Martin Luther King Jr. famously said that 11 o’clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America. He meant that white Christians and black Christians often worship in separate churches. Recently I’ve noticed a new kind of Sunday morning segregation. It’s increasingly... read more »

In his book Faith at the Edge, philosopher Robert Wennberg describes attending a small church with his students as they traveled through Europe. The students were not greeted warmly by the church members, did not know enough of the language to follow the songs or the sermon, and generally considered... read more »

Li Yue fell hard for Hou You Jing. They were from the same province, shared a love for badminton and western movies, and—as if by fate—met while working second shift at a microchip processor company in Shenzhen. Li Yue couldn’t stand to be apart from Hou You Jing, and she... read more »

We resemble what we revere. When we worship money, we view ourselves and others in terms of our cash value. We see people as creditors, debtors, and customers, rather than as human beings made in the image of God. When we worship sex, we treat ourselves and others as dehumanized objects of sexual... read more »

If desperate situations call for extreme measures, then extreme measures are a sign that we are in a desperate situation. If a police car flashed its lights behind me, my wife might say in her disapproving voice, “What did you do?” If my car were surrounded by police and a TV news... read more »

A youth pastor avoids telling his teenagers that they’re sinners because he doesn’t want to leave the impression that they “suck” (that they’re bad or worthless). A popular author denies that infants are born with a sin nature because that would mean that “babies... read more »

While Khalid Sheikh Mohammed awaited trial for plotting the 9/11 terrorist attacks, some US citizens were nervous that he might be acquitted by an inept jury. Others hoped that that would be precisely what happened. If they had turned Khalid out into the angry streets, it wouldn’t have taken... read more »

My friend’s sister is due to give birth, and no one is happy about it. Her baby has Trisomy 18, a fatal disease that will likely claim the infant just minutes after she is born. It seems fiendishly upside down that the baby is alive as long as she remains within her mother, but the moment she... read more »

Fish farmers in the southern U.S. had a small problem. Algae was filling their ponds, so they took the seemingly innocent step of importing Asian carp—which can grow to 100 pounds and eat 40 percent of their body weight each day—to clean the bottom of their ponds. But flooding swept the... read more »

I was reading upstairs when my neighbor came to pick up his son. The child must not have wanted to go yet, for I heard his small voice declare, “Someone’s going to die!” My neighbor did not correct his little boy, but smiled sheepishly as he steered him toward the door. This father... read more »