stories on Election

Imagine a president who was elected who spent all his time talking about his election…he ordered studies on how he was elected…people wouldn’t be happy…right, you are elected to do something…it’s the ...

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953), an author, critic, and devout Roman Catholic, lived in a Britain where strong anti-Catholic sentiment prevailed. Known for his passion and unwavering conviction, Belloc dec...

The story is told of a group of theologians who were discussing the tension between predestination and free will. Things became so heated that the group broke up into two opposing factions. But one m...

I took AP Western Civilization when I was in high school. I’ve forgotten a lot since then, but I vividly remember the class where we talked about the Reformation. Even though it was a public high scho...

During the 1948 presidential election between Harry Truman and Thomas Dewey, the results were too close to call on the evening of November 2nd. Some newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune , pr...

Sometimes, older relatives find it hard to grasp the success of their younger family members. Shortly after Woodrow Wilson’s victory in the 1912 election, he visited his elderly aunt. “What are you do...

During an interview that took place during the 1976 presidential election, Rosalynn Carter was asked what her husband, Jimmy Carter, had that his opponent, Gerald Ford, didn’t. She responded simply, “...

Months of struggle, of strategy, of sacrifice all paid off in a landslide victory for President Richard Nixon in 1972. On election night his aide Charles Colson was in the place he had always wanted t...

During the 1992 presidential elections a friend of mine told me about an awkward moment in his Bible study. One of the group members expressed excitement because that Sunday, she had seen a bumper sti...

In his famous 1934 campaign for the governorship of California, the author and activist Upton Sinclair took an unusual step. Before the election, he published a short book titled I, Governor of Cal...

Some of you may be remember the classic photograph from the 1948 Presidential Election, in which Harry Truman holds a newspaper triumphantly, with the title, “Dewey Defeats Truman”. What you may not k...

During the 1992 presidential election, I (Rick) was directing the small group ministry at our church. Bill Clinton was running against George H. W. Bush, and given that many evangelicals found Bill Cl...

Several years ago, I was speaking at a Christian leadership conference being held in Atlanta, Georgia. After the day’s events, a group of pastors and leaders converged for a late-night meal and conver...

Our first president, George Washington, refused to run as a member of any political party. He wanted to be a president to all Americans. Washington firmly believed that political parties would divide ...

One night I went to church. They had a mass meeting. And I went to church, and they talked about how it was our right, that we could register and vote. They were talking about [how] we could vote out ...

Billy Graham had a weekly radio show titled The Hour of Decision. Normally it was a tape recording of the service and message he’d given at a recent evangelistic rally. And at the conclusion of every ...

In 1963, the politician, ambassador, and one-time presidential candidate Adlai E. Stevenson addressed the students of Princeton University with a touch of humor. “I understand I am here to speak, and ...

During his 1960 presidential campaign, John F. Kennedy often closed his speeches with the story of Colonel Davenport, the Speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives. One day in 1789, the sky ...

A recent article from Ars Technica shared a few hilarious stories of a few recent naming contests. The moral of the story is, be careful what you choose to allow others to come up with. For example,...

During the ancient Greek Olympics, the judge of the contest sat on an elevated seat. After the contest was over the competitors came before him to receive their rewards. This was not a judicial bench ...

Serving at the time as provincial governor of Northern Italy, St. Ambrose was called in this capacity in 374 to the cathedral in Milan, where a riot was threatening between two rival factions of Chris...

Invitations are powerful. Like tides, they ebb and flow, shaping the contours of our existence. Some invitations we desperately want but never get—“Will you marry me?” or “Would you consider a promoti...

Jane Addams (1860–1935), a leading American social reformer, was a dedicated advocate for racial equality, women’s suffrage, and pacifism. In 1931, she was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1900,...

Nothing illustrates evangelicals’ infatuation with politics more clearly than a story related by a Christian lawyer. Considering whether to take a job in the nation’s capital, he consulted with the le...

When [Abraham] Lincoln was running for the House of Representatives from Illinois, he was charged with being “a scoffer at religion,” wrote the historian William J. Wolf, because he belonged to no chu...

Performance-enhancing drugs are a major problem in the sporting world. Cycling, baseball, weightlifting, football—athletes at the highest levels need something to put them over the top or keep them in...

The things we say yes to and the things we say no to determine the terrain of our future. My convoluted journey is posted with invitations, and my RSVPs account for the twists and turns. Sometimes, ha...

In the spring of 1970, when I was twenty-nine, I learned I had won a fellowship from the American Council on Education, which would allow me to serve an administrative internship with Purdue Universit...

I recently heard a story about a race in which one runner had a significant lead over the rest of the field. As the man rounded the final turn, the crowd roared as he inched closer and closer to the f...

The story is well known in the family: my grandparents had driven up from California the evening before. Stopping at a gas station along the Oregon border, they purchased some snacks, gas, and, as the...