This is my review of the Introduction message from the 2008 Witherspoon School of Law and Public Policy. The speaker is Doug Phillips of Vision Forum.
Very appropriately, Doug begins by describing just who John Witherspoon was. He is described as a “son of the cross.” Witherspoon was an educator, a clergyman, and a mentor. He personally trained one sixth of all our founding fathers. Yet, it’s surprising that you rarely, if ever, hear his name mentioned in history text books. You’ve never witnessed a motion picture made about John Witherspoon. There is a clear reason for this. John Witherspoon is considered very politically incorrect by today’s standards. He unapologetically declared the Christian God to be the one, true, God, and the source of all our law. Witherspoon was a Scot. He came to the shores of this country with two foundational books; “Lex Rex” by Samuel Rutherford and “Aaron’s Rod Blossoming” by George Gillespie. Doug expounds on Witherspoon much more eloquently than I have given here in this brief review. I came away from this lecture with a much better appreciation for our largely forgotten “founding father,” John Witherspoon.
In this introductory message, Doug proceeds to introduce the many excellent speakers that will appear in this conference, along with a short preview of their topics. Some of the speakers that he mentioned are as follows: Jordan Lawrence, former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, Hon. Howard Phillips, Bill Einwecter, Col. John Eidsmoe, Don Hart, Bob Renault, Jerome Corsi, and Larry Pratt. I have listened ahead to a few of these speakers, and I can say without a doubt that it has been outstanding information. I’ll save my comments for the reviews I will offer on each of the speakers, but I can tell that this is an excellent resource to add to my library.
Though I’ve heard Doug present the story of Josiah uncovering the lost book of the law, he did a great job declaring it again in this lecture. He also exposes some of the errors that we face as a country, including a quote by evolutionist Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who stated:
“The sacredness of human life is a purely municipal ideal of no validity outside the jurisdiction.”
Doug spends some time exposing the threat of feminism on our country. Written before the November elections, he theorizes how former President Bill Clinton would fulfill his congressionally defined duties as “first spouse” should his wife win the presidency. Though humorous, but not funny, Bill would have been in charge of flower arrangements in the White House. He would have selected the china pattern for the White House dishes. All the while his wife met with heads of state discussing foreign policy.
Doug identified a vulnerability that we have in the Church. There is a tendency for us to be divided against each other. Yet, when we look at the actions of the namesake of this conference, we will learn that John Witherspoon was able to have much greater influence by unifying Christians under a common cause.
There were three separate questions that Doug posed. I’ll leave it to you to get the CDs to find the answers. These question take us to the root of our epistemology, or our process of thought. The first question is, “What is law?” Next, “Can man legislate morality?” Finally, he asked the following: “Which of these men is the most religious, Charles Darwin, Billy the Kid, Billy Graham, or Billy Clinton?” He polled the audience, and Billy the Kid is the only one that got no votes. If you haven’t heard Doug ask this question before, the answer may surprise you.
All in all, I can tell that I’m really going to enjoy listening to these messages. I look forward to offering reviews on each message.
I do have one suggestion for Vision Forum, if they are reading this review. I absolute love my Jamestown Quadricentennial CDs. In addition to the excellent information there, I also appreciate the fact that the very last CD in the set is a compilation CD of all the messages given in MP3 format. This makes it very convenient for me to load all the messages onto my MP3 player. I’m one of those guys who doesn’t have a CD player in my car. But I do have an MP3 player. So, in order to listen to these Witherspoon messages I ripped them all to MP3s. The problem is that each CD is made up of several tracks. So I have a whole lot of individual files that I haven’t taken the time to name. I’ve got “Disc 1 – Track 1,” “Disc 1 – Track 2,” etc. all loaded on my MP3 player. I may take the time at some point in the future to look for software that could combine all the files from a particular CD into one MP3. However, I haven’t had the time to do that so far.
So, my one “constructive criticism” of these CDs so far is simply a technical one. This little issue is minor, and I certainly wouldn’t let it stand in the way of acquiring this set. I think you’ll agree with me that it is an excellent addition to any library. Order your copy by clicking here.
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