Very little is known about the life and career of Gillaime Shakspar-- later dubiously presumed to be the playwright, William Shakespeare. Apparently, he was born into a tradesman's family in Stratford-upon-Avon on this day in 1564. When he was eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, who was ten years...

On this episode of the Standfast-cast George and Karen tell the story of how they became involved in the pro-life movement.

From the earliest days of the Roe v. Wade case in Dallas to the establishment of one of the nation’s first crisis pregnancy centers their personal story has been...

Just as it is generally assumed that religion and politics do not make for particularly pleasant dinner table conversation, it is generally assumed that they do not make for particularly pleasant poetry either.  John Milton sundered both assumptions in his masterful work, Paradise Lost....

Life always seems to throw us curve balls…

 If 2020 taught us nothing else, it taught us that. So, how do we make plans, create goals, and live intentionally when there is so much uncertainty around us.  

In this conversation, George and Karen discuss what works best for...

Some men’s greatness may be seen in how largely they loom over the movements they launched. But greater men are they whose movements loom large over them—even to the point of obscuring them from view. Gerhard Groote was just such a man.

It would be difficult to find a single page of...

In this podcast George and Karen discuss the way they plan for, prepare for, and organize for effectual prayer through the course of the year.  

They describe the different ways they have learned to create a sustainable approach uniquely suited to their needs.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874- 1936) penned around 80+ books, wrote hundreds of poems, an estimated 200 short stories, and about 4,000 essays (largely in the form of newspaper columns). He also wrote a handful of plays.

He was a critic (of literature and society itself, a historian, a novelist,...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 – 1945) was a Lutheran pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident, and a founding member of the Confessing Church. His books on discipleship— particularly The Cost of Discipleship— have been referred to as “modern classics.”

Bonhoeffer is...

The number of truly masterful American writers can probably be numbered on a single hand—James Fenimore Cooper, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Mark Twain, Henry Adams, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and of course Herman Melville.  Each of these authors achieved great success during their lifetimes...

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) was a English writer, poet, and academic. He wrote many high fantasy works, including The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings— each carrying multiple layers of truth in parable form.

(Tolkien He was at one time a close friend of C.S. Lewis, both of  ...