In the next few weeks, I will be launching a new book review blog featuring the reviews of several friends of Vision Forum, most notably Mr. Bill Potter. The blog will feature substantial, “New York Times format” reviews of significant and sometimes unusual books which we happen to find interesting.

Participants in the Vision Forum Ministries Faith & Freedom Tours will remember Bill as my faithful and most capable tour guide partner. Bill and I met about twenty years ago when I was attending college and a Presbyterian church in Williamsburg, Virginia, where he was serving as an elder. He and his wife Leslie have seven children: Davis, Dabney, Electa, Beall, Jackson, Lydia, Claire, and Brandon.

Until just about a month ago, Bill lived on an estate in Charles City County, Virginia, which dates back to 1630. It was the location of both Revolutionary and Civil War battles, and the trenches are still visible. Bill’s home was always a delight to visit, not merely for the great company, but also for the wall-to-wall books numbering in the thousands upon thousands.

Incredibly principled in his theology and history, Bill was the top Ph.D. candidate with high ranking grades at the College of William and Mary, but was denied his Ph.D. by the Marxist history chairman (a former “Weatherman” radical at the University of Wisconsin) because of his overt Christian and Southern perspective on history.

My own studies focused on American studies and philosophy of music, but I was able to sit under some of the same history professors as Bill. The history department was a real enigma, being divided between old south historians and Marxist revolutionaries. A few of these professors were reasonable men, and very distinguished historians in their own right, including Ludwell Johnson and the Marxist-turned-Christian, Eugene Genovese.

The greatest academic experience I had during my personal foray through collegiate Babylon was studying under, and being befriended by, President Reagan’s Jefferson Scholar, Forrest McDonald. Dr. McDonald is the author of dozens of books including the Pulitzer Prize finalist Novus Ordo Seclorum and E Pluribus Unum. Though he only visited the college for one year, his presence created an academic hornet’s nest. Even the college president took public opportunities to denounce Dr. McDonald for his belief that the Founders were Christian men. The most embarrassing part of Dr. McDonald’s visit was the intellectual poverty of the student body, some of whom complained that reading the Federalist Papers was just too hard.

I considered it an honor to be able to develop a nice friendship with Dr. McDonald, and enjoyed happy nights at his home discussing the Founding Fathers. His wife was especially brilliant and impressive. She accompanied him to every class and contributed to the lively discussions. Dr. McDonald was never able to persuade me to think like a Hamiltonian, but his encyclopedic knowledge of the Founders was captivating.

Speaking of Professors

In law school, I studied under two Supreme Court nominee rejects — Judge Robert Bork (who was very kind to me despite our fundamental disagreements on constitutional interpretation and the source of law), and Judge Doug Ginsberg. In both cases, my Christianity placed me so far to the right of the professors that I think I may have helped their image with the liberal student body. Both Bork and Ginsberg joined the faculty not long after reaching national attention. Both were viewed by the student body as radical right-wingers. My frequent comments and questions in class had the effect, I believe, of moderating the students’ perception of these distinguished gentlemen. (In Judge Ginsberg’s course on antitrust, for example, where he was perceived as a radical conservative for arguing for reasonable limitations on the government’s role in antitrust litigation, my argument always centered around the inherent and inescapable illegitimacy of antitrust law as a discipline.)

Keep in mind that, for some of my classes (criminal law being one example), I would literally come to class with three books — the textbook, a copy of The Institutes of Biblical Law, and my Bible. I found it exciting to be able to point directly to the biblical cases for the source of law on the various issues we would discuss. Gratefully, most of my professors were not adverse to this. Also, because of the heavy emphasis in my law school on the morally bankrupt Coase theorem, I distributed to every faculty member, and every student who would take one, a copy of Gary North’s brilliant book debunking Coase from the vantage point of biblical economic theory.

Thinking about College

There are two crucial components to every brick and mortar college and university setting: the first is the classroom and the second is the culture. In my view, the culture is the more dangerous of the two, though both must be critically examined through a biblical lens. Most Christians refuse to rigorously evaluate and view the rightness or wrongness of the educational choices before them through a presuppositionally biblical lens. If the question of college is before you, please get my recording entitled, Making Wise Decisions about College and Life After Home School. The series is not designed to tell you what to do, but how to think so you can make your own calls by evaluating the unique set of facts God has given to you, in light of non-optional, eternally binding principles.