For most of my life I have rooted against China. I was born the same year the Chinese announced they had become members of the exclusive club of nations who can deploy nuclear weapons. When I was a teenager, global sales of Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book momentarily surpassed those of the Bible and prompted millions of his most zealous young… Read more »
When digital technology arrived in church offices towards the end of the 20th century, it launched a timesaving revolution with regard to mundane tasks like bulletin preparation. It also provided some genuinely funny moments. One of them happened at a church that quickly grasped that their new computer could retain a liturgical paradigm for funerals. All the administrative assistant had to do… Read more »
“Blessed to be a blessing.” That turn of phrase never actually appears on the pages of Scripture. But it’s an accurate summation of God’s ongoing plan to rescue our broken world. God will bless a particular individual, who will in turn become the conduit of God’s blessings to the rest of humanity. We learn in Genesis 12 that the particular individual is… Read more »
Philosopher J.P. Moreland remembers the time he was invited to speak at a gathering on the validity of faith. A friend gave him fair warning. One of the guests, a man who was finishing up his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins, was an outspoken skeptic of all things religious. They ultimately crossed paths at the dessert table. The man could hardly wait to… Read more »
One hundred years ago, Dr. Albert Abrams was the most celebrated physician in the United States. He singlehandedly pioneered a revolutionary way of tackling illnesses and disease. “The spirit of the age is radio, and we can use radio in diagnosis,” he declared. Thus Abrams created “spancho-diagnosis,” which involved the use of an electronic device called a dynamizer to analyze patients’… Read more »
May the peoples praise you, God;May all the peoples praise you. May the nations be glad and sing for joy,For you rule the peoples with equity. May the peoples praise you, God;May all the peoples praise you!(Psalm 67:3-5) Happy Fourth of July!
It’s a colossal work of art – 18 feet long and 12 feet high. John Adams, who is depicted standing heroically dead center, called it the “Shin Painting.” That’s because once it was mounted on the wall of the US Capitol building rotunda, where it remains to this day, the typical viewer would be staring directly at his shins. There was… Read more »
America lives in the shadow of 9-11. Japan lives in the shadow of a different kind of national disaster, commonly called 3-11. On March 11, 2011, an earthquake of unprecedented strength rocked the country. The massive tremor, which registered 9.0 on the Richter Scale, generated a tsunami that in places topped 130 feet. It inundated 200 square miles of coastline and traveled… Read more »
It matters when we see someone’s face. A few years ago, Jonathan Turner, an Israeli physician, conducted a fascinating experiment. With their consent, he took photos of 300 men and women who were coming in for CT scans. He attached the photos to their images that were then submitted to radiologists. The radiologists – who knew nothing of Turner’s plan –… Read more »
Every now and then it’s helpful to experience what it’s like for the shoe to be on the other foot – and for that matter, the socks as well. About a decade and a half ago I was walking our two exuberant Australian Shepherds on a local trail. When a jogger approached us from the other direction, with her well-behaved dog… Read more »
