Ever since posting my first blog, I have wrestled with what to post next.  Part of the challenge for me in this new enterprise called blogging is that brevity is not my gift. While I personally have no dissatisfaction living in the 21st century, in terms of writing and thinking, I probably would be more at home in a different era, when wordiness was not regarded as a sin, and complicated essays were welcomed rather than frowned upon.  But in the age of the sound byte, Twitter and other social networking sites, instant communication, and the 5 minute attention span (which I partially credit to the explosion of technology that now brings the entire world literally into our hands with all sorts of computerized devices), I am finding that my slower, deliberate and methodical approach to life is appreciated less and less.  But I digress, so permit me to return to my main point: Why did I decide to start this blog?

As I contemplated my answer to that question, I realized that I could sum it up into three basic reasons, all of which are intertwined one with another:

1. The historical significance of the events of 9/11 in 2001, particularly in the realms of philosophy and theology.

2. The historical significance of the Protestant Reformation upon both the rise and decline of the West in the last five hundred years.

3. The Pervasive spread of Post-modern thought into theology, economics, and politics.

Essays could be written on any one of those topics, and I know I cannot exhaustively treat them in my blog.  But neither do I intend to do to write exhaustive essays.  After all, this is a blog, not a book, or a series of book.  Rather, as I have entitled, these are the musings and observations of a Christian historian.  But having said this, these musings and observations are not entirely disconnected from one another.  Instead, they are primarily the result of a single observation that stuck me roughly 2 years ago. This observation was rooted in the last 15 years of my own personal historical, philosophical and theological studies, and relates to each of these three themes I just cited:

Right now, by my own historical observations, we are living at yet another convergences of ideas and historical events that could very likely once again radically alter our world in way we never would have imagined possible 10 or 20 years ago.  But all three of those events are contributing to yet another major shift-politically, economically, culturally, philosophically, and yes, even theologically-in the history of our world.

And as I contemplated this observation, I determined that since I was a historian, and particularly an historian of human thought, that it was my duty to note, observe and record what observations I could make regarding this historical shift and change that I see unfolding before my eyes.  And so, in the coming posts, I wish to expound on these three themes (as well as many other related and sub themes) in order to provide what I hope will be a small, but perhaps useful interpretation to what the major events and changes we see unfolding before our eyes.

To you, my readers, I would invite to accompany me on this journey to learn both about our past, and our present, and perhaps, have some preparation for what may await us in the future.