sutherland. For five years, Finck taught at the University of Texas-Pan American before accepting his current position as American Historian at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma in 2011. At a small liberal arts institution, Finck considers himself a generalist in history, but his specialties are the Civil War and American Politics. Finck has established himself in Oklahoma with the creation of the Oklahoma Civil War Symposium, which has brought in leading Civil War scholars for the past eight years, and he has spoken at many venues around Oklahoma, especially working with the Honey Spring Battlefield. Finck is the author of Divided Loyalties: Kentucky’s Struggle for Armed Neutrality in the Civil War, as well as Images of America: Chickasha. Finck is also the author of the syndicated newspaper column “Historically Speaking.”
Problematic Presidential Children
From Southwest Ledger A few weeks ago saw the indictment and guilty plea of Hunter Biden, son of President Joseph Biden, on two counts of misdemeanor tax evasion. While these were the first crimes the younger Biden has been charged with, they are far from the only ones to which he has been linked. Republicans … Continue reading Problematic Presidential Children
I wrote this for the Southwest Ledger https://www.southwestledger.news/news/questioning-constitutionality-religious-charter-schools
Class Notes
When looking at Hollywood, the 1960s became a real turning point when interpreting the Civil War and this is no more so evident with the 1965 Jimmy Stewart classic Shenandoah. A lot had changed by 1965, it was the last year of the Civil War Centennial that was celebrated across the nation forcing the country … Continue reading Class Notes
Class Notes
If you want to understand the difference on the Homefront between Vietnam and the current wars, in 1967 America lost 10,000 soldiers in Vietnam and it was reported every night on the news. The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan rarely made the nightly news and for many it was easy to forget a war was … Continue reading Class Notes
Class Notes
When dealing with Mary Baker Eddy’s most known work, Amy Voorhess writes: “Others propose that Science and Health is a scripture because, for example, scriptural status lines in the interactive relationship between text and community. Christian Scientists themselves do not subscribe to this view. Neither do they claim that Science and Health reopened the biblical … Continue reading Class Notes
Class Notes
In 1954, on the same day the French were forced to surrender in Vietnam, a peace conference was held. It was determined that the country would be divided between north and south, with Ho Chi Minh controlling the north and the American supported Ngo Dingh Diem in the south. The plan was for the election … Continue reading Class Notes
Class Notes
Amy Voorhess wrote about Christian Science, “This new religious identity was not simply an invention of Christian Scientists but embodied central features of Eddy’s book as it developed over time. This is especially evident if we pay attention to the origins and receptions of Science and Health. Christian Scientists received Eddy’s text most fundamentally as … Continue reading Class Notes
Class Notes
For Civil War and Memory we watched John Ford’s classic Civil War Cavalry film The Horse Soldiers staring John Wayne and William Holden. Released in 1959, in the height of the Civil Rights movement we were watching to see how the themes of the Lost Cause were portrayed. Again, the way I ask students to … Continue reading Class Notes
Class Notes
Amy B. Voorhees in her book A New Christian Identity: Christian Science Origins and Experiences in American Culture wrote, “As early Christian Science adherents engaged the Bible as interpreted by Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, they forged a new Christianity identity. This new religious identity mediated modernity in distinctive … Continue reading Class Notes
