Take Your Youth Group to See “The Giver!”

August 18, 2014   |  

  What would it be like to live in a world where people were assigned their careers by an all-powerful state? Who would want to live in a place where emotions, sensations, and pain were neutralized by a daily dose of a drug?  Would you want a world without war…
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Hiroshima, Gaza, and the Price of Peace

August 4, 2014   |  

Sixty-nine years ago this week the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing thousands of civilians. President Harry Truman’s decision to use the ultimate weapon was praised by many, especially American soldiers in the Pacific. As one tearful Marine put it, “I…
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A Journey to Scotland

July 7, 2014   |  

Barbara and I returned yesterday from a weeklong 40th wedding anniversary trip to Scotland.  We traveled first to Glasgow, and then sailed to the Isle of Bute. We then went on to Aberdeen, rode through St. Andrews, and finished in Edinburgh. The people were all friendly and helpful. We had…
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The Fabric of Our Faith

June 12, 2014   |  

A number of years ago I worked in the men’s clothing section of a large department store.   I was not there long but I did learn a few things about the garment business. One key thing I learned was about the quality of various fabrics. Fabrics are the basic textile…
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Two Popes – Two New Saints – But What is a “Saint?”

April 27, 2014   |  

Few are the people who we can say that their lives had world changing effect. In the 20th Century two such men were Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (1881-1963) and Karol Józef Wojtyła (1920-2005). You probably know them by their better remembered names of Pope John XXIII (served 1958-1963) and Pope John…
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LDS Now Has 85,000 Missionaries!

April 7, 2014   |  

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS/ Mormons) now has more than 85,000 missionaries working in 405 “Missions” around the world. That startling number was announced at the church’s semiannual World Conference earlier this week in Salt Lake City. LDS missionaries are primarily young men who take two…
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Joni’s Hollywood “Not-Friends”

February 3, 2014   |  

  Joni Eareckson-Tada is one of the world’s most admired Christian women. Most of us know her story of how at age seventeen she dived into shallow water and hit a rock that severed her spine. For more than forty-six years now she has demonstrated how God’s grace allowed her …
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Polygamy: The LDS Legacy That Won’t Go Away

December 17, 2013   |  

In 1890, Wilford Woodruff, the then President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), issued a “Declaration” that, in effect ,suspended the Mormon doctrine of plural marriage (polygamy). Actually, polygamy was a notorious doctrine and practice of the LDS since the time of Joseph Smith. The practice…
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A Day We Shouldn’t Forget (But not just for the reason you think)

November 20, 2013   |  

I remember it like it was yesterday. It was late Friday afternoon in Mrs. Farrell’s sixth-grade class at the old Sealey Elementary School on 7th Avenue in Tallahassee. A guy named Joe and I were having fun slicing construction paper with a paper-cutter and looking forward to the weekend …
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Who is Marianne Williamson?

October 23, 2013   |  

According to news reports this week, bestselling author, speaker, and social activist Marianne Williamson plans to run next year for the U.S. House of Representatives in California’s 33rd District. That seat is currently held by 74 year old Democrat Henry Waxman. Williamson will run against him as an Independent.…
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