WHY I LOVE THEOLOGY

Theology is thinking about God, no more and no less. So, you do not have to write volumes of books about God to be a theologian. I think about God; therefore I am a theologian.

Theologians belong to one of two camps- either they are systematic theologians or practical theologians. Being a systematic theologian implies that person considers the entirety of God’s being and actions to put forth doctrine while a practical theologian considers selected portions of God’s being and actions in the application of doctrine. Furthermore, theologians are not necessarily Christian- any organized religion can and does have theologians. And Christian theologians can and do differ in how they understand God.

Having said all this, I am a Christian practical theologian who is an evangelical in the Baptist faith tradition; as such, I hold a high Christology and a high view of Scripture, and believe in the authority of Scripture, believer’s baptism, priesthood of the believer, congregational governance, and separation of Church and State. Christian education has been my primary contribution to practical theology as a result of my education and experiences.

My theology before I was converted to Christianity on March 14, 1969, was rather skimpy and incomplete. To ascertain that I was an atheist would be partially correct. I was for all practical purposes a Deist in that I believed that Someone or Something had created us and then left us to our own devices for survival. Just months before my conversion I hedged my bets by deciding to be an agnostic by opening the possibility of believing in God if God’s existence could be “proven” to me by my own terms. I soon discovered that God did indeed exist but God did it His way.

Another theological shortcut I used before my conversion was the balance scale. I would balance out my actions on a scale in my mind. If my actions tilted toward the good, I was safe with God. If my actions tilted the toward the bad I would rationale them away so I could deceive myself into continuing to believe that I was a good person.

To simply testify that on the morning of Saturday, March 14 when I awoke I was not a Christian and when I fell asleep that evening I was is correct but the narrative leaves out rich details, before and after my conversion. I believe my story begins Friday, February 13,1969 (or the following Friday) when arriving at my college dorm room after classes that day I heard the voices of strangers talking with my roommate and at least one other friend. I entered my room and three other students I did not know talking with my friends about God. We introduced ourselves and I discovered the three were students with the Baptist Student Union (BSU), After discussing the existence of God for a few minutes, the three invited us to a retreat at “the ranch” occurring in a few weeks. I accepted their invitation (I do not recall if my two friends did or not).

What the BSU called “the ranch” was actually an old farmstead located in south central Oklahoma about an hour or so driving time from campus. On the property was an old bunkhouse where we met, slept, and ate. On the first (and only) night there we all introduced ourselves. I discovered about half of us were BSUers, including the three who had visited my dorm room several weeks earlier, and the rest of us were inquirers about Christianity, including me. I remember the atmosphere was positive, friendly, and encouraging, and the BSUers were sincere about the sharing of their faith.

The next morning, after breakfast, we were split into groups of two- a BSUer was paired with an inquirer. My partner was Mike King. Mike and I read through the first chapter of the Book of James in the Christian New Testament. Then Mike looked intently at me and asked me if that was the kind of life I desired. Knowing my life needed focus and direction, I replied, “Yes.” We then prayed and I committed my life to Jesus Christ.

The next day I attended First Baptist Church of Norman Oklahoma. In worship “Preacher Hallock”, the senior pastor, asserted in his sermon that Jesus Christ as the Son of God was God. “Wow!” I recall thinking as a light bulb went on in my head- “Now, it make sense.” While I had previously heard that Jesus was the Son of God, I had never made the connection that Jesus as Son was God Incarnate as part of the Trinity.

Another aspect of being a Christ follower was that I met my future wife “just in time.” After attending First Norman a few weeks I heard about a dynamic church nearer to Oklahoma City. First Southern Baptist Church of Del City even sent buses to campus, a one-way trip of 25 miles, both Sunday mornings and evenings to pick up students. One evening I decided to ride a bus.

First Southern Del City was huge, a mega-church before the term became popular with church sociologists. The congregation was also diverse, comprising blue collar and middle class suburbanites sprinkled with a few bankers and oil men, as well as with military families from Tinker Air Force Base, and college students from primarily OU and Oklahoma Baptist University. The church was mostly white with a noticeable number of blacks and a few Asians. The style of its worship services was decidedly “low church” with evangelistic preaching and stirring music. It was about as pentecostal without being Pentecostal as a church could be. And I decided this church was for me as I came forward at the conclusion of a morning worship service and asked to be baptized. That event occurred in April.

I do not remember when I first sighted her- “her” being Karen Kay McLane. But the place was on a church bus one evening in April going to evening worship. I got on the bus and sat down. As I was looking around I spied a beautiful co-ed with a winning smile talking to a friend of hers. I immediately took notice and a voice inside my head exclaimed, “I am going to marry her!”  I made sure that we sat together during worship. We introduced ourselves and I discovered that she drove a Ford Mustang – my favorite car! (That sealed the deal!)

I proposed on July 4 and we were formally engaged the following summer when Karen’s parents drove to Afton to meet my grandparents. Throughout the process there was some drama and chaos, yet we made it work out. We were married on January 15, 1971, in the Del City church.

The reader may be asking what do the stories of my conversion and courtship have to do with theology. Unlike the Deist god who has been described as the ultimate Clockmaker who created us and then checked out, the God of the biblical canon is a loving Father who cares for and sustains His creation with His active involvement. Theology is our human attempt to make sense of the divine involvement.

          

 

 

 

WHY I LOVE EDUCATION

I have loved education since I was an elementary school student in California (Orange and Costa Mesa), in Colorado (Denver), and in Oklahoma (Afton and Big Cabin). The schools were vastly different except in one important way- all of them had the same mission to educate their students in the basics of reading, writing, mathematics, and the other disciplines of learning. At least with me the schools were successful and I want to thank all my elementary and secondary teachers for their dedication and hard work.

Moving 18 times before graduating high school seemed to make me a perpetual new kid on the block. Elementary schools became my safe spaces where I could make friends with other kids and with my teachers. My teachers were firm, fair, and friendly. When I got out of line, I would receive the appropriate discipline. When I needed help, I received extra encouragement and the assistance I needed. When I went above and beyond, I received praise.

I had my first girlfriend while attending Edison Elementary in Denver. Jackie Edwards was cute and talkative. We held hands in the hallways and visited each other’s homes. At Edison I also was in a school play as Silverheels, the dance hall girl. No, I was not traumatized with gender confusion as a result of my acting!

I found middle school a slightly different experience. The teachers were ready to teach and to assist with my learning. But there were more of them so with 7 or 8 classes I had 7 or 8 teachers. Everything began to change faster now and I often was bewildered by events. The middle school I attended in Anaheim California was huge and due to the short time I was a student there, I made only one friend before we permanently moved back to Oklahoma. She was cute and just as bewildered as I was about life. I do not remember her name but I do pray for her. The only class I remember while there was drafting. I could work with my hands and think while I completed my assignments.

The high school in Afton Oklahoma was small and the one in Big Cabin where I attended for only a semester was even smaller with no football team! Only my American history class stands out at Afton. I designed my own college prep track, played football as a substitute lineman, and began to attend church for the first time, although not a Christian. The draw I had to the now-closed Afton Methodist Church was the youth group that met in the church basement on Sunday evenings. Our leader was Rosemary Maloney, an outgoing fun-loving woman who had an attractive daughter named Marti who is a year or so younger than me. I remain friends with them to this day along with Barbara Eubanks and Candy Fuser, two other classmates. I graduated with honors and went off to the University of Oklahoma in Norman.

In other essays I have already detailed my positive experiences in Norman- becoming a Christian, marrying my college girlfriend, and receiving a superb education. So I will take another look at my high school experiences. If an alien arrived on our planet within the last few decades and it began reading books and watching movies in which the protagonists are coming of age in high school the alien would be left with an impression that high school was a prison which scarred those persons for life. Along with everything else in life, each person’s high school experience will contain the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Coupled with high school teenagers also face changing bodies (with raging hormones!), a heightened independence from parents, and growing expectations in mature behavior from family, friends, and community. But beware- the growth in expecting maturity has slowed over the decades. I recall one of my college professors commenting on this topic by comparing the movies “Rebel Without A Cause” (1950s) to “Easy Rider” (1960s). I will leave it to my readers to discern the details of my professor’s commentary.

My education post-bachelor’s degree have been a mixed bag of presentations with fairly good results regardless of mode- classroom on campus, classroom by extension, or long-distance via computer, or personal. I remember when one of my seminary professors noting that I had received a master’s degree from Boston University asked me how I liked the city of Boston. When I replied that I had never been to Boston his facial expression was one of surprise. Perhaps he thought BU had become an instruction by correspondence school or even worse, I had received a worthless graduate degree from an unaccredited degree mill pretending to be BU! He looked relieved when I told him that I studied with BU faculty in Germany while stationed there with the US Army.

A word about personal learning is appropriate here.  In a previous essay I wrote about the difference between a schooler and a learner. A schooler is a person who prefers formal education with classrooms and degrees while a learner can learn anywhere at any time. You would be correct to surmise that I am a learner. Writing on a blog, completing two personal learning projects, taking college courses without credit, attending seminary without credit as a post-doctoral fellow, and writing and self-publishing two books (and working on a third) are examples of informal learning in which I have engaged. And despite the many books on the subject of planning, I learned more about planning while engaged in that activity while a soldier assigned to battalion headquarters than anywhere else.

In summary, I love education because I learned and continue to learn much through the process, schools were safe places for me throughout my childhood and youth, and schools provided the social context where I learned to become a decent human being. And all my teachers, instructors, and professors were knowledgeable in the subjects they taught and were strong in their pedagogical practices so they did not have to choose between being either a “sage on the stage or guide on the side” nonsense progressive educators like to advocate for.

 

 

 

 

  

WHY I LOVE HISTORY

It is no secret to the astute readers of my blog and books that I love history. Previously, I have written some preliminary coverage of that topic. Nevertheless, in this essay, I desire to flesh out my love of history in a more detailed way.

My enjoyment of history began in high school in Afton Oklahoma. Our principal, Hugh Sapp, was also our history teacher, among several others. Although Mr. Sapp was dry in his presentations, I sensed that he appreciated history as a discipline worthy of study. I also at the same time wanted to understand my family situation in tandem with exploring the big events happening around me- Cold War, Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam War, and Sexual Revolution. I found history to be the portal to lead me to a deeper understanding of the issues facing not only my family but also me personally.

The following is what I learned about history through my classes in high school and college, independent reading and study, and personal reflection:

·       There is no “right side of history” in the secular sense. This is a myth foisted upon us by partisans of both the Right and the Left to enable their agendas to be more readily accepted in Western culture. Change is not always progress on which to evaluate the human condition. A related myth is that “moral arc of the universe.”

·       The “right side of history” is only relevant in the spiritual sense. Only God as revealed in the biblical canon of the Hebrew Scriptures and Christian New Testament sets the goal and direction of history to the end of history. History is the canvas on which the biblical story of God’s redemptive efforts are visualized. So whether one is on the right side or wrong side of history is whether or not is determined by one’s commitment to joining Christ to participate with God in His redemptive efforts.

·       The United States is not a Christian nation. That notion is another myth foisted upon us, usually from the Right. The US is a great nation blessed by God but is not the New Israel. The US, like all other nations, is tied to a geographical identity, while the Church is trans-geographical. God cannot and will not be tied to a particular piece of land. Nor can the US be compared to the fall of the Roman Empire. Our nation will be judged by the same standards God uses for all nations.

·       History is indeed Messy, Contradictory, and Nuanced- that is my MCN theory of history. People in history, even our heroes, are or were flawed persons. That is why serious students of history must dig deep to get past the myths, lies, and legends tied to people and events to find the truths buried in complexities and begin to comprehend the truths.

·       And it is not usually the facts that disputes and controversies, it is the interpretations of facts that are often contested. Dates and place names are important to the study of history by showing context but must not be the end result of one’s study. To focus merely on the facts is to make history impotent and prevent one from using one’s historical imagination to understand historical lessons and to solve problems.

·       History, at least American history, runs in cycles between Left and Right. It is as if Americans attempt to make political corrections to run a centrist course. I discovered this trend in high school and wrote a paper on this subject. My thesis was validated a few years later when I read The Cycles of American History by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., a Harvard historian who was a White House advisor to President Kennedy.

·       The Constitution does indeed follow the Flag. This is a concept I picked up from my American history textbook in high school in 1967 and have not seen it since. I tied it to the concept of geographical morality used by Edmund Burke in his failed attempt in the British House of Commons to remove Warren Hastings as Governor-General of India. The point here is that historical concepts do have power and purpose to guide future generations.

 

  

FROM INDIANS TO CARDINAL: STANFORD FOOTBALL'S SEARCH FOR IDENTITY & HIGH PERFORMANCE

 

Personal Background

Fall is my favorite season of the year- cool and crisp weather, colorful foliage, and college football. I love college football even with the unintended consequences of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) and the transfer portal. I find It somewhat unseemly that a college football player can earn millions of dollars and play for seven years. Under whose reality can trust and loyalty ever be developed in these conditions among the teams? Yet college coaches to be successful today must deal with NIL, the transfer portal, and the trust factor simultaneously and if they cannot, they will be fired even in mid-season.

I have made it no secret that I attended and graduated from the University of Oklahoma who since the end of World War II has been the most successful college football program in terms of wins. Along the way, OU has won numerous national championships and produced seven Heisman Trophy winners. While a student at OU I became a Christian, married my college girlfriend, and received a superb education, So, football directly affected me very little. Nevertheless, football affected me very much in the sense that some of my friends and classmates were scholarship football players and the home games helped to give the student body a sense of pride in our university and state.

I also follow other college teams other than OU. Among these are Tulsa, Kansas State, Texas Christian, Rice, Michigan, and Stanford. Stanford is the major subject of this essay because it poses a mystery for me, perhaps it is more of a paradox. Whether attempt to define those terms, I will the readers decide,

 

Identity

Stanford University, or more legally Leland Stanford, Junior University, was founded in 1891 as a private nonsectarian, coeducational university by Leland and Jane Stanford in honor of their son Leland, Jr, who had died in 1884 at the of 15 due to typhoid. Leland, Sr.  had served as governor of California and US Senator from that state until his death in 1893. He arrived in California during the Gold Rush and became a successful merchant. Later he was a founder of the Central Pacific Railroad and was its president as well the president of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Stanford left a mixed legacy- some labeled him a “robber baron” while others call him a “captain of industry.”

Today, Stanford University is rated as a top-notch institution of higher education not only in the US, but also globally. It is known for its connection to Silicon Valley and for its innovation through the various affiliative schools- business, education, law, etc. Perhaps unknown to most persons is that the Hoover Institution has a prominent place on Stanford’s campus. Originally set up to study war, peace, and revolution, and named after President Herbert Hoover who was one of Stanford’s earliest graduates, the institution is now a conservative think tank.

Now, I will return to football. For many years, the Stanford athletic teams were known as the Indians since 1930 for reasons obscure to me. Around 1970, the mood on campus began to change against this nickname and the various mascots like “Prince Lightfoot.” Native American students, staff, and their allies objected to the cultural insensitivity and racial stereotyping. In 1972, a formal protest was made to the university administration and as a result, the “Indians” nickname and associated mascots and rituals were dropped. The search commenced.

Other universities, including my alma mater, were undergoing the same process. OU teams are called the Sooners, a reference to the 1889 Land Run which essentially created the State of Oklahoma in 1907. A Sooner was a cheat who went into the unassigned lands before the Boomers to claim their plots. Then we had an Indian mascot chanting inanely

at our home football games. He was seen by many of our students as silly and that mascot was replaced after I graduated in 1972 in favor of the Sooner Scooter, a prairie wagon pulled by two horses appropriately named Boomer and Sooner,]

Stanford’s search for a new athletic identity hit a few snags. Proposed nicknames like “Griffin’ and “Robber Barons” were considered and rejected. Finally in 1981 Stanford chose “Cardinal”- the color, not the bird” as its new nickname with the Stanford Tree as its unofficial mascot. The Tree is actually the symbol of the Stanford Band and represents El Palo Alto, the redwood featured on Stanford’s seal and the city of Palo Alto’s logo.

 

Performances and Awards

Ironically. Stanford’s football fortunes peaked about the time of the nickname change. At the conclusion of the 1970 Rose Bowl, quarterback Jim Plunkett won the Heisman Trophy (the only Stanford player to do so) and he and wide receiver Randy Vataha led their team to an 8-3 regular season followed by a 27-17 upset of Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. In the 1971 season Stanford finished 8-3 once again and upset Michigan 13-12 in the Rose Bowl. This was the last game Stanford was known as the Indians. The Cardinal has appeared in 14 Rose Bowls and claims two national championships- 1926 and 1940.

Compare Standford’s football with another private school rival on the Pacific coast- USC.

School	National Champs	Heisman Winners	Rose Bowls	NFL Draft Picks
Stanford	2	1	15	>200
USC	11	8	34	>500

 

Yet there is one area in which Stanford excels- having the most Heisman runners-up:

Player	Position	Year
John Elway	Quarterback	1982
Toby Gerhart	Running Back	2009
Andrew Luck	Quarterback	2010
Andrew Luck	Quarterback	2011
Christian McCaffery	Running Back	2015
Bryce Love	Running Back	2017

 

Stanford’s string of second-place finishes—especially five in less than a decade—has made it the most frequent runner-up in Heisman history. I believe the reason for this situation is simple. And it does not in what was recently suggested to me that Stanford is more “honorable and team oriented” than the football powers like USC and OU. The answer is simply two words- time zones. A plurality of Americans live in the Eastern Time Zone- about 150.2 million people or 47.8% of our population. Stanford is in the Pacific Time Zone with about 54 million people or 16.6% of our population, three time zones away from the East Coast. The Cardinal teams are not seen through the medium of television as Ohio State or Michigan, especially since the region already has a football juggernaut- USC- that has the nation’s attention and interest.

 

Conference Realignment

Beginning with the 2024 football season the PAC12 Conference of which Stanford was a member ceased to exist. USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington opted for the BIG10 Conference while Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and Arizona State joined the BIG12 Conference. This realignment reduced the number of “power conferences” from five to four and left Stanford, Cal-Berkeley, Oregon State, and Washington State searching for new conference affiliations.

Stanford and its archrival joined the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), The Cardinal, although not playing traditional powerhouses USC and Oregon on a regular basis, now face Miami and Clemson in the ACC. How has that been for them? As I write this in early October 2025 Stanford 1-1 in conference play and 2-3 overall ranked 14^th out of 17 ACC teams. In its initial season with the ACC in 2024, the Cardinal finished 2-6 and 3-9 ranked 16^th. Different conference, same difficulties in sustaining success.

I would like to propose a solution. But first, a little background. More than two decades ago I was the high school head coach for both the boys and girls soccer teams in an urban area. Most of my players came to the teams with little or no soccer skills. Our conference included suburban schools with experienced players with developed skills from years in soccer clubs before high school. I suggested to the coaches of two other schools in the same situation as mine that we form a “Little Three” mini-conference of our own with a trophy awarded to the winner of the head-to-head competition among our three high schools. They agreed and our “little Three” began.

Thus, I propose that Stanford and similar schools form a new conference named the Association of Academics and Athletics (AAA). Teams from institutions like Stanford, Cal-Berkeley, Tulsa, Rice, SMU, Baylor, Tulane, Vanderbilt, Duke, Virginia, William and Mary, Syracuse, Northwestern, and Notre Dame (I know- I know!). AAA would be open to other schools if they agreed to place a priority on academics in their athletic teams. That would mean:

1.     No NIL.

2.     Limited transfer portal.

3.     Monied boosters no longer would control the athletics departments.

4.     Focusing on developing players for life, not just for NFL, NBA, etc.

5.     Coaches could focus on coaching and recruiting, not worrying about winning and job security.

 

Conclusion

When I began researching to write this essay, I wanted to answer a simple question why so many Stanford football players were Heisman runners-up as opposed to them winning the Heisman. I discovered a deeper dilemma involving our culture as a whole- the influence of money, the emphasis on winning, and how to sustain success over the long haul. Will AAA, if adopted, solve al current and future problems inherent in college athletics? No, as AAA may bring a host of unintended consequences of its own.