Alice Cooper, the “Godfather of Shock Rock,” shocked the music world when he announced he had become a Christian. He believes he is part of an inevitable spiritual awakening. “Humanity is craving for answers,” he said. “There is something better… If you don’t feel it...

Before Mike Ducker retired as CEO of FedEx Freight, I heard him speak to business professionals. In his talk, he offered ideas about managing adversity. But it was his opening statement that I found memorable. Ducker had an impressive run at FedEx. In 1975, he...

Jose Felipe thought he booked his trip on a different airline. He never boarded VoePass Flight 2283, which crashed in Brazil leaving no survivors. “Thank God we didn’t get on that plane,” he said. A presidential candidate literally dodged a bullet when a would-be...

You can energize your career and impact your workplace with this one skill. It makes you more likeable and is a component of effective leadership. Let me illustrate. Years ago, my boss dispatched me to the suburbs to meet with a city official. I was a project engineer...

I paused to chat with residents while walking along the road near a village on Carriacou Island. As I listened to their experiences in Hurricane Beryl, a lone vehicle approached and stopped. The driver expressed gratitude for the help coming to the devastated island....

I noticed a theme. After Hurricane Beryl, I deployed to Carriacou Island as a chaplain with a humanitarian aid team offering supplies and healthcare. Beryl damaged or destroyed most of the island’s buildings. It impacted all of the people. I listened to one man’s...

Paul Kingsworth sensed that he was the object of a steady, unrelenting pursuit. It was an unwelcome thought until he finally surrendered to it. Kingsworth is an Oxford-educated environmentalist, world traveler, and writer. In an article in “First Things,” he tells the...

After Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote, “Why I Am Now a Christian,” she met her friend Richard Dawkins in a public forum. Here are two intellectuals, one current and one former atheist, having “The God Debate.” It was raw, personal, and oddly affectionate. After Ali suffered a...

Coach Joe Mazzulla shows us how it’s done. His Boston Celtics are NBA champions, so he knows something about basketball. But his press conferences prove he’s not ashamed to use reporters’ annoying questions to talk about what really matters. Most of Mazzulla’s players...

In the light of dusk, I studied the bridge from a distant vantage point. The Hercilio Luz Bridge is an elegant marvel of engineering. The longest suspension bridge in Brazil, it connects Santa Catarina Island to the mainland. But soon my gaze shifted to the peacefully...

“I call myself a cultural Christian,” said the outspoken atheist, Richard Dawkins. “I’m not a believer, but… I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos.” There’s a problem, though. Dawkins would cut the flower of the Christian ethos from its root of Biblical truth....

I’ve never seen a Russell Brand show, but I find his spiritual journey interesting. I mentioned him in this space a year ago because he began making public comments about Jesus. “The teachings of Christ are more relevant now than they’ve ever been,” he said. He was on...

I didn’t expect to see that. I was with a team in southern Brazil looking for churches we could help respond to the devastating floods. We stepped inside a small church building. Instead of chairs, the room was wall to wall with cots and mattresses. They had converted...

Kendall Qualls’ future looked bleak. Facing limited options, his newly divorced mom moved her five children into housing project squalor in Harlem, NY. It was the 1960’s. The grimy stairwells reeked, and dark hallways hid lethargic addicts. She did the best she could...

“I heard the roar.” “I lost everything.” “I should be dead.” I hear such words when serving as a chaplain in natural disaster zones around the country. I am amazed at the resilience of survivors. After the initial shock, responses can vary from despair to anger....

If one of my sons died as a soldier, I would ask the question on the heart of every Gold Star Family. For what exactly did my son die? For his country? And what exactly is the U.S.A., given it’s not a continent or ethnic group? America is an idea. The founders...

I had visions of bright lights, a smoothly running stove bolt motor, and a responsive instrument cluster. But I was holding a rat’s nest snarl of old spliced wires, sketchy terminals, and rusty switches I had just pulled from the dash of my 1959 Chevrolet Apache. My...

“We have found a way to be OK,” she told me.  Being mom to more than the average two children per family is challenging enough. But when doctors diagnosed one of hers with a lifestyle-disrupting, chronic illness, the urgency of the moment was overwhelming. I was...

Toward the end of the film, “Barbie” (2023), Billie Eilish gives voice to the title character with “What Was I Made For?” which became a hit song. This is far more than the familiar plot of a toy wanting to be real. It is an example of culture expressing and framing...

In 1940, the newly opened Tacoma Narrows Bridge was the third-longest suspension bridge in the world. It was a beautiful engineering feat, until it wasn’t. One windy day, it began to twist and heave until it collapsed into a scrap heap of metal beams and cables. The...

Chris Coghlan was 15 when it happened. It was 2001. He had just finished exams for his sophomore year. He arrived home to a gathering of cars and people. He stepped inside, joking about a party in his honor. Then he saw his mom’s face. His dad had been killed in a...

I learned a cultural lesson living in Haiti. It was not uncommon for a friend to take my hand as we walked in public. The gesture prevented other pedestrians from interrupting our conversation. In our culture, handholding is a public display of affection or practical...

Tim Keller tells the story of Kevin, who worked on Wall Street at J.P. Morgan. Kevin was an atheist with stubborn doubts about God. But he had doubts about his doubts, so he and his wife began attending Redeemer Church. They met believers who were smart and...

In the movie, Forrest Gump just feels like running. While he runs, he thinks about Mama, Bubba, Lt. Dan and especially Jenny. As he crisscrosses the country and contemplates his life experiences, a young man runs alongside Gump. “An alarm went off in my head! Here’s...

Scott Hamilton won Olympic gold in 1984 as a figure skater. He became successful as a professional skater and media personality. But something was happening behind the scenes. That’s the rest of the story. Hamilton was adopted at six weeks old. As a child, a rare...

Michael Shellenberger was a “Hero of the Environment” according to Time magazine in 2008. But he soon became disillusioned with the activism that earned him that label. In 2020, he published a book, Apocalypse Never,explaining his new take on environmental issues. To...

It was a cold and foggy night last December. I was on the train to London. At one stop a young woman boarded and sat just across from me. She wore an elegant, burgundy dress and delicate jewelry. In her arms were a dozen red roses. Her wistful smile suggested a tender...

Uwe Holmer didn’t mean to have a moment of fame. He was simply a German Lutheran pastor who lived his faith in a way that astounded his fellow countrymen. As a college student in 1953, Holmer bid his family goodbye as they escaped East Germany. He stayed behind...

Ron Hamilton was living the dream. After college, he married his sweetheart and began his career in the music industry. Then came the crisis. At age 28, Hamilton’s doctors discovered cancer in his eye. He had to lose that eye to save his life. How would you handle a...

“I got you, babe” plays on the clock radio, waking Phil Connors to face the same day yet again. Bill Murray played the lead in the film, “Groundhog Day” (1993). Phil discovers he is trapped in a time loop, experiencing that same song, day, and people over and over. To...

Martin Luther King, Jr. inspired many with his words and deeds. During his 1957 Christmas sermon in Montgomery, Alabama, he based his strategy of non-violence on Jesus’ admonition to love your enemy. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that,” King...

The New Year is traditionally a time to think about new beginnings. The turning of the calendar represents a blank slate, a time to consider setting aside the old in favor of the new. The whole holiday season is an invitation to reflect, with time off work and visits...

I would like to offer you a New Year’s resolution. It may be the single most powerful change agent in your life. It is simply, listen to God. The new House Speaker Mike Johnson says he does. “I am a Bible-believing Christian,” he said. To know how he thinks about...

A 28-year-old insurance company manager took up his pen to write about something more profound than his livelihood. He crafted poetry to answer the question, “What child is this?” With those verses written in 1865, William Dix would become a part of the Christmas...

In today’s parlance “privilege” is justification for treating people differently, even unfairly. It has always been true in human history that some are born into privilege due to circumstances beyond their control. It is also true that “There is no partiality with...

I’m bad at selecting gifts, but I enjoy the gift-giving tradition at Christmas. I disagree with C.S. Lewis on this point. He calls Christmas gift-giving “a commercial racket.” Perhaps with tongue-in-cheek he says, “The modern rule is that anyone can force you to give...

Recent Harvard research indicates that many young adults are deeply troubled. The report identifies stress points and offers remedies. If you are one of those young adults, know that life can be much brighter. Harvard found that 36% of young adults in the survey...

In the episode “High Noon in Mayberry,” Sheriff Andy Taylor awaits Luke Comstock’s visit. Years prior, Taylor had wounded and captured Comstock, who spent time in prison. Now, Andy, Barney, and Aunt Bea stress over Comstock’s intentions. Comstock arrives at the Taylor...

The NFL handed down a four-game suspension to Kareem Jackson, a player for the Denver Broncos. After ejections from games and hefty fines for unnecessary roughness, the fourth infraction cost him his freedom to play. In announcing the suspension, NFL executive Jon...

Everybody has trials and tribulations. It’s a fact of life. The question is, can you make sense of those experiences? The human tendency is to flee adversity and feel overwhelmed when it catches you. Reminds me of the Dickens character Pickwick who travels by...

War is disruptive to complacency. It gives new urgency to latent thoughts, especially when the Middle East and Israel are involved. You may have thought about Biblical prophecy more than usual in the last few weeks. You should. Since the circumstances of Jesus life,...

Gothic influencer Katherine von Drachenberg (a.k.a. Kat Von D) made headlines recently. The story was not about her career as a tattoo artist, television personality, entrepreneur, and recording artist. It was far more profound than her celebrity. She publicly...

President Biden got it right. He used theological words in condemning the attack on Israel. “You know, there are moments in this life when the pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world,” he said. “The people of Israel lived through one such moment this...

A wind-fueled fire destroyed the historic village of Lahaina in Maui. Libya experienced flooding. Morocco suffered an earthquake. Forces of nature contribute to these disasters, as do human activity and negligence. All of these disasters caused a loss of life. If no...

I asked ChatGPT to compose an article about artificial intelligence, or “AI.” This isn’t it. I prefer to do my own thinking (if that’s what AI is supposed to do). One user started a firestorm by posting, “I asked ChatGPT to create a fake biblical passage. I know it’s...

My first response when receiving the wedding invitation was that the distance to the venue meant a days-long, tedious trip. But reasons to go made the decision easy. For a minute, I was distracted by travel demands. I soon remembered that I would be blessed by meeting...