Although Christmas does not have historical roots in Viet Nam, people across the country are filled with the holiday spirit. No need to wait until December 25, one can easily sense Christmas coming to many big cities. The whole country is singing Christmas carols together. The streets and buildings in Hanoi have been lavishly decorated... Continue Reading

Everybody likes something cuddly. That’s why nine-year-old Kate Strickland, of Franconia, likes to put a stuffed animal in each of the Operation Christmas Child shoe box gift packages she helps fill. “They go to children that are in war or poverty situations,” said Anita Strickland, Kate’s mother and coordinator for the packing station at Covenant... Continue Reading

At Christmas our attention quickly goes to the familiar words of the infancy narratives found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. This is a healthy reflex. After all, the Gospel of Jesus Christ rests upon the historicity of the events that took place in Bethlehem as Christ was born. Our understanding of the identity... Continue Reading

Whether you call it Islamophobia or just plain reporting, Muslims are in the news and except for 20-second sound-bites from a local Eid celebration, it’s not good. There’s the persistent and popular debate on the hijab and Muslim women in general. There are wars waged or threatened in Muslim countries such as Iraq and Iran... Continue Reading

The Associated Baptist Press is reporting that a North Carolina judge has ruled in favor of two registered sex offenders arrested in May for attending a Baptist church near Raleigh. The men were indicted May 11 for violating a state law requiring sex offenders to stay at least 300 feet away from places used primarily... Continue Reading

Britain’s Supreme Court has told an Orthodox Jewish school that its criteria for orthodoxy is unlawful, prompting fears about the state intruding into definitions of faith. The case involved a boy whose application to attend JFS, a Jewish secondary school, was turned down on grounds he didn’t meet the criteria because his mother is non-Orthodox.... Continue Reading

Irish-born novelist and scholar C.S. Lewis is having a college created in his name—and it will be located on the sprawling 217-acre campus of a former New England boarding school in Northfield, Massachusetts. The C.S. Lewis Foundation has been considering several locations throughout the United States for C.S. Lewis College and finally settled on the... Continue Reading

Thousands of mourners gathered in the Iranian city of Qom following the death of leading reformist cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, offering protesters a fresh rallying point for confrontation with the government. Montazeri, who died early Sunday, Dec 20, aged 87, was buried at the Ma’asoumeh shrine, one of the holiest in Shia Islam,... Continue Reading

According to a press release from the Concerned Women for America, the A compromise that won Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson’s support for the Reid health care bill today will do what he previously stated he would not support- use federal funds to subsidize abortions. Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America (CWA), stated: “The... Continue Reading

With a budget rumored to exceed 500 million dollars, James Cameron’s “Avatar” steamrolled through theaters around the world this past weekend. The director of “Titanic” stated that he wrote the story in the mid-1990’s, and was “just waiting for the technology to catch up” to make the film. Based on the alien world of Pandora,... Continue Reading