The Blue Collar Scholar

This fall we are starting a new class as we dig into the New Testament. In this episode, we preview the order of topics we will cover along the way, look at the Koine Greek text that the New Testament was originally written in, and discuss the importance of reading the texts in chronological order so as to identify and assess theological development in the New Testament.

This is a sermon given at a local United Methodist church in my hometown on 8/21/2022. This sermon acts as an introduction, of sorts, to the New Testament class that will dominate this podcast feed for the next few months. I hope you enjoy!

In this episode, we wander into dangerous, controversial waters: namely, current events. The events of January 6, 2021, have put Donald Trump in hot water and in danger of criminal prosecution. Once upon a time in the '70s, another former President was in a similar situation. Back then, President Ford chose to pardon Nixon, almost certainly ending his chances to win in 1976, but saving us all from an incredible legal/political circus. Should Biden consider making the same offer to Trump? What are the advantages and disadvantages of such an admittedly unlikely move?

The Civil War changed the United States of America. Just how the war changed our country is explored in this episode of the podcast. We will also take on many controversies related to the Civil War, like the Confederate battle flag and Confederate statues.

Reconstruction was the process by which all the states that had seceded from the United States were reintegrated into the Union. It is also the time when Constitutional Amendments were ratified that laid the framework to give Civil Rights to African-Americans. Those amendments, thankfully, proved to be resilient as nearly every other bit of social justice progress made in the Reconstruction era was challenged and repressed by a white supremacist society, by hostile Southern state and local governments, and by the Hayes Administration that removed federal military protection in the South. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments laid the framework for the Civil Rights Era a century later.

Even before the Civil War was over, the attempt to reframe the entire Confederate project was underway. The result was "The Lost Cause," which asserted that the South was a superior culture with superior warriors, and that the war was only lost because the North had overwhelming numbers and supplies. But mostly, The Lost Cause begs us to believe that slavery was not the cause of secession or the war. In this podcast, we will analyze The Lost Cause philosophy.

What if the South had won the Civil War? What if Stonewall Jackson had not died at Chancellorsville? What if Abraham Lincoln was never assassinated? What if McClellan had taken Richmond and won the war in the Peninsular Campaign?

This episode documents the final battles and offensives that resulted in the surrender of the military forces of the South and the collapse of the Confederate States of America. We will also look at the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

In this podcast episode, we examine the African-American experience in the American Civil War. Early in the war, Blacks were not allowed to fight, and Union Generals struggled with crafting policies regarding escaped slaves who were fleeing from the enemy's land. Eventually, African-Americans were given opportunities to show their value to the Union war effort, and they performed spectacularly. Unfortunately, the South refused to treat Black soldiers as if they were the equals of Northern white prisoners-of-war. Captured African-American Union soldiers were treated like runaway slaves and put into slavery. Therefore, prisoners exchanges came to an end, and the result was horrific prisoner-of-war camps like Elmira and Andersonville.

Nearly every combat engagement of the American Civil War occurred on land. But let us not forget the extraordinary contributions by the US Navy. Without their increasingly successful blockade of the Confederate coastline and their indispensable assistance to the US Army on the Virginia Peninsula and on the Mississippi River, it is unlikely that the Union would have succeeded as they did. Any study of the Civil War is incomplete without examining the Naval War.