Bruce Strom

What are some of the fresh perspectives I can offer?

• You do not need to be Catholic or Orthodox to benefit from the teachings of the Church Fathers, and you do not need to be Jewish to benefit from the teachings of the medieval Jewish Rabbis.
• The teachings of the Church Fathers, in particular the monastic Church Fathers, were deeply influenced by Stoic Philosophy.
• Evangelical Protestantism deeply influenced the abolition anti-slavery movement before the Civil War. Today there are some evangelicals who support black lives matter and civil rights, including the Promise Keepers movement, and the current editor of Christianity Today.
• Scholars have discovered that the Nazi lawyers drafting the Jewish Race Laws used the US Jim Crow segregation statutes as legal precedent. There are other links between the two.
• The Second Vatican Council is unimaginable without the Catholic experience under the various fascist and Nazi regimes of World War II. The council rejected anti-Semitism and fascist and totalitarian ideologies, while affirming that democracy can best protect the Church.
• Many American Catholics reject the teachings of Pope Francis and the Vatican II decrees without realizing the dark past that Vatican II strives to leave behind.
• Plato was an innovator, he was not the only student of Socrates. Other important students include Xenophon, the Cynic philosopher Antisthenes, and the Cyrenaic Aristippus. Xenophon and the Cynic philosophers influenced the later Greek and Roman Stoic philosophers. Aristippus may have influenced Epicurus.
• You cannot understand many of the main Platonic dialogues without being familiar with the history of the Peloponnesian Wars and the Greco-Persian Wars, as t old by the ancient historians Xenophon, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Plutarch.
• Although ancient, medieval, and modern scholars all regard Zeno as the father of Stoicism, in a real sense you can trace the origin of many stoic ideas back to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.
• Ancient societies were warrior societies. We in the modern world look forward to the security of Social Security and retirement. In the ancient world, you worried whether an enemy would defeat and plunder your city-state, slaughter your military age men, and enslave your women and children, as Homer depicted in the Iliad and the Odyssey.
• Most of the so-called Hard Sayings of the Bible, and many puzzling stories, can be readily interpreted by remembering how the Jews in the Old Testament had to survive in a warrior culture.
• Whether you are Catholic or Protestant, you can learn from St Augustine's classic, On Christian Teaching, where he teaches us that Scripture should be interpreted according the two-fold Love of God and love of neighbor. When the literal sense of a section of Scripture appears to violate this two-fold Love, then it should be interpreted allegorically.
• Most Greek philosophers, including Plato, are primarily concerned with ethics and morals, and only secondarily concerned with metaphysics.
• There are some key considerations that are just not discussed in the abortion debates, such as the right of doctors to provide the care needed to ensure the health and survival of the mother without worrying about whether they would be sued and second-guessed by hostile attorneys and judges.

What historical topics do we review?

• Ancient Greek and Roman history.
• Civil war, Reconstruction, and Civil Rights history.
• History of how Christians survived under fascist regimes of World War II.
• Why did I title my YouTube Channel, Reflections on Morality, Philosophy, and History?

Polemics about why my faith tradition is superior to yours do not interest me, my internet persona is purposefully vague about my faith tradition, I prefer to learn from all mainstream Judaeo-Christian traditions. Please view my Channel Philosophy video. For my background, please consult my LinkedIn profile.

Based on my experience as an officer of an over-55 community, I also have a series of videos on Alzheimer's and dementia in general.