A few weeks ago, I spent a week traveling in India.  My wife and I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy trip.  Friends of ours who went there before us warned us that transportation is tough, scams are everywhere, there’s lots of pollution and there are areas of extreme poverty.  Their best advice [...]

An Atlanta family has received a lot of publicity for their decision to sell their big home, buy a smaller one and use the profits to help those in need.  The Salwen family says it all started when their 14-year-old daughter Hannah became upset with the unequal chances for people based on their wealth.  By [...]

The earthquake in Haiti and the visible response raise a lot of issues for me. I was a missionary in the Dominican Republic for 6 years working near the border mostly with Haitians. I visited Port on a couple of occasions.
When I went to the DR as a missionary I imagined that helping would be [...]

For those of us who label homosexual practice as a sin it can be easy to get muddled up about government attempts to legislate and prosecute sexual behavior. There is a difference between legislation designed to protect the vulnerable from victimization and that which tries to monitor and control consensual relationships. We must stand up [...]

“The View from Inside an Ambulance,” originally published in Esquire, is a powerful essay by paramedic Chris Jones on his experiences dealing with death on a daily basis. His work both confronts him with, and numbs him to, human fragility. His closing story about reviving a man presumed dead, in front of the man’s son, [...]

TC-er Lisa wrote us with this idea for a Quick Thought topic.  She thinks it’s good food for thought and we agree.
“Why do we say ‘God bless America’ and not ‘God bless all the nations of the world?’  I know God didn’t only create the United States.  Maybe other countries could use God’s blessings, too.’”
What [...]

In a holiday speech, a leader proclaimed . . .
“If Christ was on Earth today undoubtedly he would stand with the people in opposition to bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers.
“If Christ was on Earth today undoubtedly he would hoist the banner of justice and love for humanity to oppose warmongers, occupiers, terrorists and bullies the [...]

The Pope kicked off a weeklong reading of the Bible yesterday:
RAI state TV began its program called “The Bible Day and Night,” with Benedict reciting the first chapter of the book of Genesis—the holy text’s opening verses about the creation of the world.
The marathon will feature more than 1,200 people reading the Old and New [...]

I had not heard of this letter before today, but in light of recent happenings with the United States Wall Street it seems extra interesting.
Here’s the first part of the letter:
Read the whole letter and make sure to scroll to the bottom to see the list of signatories.
As the Church of the Lord in what [...]

There have been several posts of interest recently about the Lord’s Prayer. In addition to the bloggers, many of the commenters are chiming in with excellent ideas:

Kevin Sam: The Lord’s Prayer is in perpetual error
Rich Rhodes: What does the Lord’s Prayer mean?
Doug Chaplin: Kerfuffles over the Lord’s Prayer
Damian Caruana: The Lord’s Prayer: Prayer or framework [...]