Tony Snow was born in Berea, Kentucky. In his various journalistic roles, including that of White House Press Secretary under President George W. Bush, he found ways to insert statements that give us glimpses of the personal faith that helped him battle the colon cancer that eventually took his life. For example, he told a graduating class at Catholic University: “Don't shrink from pondering God's role in the universe or Christ's. You see, it's trendy to reject religious reflection as a grave offense against decency. That's not only cowardly. That's false. Faith and reason are knitted together in the human soul.” [1] This statement is interesting in that it connects to a six-year study that the Templeton Foundation funded about the spiritual development of college students during the time they were in college. The Templeton study surveyed over 100,000 freshmen from 236 American colleges and universities in 2003 and then followed up with them when they were ...

  The Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project is committed to discovering, honoring, and telling factual stories about people who lived and worked in this state who also gave a public account of their Christian faith. Researching the stories of women and minorities from the past is frequently more difficult than researching what happened to men from the majority culture. Many times their perspectives are missing from the standard historical narratives. Often, written accounts of their lives were neither created nor have they been preserved. Because of past gender, ethnic and racial biases, what is written is about them often disregards their own beliefs and opinions. To discover their stories takes tenacity and creativity as well as an ability to read between the lines. Take Martha Cross, for example. She, her husband, Alexander, and their seven-year-old son, James, left Hopkinsville, Kentucky, for Liberia in 1853. They were sent from the Ninth Street Christian Ch...

  Core Christian Beliefs When presenting information about the Christian religion in the classroom, it is important to realize that the religion is made up of many different branches, sects or denominations. Each branch has its own history, traditions and distinguishing doctrines around which they have gathered its community. However, the following core beliefs are shared among most Christians: ·          Christianity is centered on the understanding that Jesus Christ is God’s son, born of a virgin, who was crucified, died, was buried, rose again and ascended into heaven from where he will return to earth at the end of time ·          The Holy Bible is the source for Christianity’s teachings and practices ·          Christianity, like Judaism, believes that there is only one God who created the heavens and the earth, that God is invisible and immortal, a...

  The tenth president of Liberia was Alfred Francis Russell who was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1817. His father was his owner’s son. His mother was enslaved. This meant that Alfred, also, was enslaved from birth. In 1833, his mistress emancipated him so that he could join 200 other emancipated former slaves on the ship, Ajax, bound for Liberia. Russell was also a clergyman. He was an Episcopalian priest who had started his ministry as a Methodist minister. He was elected vice president of Liberia and assumed the office of president for one year, 1883-1884, after the elected president resigned. As president, he made a proclamation that combined his commitment to the native peoples of Liberia with his faith this way: “ Our aboriginal citizens…are important, nay indispensable, to us in building up this national fabric, and the redemption of land, so long under the dominion of the devil ” [1] . While the role of emancipated slaves from Kentucky in the formation of the nation o...