Perhaps the most undervalued quality of a great mind or, at least, an awakened mind is the willingness to abandon cherished ideas that cannot stand up to new evidence. English philosopher John Locke possessed such a mind.

The Russian autocrat’s dark and violent vision of state power is not without precedent — but neither is the Lockean answer to it.

When George Washington sought to warn Americans about the most fearsome threats to their liberty, he did not cast his eyes toward Europe, where nations were waiting, like vultures, to pounce upon the carcass of a failed experiment in self-government.

In Martin Luther’s age, Erasmus tried to bridge the Catholic-Protestant divide.

The Soviet Union’s revolutionary experiment in Marxism-Leninism was launched, at least in part, as an assault on the beliefs and ideals of biblical religion.

The long road from Athens to America.

America owes much to Christianity. Liberalism arose as a Christian response to the failures of Christendom.

The American Relief Administration saved millions of lives in the Soviet Union from famine. A century later, it is still a shining example of the hope the United States offers to the world.

Yet even at its ugliest, the United States has looked like a haven of sanity in a world gone mad.

The Letter to the Romans introduced two great themes into the bloodstream of the West: human equality and human freedom.