From our Great Generation legacy, my family received a strong work ethic and biblical morality that laid the foundation for our success in the world. The unfortunate side-effect of this legacy is that it also created the burden of a performance-based sense of self-worth and a susceptibility to a works-oriented (instead of grace-oriented) soteriology. American Christians too easily accept the idea that we were saved only to serve and succeed.

In 1984 I was attending Fuller Theological Seminary, working toward graduate degrees in both the School of Psychology and the School of Theology... and I was wrestling (both personally and academically) with this issue of self-esteem. What I discovered in both my study of theology and clinical research in the behavioral sciences was a mixed bag of expert opinions, with a lot of hints but no unequivocal answers to my questions.

That final echo of doubt hints to a broader drift. Until the middle of the last century, there were several foundations like Filsell's across New York, choir schools where boys were sculpted into singers. The Saint Thomas Choir School is the sole survivor, making it the last church-affiliated choir boarding school in North America.

These prognoses followed a warning to Swedes from two top defence officials that they needed to prepare for war[ii]. Other parliamentary speakers from the Baltic nations of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania have more recently delivered strong warnings about the preparedness of the west in the event of an expanding conflict in Europe. The United States is making serious preparations as it moves nuclear warheads back onto British soil after an absence of fifteen years[iii].