With albums in my CD player such as Get Rich or Die Trying, are you surprised my idea of the good life was having a wallet so stuffed it wouldn’t even close? It wasn’t all about money, though. I can’t forget the lessons I learned about status (chase it), women (chase them), and happiness (chase... Continue Reading

I grew up with formulas—as you probably did, too. Study hard, and you’ll get a good job. Be good to others, and they’ll be good to you. Raise a child in the way he (or she) should go, and when he is old, he won’t depart from it. Then I grew up. College friends lost... Continue Reading

The number of churches that were dismissed from Presbyterian Church (USA) last year has increased by fivefold compared to 2011, says a recently released report. According to statistics released Thursday by the Office of the General Assembly for PC(USA), 110 congregations were granted dismissal in 2012 in order to join other denominations; in 2011, the... Continue Reading

A new study has found that American veterans who had a negative experience serving during World War II attend church more frequently today than those who were less troubled by their service. The study also found that when service members were fearful in combat, they reported prayer was a better motivator for getting them through it... Continue Reading

I am sorry that my Mormon readers have put all their eggs in one basket by constantly writing to me quoting Matthew 7:16. So I am sorry that I must now apply that verse to the very first Mormon. I am sorry that among the 33 well-documented plural wives of Joseph Smith, there were close... Continue Reading

There were three pastors nominated for moderator: Archibald Allison, Larry Westerveld, and Jeffrey Landis. After the nomination speeches, balloting was to take place though electronic voting devices but they did not work; paper ballots were provided for the delegates. Jeffrey Landis, pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church in San Jose, Calif., was elected as moderator.  ... Continue Reading

There is one bright spot. Japanese researcher, Shinya Yamanaka, who had rejected embryonic stem cell research as unethical, and who won last year’s Nobel Prize for Medicine, has pioneered the creation of stem cell lines from skin cells without destroying embryos. Consequently, with hardly a whisper and certainly no apologies, most stem cell scientists have... Continue Reading

Southern Baptists owe Dr. Frank Page a debt of gratitude. Some questioned the wisdom of creating the Calvinism Advisory Committee last year, citing numerous reasons why such an effort was doomed to fail and perhaps even make things worse. It did not fail, unless success is defined only in terms of some utopian ideal of... Continue Reading

The book is a devotional gem. It is also a reminder that perhaps the most important voices in the church are not those of the young and the beautiful, of the middle aged who cannot accept that their teenage years are behind them, least of all of the Twittocrats who can reduce any profound and... Continue Reading

There’s an emphasis in our culture on being tolerant of other individuals and their ideas. This mentality has infiltrated the church as well. Various interpretations of Scripture are tolerated, often based on the perceived sincerity of an individual instead of the intrinsic social, historical, and grammatical properties of the text itself. The text does not... Continue Reading