Articles by Bruce Strom

About Bruce Strom
I was born and baptized and confirmed as a Lutheran. I made the mistake of reading works written by Luther, he has a bad habit of writing seemingly brilliant theology, but then every few pages he stops and calls the Pope often very vulgar names, what sort of Christian does that? Currently I am a seeker, studying church history and the writings of the Church Fathers. I am involved in the Catholic divorce ministries in our diocese, and have finished the diocese two-year Catholic Lay Ministry program. Also I took a year of Orthodox off-campus seminary courses. This blog explores the beauty of the Early Church and the writings and history of the Church through the centuries. I am a member of a faith community, for as St Augustine notes in his Confessions, you cannot truly be a Christian unless you worship God in the walls of the Church, unless persecution prevents this. This blog is non-polemical, so I really would rather not reveal my denomination here.
Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, Montgomery Bus Boycott
Civil Rights

Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, Montgomery Bus Boycott, Lewis’ Biography, Chapter 3

01/12/2024 Bruce Strom 1

The biographer David Levering Lewis writes, “By here dignified bearing during her arrest and arraignment, and because of her impeccable reputation in the black community, Mrs Parks’ defiance compelled the city to charge her explicitly with the violation of the municipal ordinance governing racial accommodation on publicly owned vehicles, and not, as was usually the case, with the elastic offense of disorderly conduct.” […]

Martin Luther King, Youth and Schooling, Lewis’ Biography
Civil Rights

Martin Luther King, Youth and Schooling, Lewis’ Biography Chapters, 1 and 2

01/10/2024 Bruce Strom 10

The biographer David Levering Lewis observes that “the King family belonged to what is known as the school hard preaching, of which cult of personality, and occasional pinch of exploitation, and sulfurous evangelism are indispensable ingredients.” Martin’s maternal grandfather founded the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, and his father, Martin Luther King Sr, grew it into one of the largest and most prestigious black Baptist Churches in Atlanta.

His family was known for their involvement with civil rights. After the disastrous 1906 Atlanta race riots, his maternal grandfather was one of the charter members of the local NAACP chapter. He helped defeat a local bond issue that did not fund any new black schools and was instrumental in advocating the building of Booker T Washington High School, the first school in Atlanta for secondary education. […]

Underground Railroad: Harriet Jacobs, the Slave Girl Who Escapes Slavery Before the Civil War
Civil War Memories

Underground Railroad: Harriet Jacobs, the Slave Girl Who Escapes Slavery Before the Civil War

01/03/2024 Bruce Strom 3

In her 1861 autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs recounts her experiences, spreading the awful truth about slavery. “I can testify,” she writes, “from my own experiences and observations, that slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks. It makes the white fathers cruel and sensual; the sons violent and licentious; it contaminates the daughters, and makes the wives wretched. And as for the colored race, it needs an abler pen than mine to describe the extremity of their sufferings, the depth of their degradation.” […]

Loving God in Deuteronomy, and a Gentile’s Defense of Judaism, Part 2
Judaism

Loving God in Deuteronomy, and a Gentile’s Defense of Judaism, Part 2

12/29/2023 Bruce Strom 2

When studying the rabbinical commentaries on Deuteronomy, I was struck by the number of times the commandment to Love God was repeated in various forms, including the commandment to Fear God, which is roughly equivalent, so I decided to count them, there are about twenty repetitions. This was surprising to me as a Christian, for as St Paul exhorts, “the letter” of the law “kills, but the Spirit gives life.” […]

Medieval Jewish and Christian Commentators, My Gentile Defense of Judaism, Part 1
Judaism

Medieval Jewish and Christian Commentators, My Gentile Defense of Judaism, Part 1

12/23/2023 Bruce Strom 2

At roughly the time of Jesus, an inquirer requested of both Rabbi Shammai and Rabbi Hillel, “Convert me to Judaism on condition that you will teach me the entire Torah while I stand on one foot.” Shammai pushed the man away with the building rod he was holding. Undeterred, the man then came before Hillel with the same request. Hillel responded, “That which is hateful unto you, do not do unto your neighbor. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary. Now, go and study.” […]

Double Agent Garbo: The Ordinary Person Who Played a Major Role in Defeating Nazi
History

Double Agent Garbo: The Ordinary Person Who Played a Major Role in Defeating Nazi Germany

12/15/2023 Bruce Strom 1

After Nazi Germany invaded Poland, then France, Pujol decided the best way he could contribute was to serve as a spy against Nazi Germany. He visited the British embassy in Madrid three times in early 1941 offering his services. He was rebuffed out of hand.
How could our Spanish friend burnish his spy resume? By volunteering at the German embassy, playing the role of a fanatic Spanish fascist who could travel to London on official business! The Germans gave him a crash course in espionage, secret writing with invisible ink, a codebook, cash for expenses, giving him the codename ALARIC. His instructions were to move to England and recruit a network of British agents. […]

Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
Dementia and Alzheimers Disease

Do We Have Free Will? Phineas Gage and Case Studies From the Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

12/06/2023 Bruce Strom 3

The concept that someone could be so demented that they are no longer responsible for their behavior is hard for people to accept. After all, the concept that we are all responsible for our actions, that we always act out of free will, is a bedrock principle in our legal and even religious institutions. But unfortunately, as psychologists know, there are many mentally ill who cannot control their actions.
One early and famous case history is that of Phineas Gage, who is perhaps the most famous and influential schmuck in human history. I have listened to many psychology lectures in Wondrium, the Teaching Company, and university lectures on Youtube that retell the story of Phineas Gage, which I have heard a dozen times. When my daughter in medical school told me that she was starting her psychology section, I told her that she would hear the remarkable story of Phineas Gage, which she did a few days later. […]

Jimmy Carterm Inspirational Devotions SMALL
Bible Stories and Parables

Jimmy Carter Inspirational Daily Devotions: Bible Stories, Reflections on Historical Events

11/28/2023 Bruce Strom 2

One of Bonhoeffer’s most famous books carried the title, The Cost of Discipleship. In it he condemns what he calls cheap grace. He insists one cannot follow Christ without full commitment, wherever that commitment might lead. In his case it led to a Nazi gallows.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth were leaders in the Confessing Church that resisted the Nazi infiltration and cooption of German Christianity, opposing the Nazi notion that Jesus wasn’t Jewish and that Christianity should condone the persecution of the Jews. […]

Summary Platonic Dialogues on Love and Friendship
Philosophy

Summary of Platonic Dialogues on Love, With Commentary by Copleston and Anders Nygren

11/24/2023 Bruce Strom 6

How can we benefit by reflecting on Four Platonic Dialogues on Love: Lysis, Alcibiades, Symposium, and Phaedrus? How similar are they? Was it possible for men and women, and husbands and wives, to be friends in ancient Greece and Rome? Did the Platonic dialogues on love condone or encourage homosexuality […]