Home » Author Archives: Isaac Botkin

Author Archives: Isaac Botkin

Why History Teaches Us to Hope

This is the very first article that I have written since my son, our first child, was born. As my wife and I train him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, the most important thing that we will teach him, outside of Scripture, is history. We will be teaching history not only so that he will know ...

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Alfred The Great And True Greatness

History is full of rulers who are called, by themselves or others, “great.” Men like Alexander the Great, whose huge empire of conquered nations dissolved a few years after his death, or women like Catherine the Great, who built fabulous palaces and art galleries at tremendous cost to her poor serfs. Usually a ruler’s greatness is limited to one small ...

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4 Reasons Not To Use Traditional Textbooks

For the first few years of my education, my parents used an off-the-shelf, pre-packaged curriculum that relied heavily on textbooks. It was an attractive way to begin homeschooling, since a lot of the work was already done. After a few years, however, they decided that these textbooks were less than helpful, and began compiling their own more flexible curriculum. History ...

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Christian Parenting in the Midst of Violent Media – Part 2

In my last article on violent media, I finished with two points. Firstly, that we must understand death, and teach our children about it. They will encounter violence and sin, and they may even face a martyr’s death themselves. And secondly, that there is a distinct difference between describing the heroic deaths of martyrs, and being a patron of the ...

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Christian Parenting in the Midst of Violent Media – Part 1

Today’s teens and children are probably more familiar with violence than any other generation. While the murders and mayhem they see in movies, TV, and video games are fake, the moral desensitization caused by exposure to gratuitous violence is not. Many studies have been conducted about the effects of viewing violent content, and while many of them disagree on the ...

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How A Few Simple Inventions Changed The Written World

Our world is usually changed by small things. Small minorities, small movements, or small changes to existing ideas often trigger big changes. Until the middle of the 1400s, there was no way to communicate an idea other than by telling it directly to someone, or writing it down by hand. For thousands of years, Scripture, historical facts, or stories were ...

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