News
Creating a Facebook profile for the first time, Eric Heim hadn’t expected something so serious. Hunched over his laptop, he had whipped through the social network Web site’s questionnaire about his interests, favorite movies and relationship status, typing witty replies wherever possible. But when he reached the little blank box asking for his core beliefs, it stopped him short.
The dialogue over health care is intensifying. A lot of the debate seems to be agenda-driven. Clearly we should be able to find a better way to provide better health care, so that people can take responsibility for their own health. With careful deliberation lawmakers should be able to insure that health care is dispensed fairly. What people seem most concerned about is inequities in the system. A Christian nation, a civilized nation, should have health care that is compassionate, dispensed with fairness, and available in a timely matter to those who need it.Two articles that seem to address the…
Anne Graham Lotz wowed the homeless crowd at the Bowery Mission in New York City. Taking time off from a tour promoting her new book about Abraham, The Magnificent Obsession, Lotz told the men and women at the mission about how she deeply wanted a more vital relation to God.Read more of this story.
INTERVIEWIt’s so common now, it no longer makes headlines: In the midst of the deepest recession in decades, over 15 million Americans are looking for work. They search diligently and pray about finding work, but the will of God may be hard to discern. So they feel like they are in free fall. They need a parachute. And that’s exactly what they have, thanks to Richard Nelson Bolles, author of the now-classic book on unemployment, What Color Is Your Parachute?, which celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2010.Bolles began his own career as an engineer, but felt a call to ministry…
The scholars and publishers behind the world’s leading English language evangelical Bible announced Tuesday that they would publish a updated translation in 2011.Read more of this story.Reaction:Evangelical Leaders Welcome NIV Revision Plans with Caution, Hope – The Christian Post
For all the controversy that George W. Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives generated over the proper line between church and state, President Obama’s faith-based office has given religious figures a bigger role in influencing White House decisions. Before Obama’s May address to the Muslim world from Cairo, for example, the office organized a conference call with American religious leaders to help shape the speech. Earlier this month, Obama’s office (now called the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships) launched a national tour of town hall meetings on fatherhood that will collect ideas for shaping family policy. Read more of…
As in previous years, members of the Salvation Army are being called to devote the month of September to pray for peace and for the victims of sex trade trafficking.“Conflicts between nations and conflicts within nations still claim lives on a daily basis, destroying stability, disrupting education and creating poverty,” SA General Shaw Clifton stated in this year’s call to prayer.Read more of this story. Related story: Ministry launches preventative program against the sex trade in Asia
A controversial decision about homosexual clergy by the country’s largest Lutheran denomination had some of the church’s conservatives knocking on the door of the Kirkwood-based Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod last week.Missouri Synod officials fielded dozens of calls and e-mails from pastors and lay members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America after its biennial meeting in Minneapolis, when delegates voted 559-451 to allow gay clergy in committed relationships to serve as pastors. Read more about this story.
COMMENTARYSurvivors of some horrible plague or battle often find themselves wracked with guilt: Why did I live while so many died? Though I had no battle scars, I used to feel a similar sense of guilt. I married the only woman I’ve ever loved. We have three terrific children. I have a secure job that I love and that pays well. Sometimes I would ask God: Why have you been so kind to me? Why have I gotten such an easy life?I don’t ask those questions anymore. Read more of this story. VIDEO SIDEBAR:Professor William Stuntz is a faculty adviser…
Jim Zeirke kneels on the narrow strip of asphalt between two rows of hulking race cars. He thrusts his arm into the open window of car No. 3 and grabs driver Jeff Holtz’s gloved hand.Barely audible over the revving engines, Zeirke invokes a power he believes is mightier than any 500-horsepower hunk of steel and fiberglass.Read more of this story.