O Little Town of Nicaea. Walls were splattered with graffiti, pamphlets inflamed passions, and lawsuits were being filed right and left. The early church was threatened with a schism over one apparently simple question: in what way is Jesus divine?1 Hoping to calm the gathering storm, the Emperor Constantine convened a council in 325 at…

So hallowed and so gracious. The midnight channel crossing was eerily silent inside the Higgins boats. Each 36×10 ft. Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel (LCVP) was pulsating to a 225 horsepower diesel engine pushing thirty-six GIs through the stormy seas. Knowing yet not knowing what awaited them at dawn, the men fell into an almost hallowed…

Turn out the lights. Richard Stevens used to wonder why there is a higher incidence of breast cancer among women in the industrialized world than in developing countries.  Then, “I literally woke up in the middle of the night – there was a street lamp outside the window, and it was so bright that I…

Four corners. Today, only 54 percent of Americans read a newspaper during the week.1   For those aged 18 to 24, the number declines to 40 percent.2   Newspaper reading is falling off.  Yet this might actually be a positive sign.  The modern news business is based on a false premise that dumbs us down.  So dumb…

No room at the inn. “Committed, engaged, ambitious, informed art does not mix with dedicated, serious, thoughtful, heartfelt religion,” says The Art Institute of Chicago’s James Elkins.1 In his new book On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art, he writes: “To fit in the art world, work with a religious theme has to…

With the advent of D-Day, troops got serious about preparation. That’s a helpful way to better understand Advent, as well as Lent.

Immunization. The occupational hazard of Thanksgiving is giving thanks. It’s like Prayer Breakfasts – lots of food yet very little prayer. Is this bad? Be honest – what makes gratitude so special? Well, it might improve cardiovascular and immune functioning, save face, extend life and – get this – beat back the worst disease that…

Wisdom from wildness. He led a troubled teenaged life that included shacking up with a woman at age 17. They produced a son a year later and lived together for the next 13 years. At 19, he rejected his mother’s Christian faith because he felt the Bible, translated in simple Latin prose, paled in comparison…

Evangelism as sex. The best sex is the fruit of a marriage, not the focus. It’s a thermometer not a thermostat. In fact, we have words to describe those who make sex their primary focus or solicit it outside of marriage, but they’re X-rated. All of this isn’t breaking news. Yet it does explain why…

Magic and monsters. With the collapse of Yugoslavia in the late 20th century, small-scale independence movements formed along ethnic and religious fault lines in the Balkan region. Croats and Serbs separated from one another and retreated into religious ghettoes. This "Balkanization of Europe" led directly to Bosnian and Serbian ethnic cleansing in 1992.