Years ago I accepted a friend’s mysterious invitation to attend what he said would be the “greatest Halloween celebration” I would ever experience. He wouldn’t share much more than that. So we met for dinner and then traveled deep into the spooky Tennessee hills to where a little community church was hosting, much to my chagrin, a “Hell House.”
For the uninitiated (oh, lucky you!), a Hell House, also known as a “Judgment House,” is an evangelical-revivalistic adaptation of a Haunted House. At each Hell House the script is pretty much …

This is my dear friend Hilda, an example in perseverance and grace. Special thanks to Sean Dietrich for the video.

Hilda

I don’t know how it is that you are reading this. In fact, I don’t know how any of us are even here. In case you missed it, the entire cosmos was destroyed by the avenging judgment of God this weekend, and you can’t plead ignorance – you were properly warned.
Oh, forget the cryptic evidence of the Jewish prophets, the predictions of Nostradamus, the ancient Mayan Calendar, or the inexplicable visions of the Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos. No, for the last several years we have been advised …

“Love others as much as you love yourself,” Jesus told his followers. These words are considerably more than a sugary Sunday School story. For those who take these words to heart, “love others” has profound, life-altering implications, not all of which are warm and fuzzy. Consider the life of Bernard Lichtenberg, arrested seventy years ago this month. His crime: He loved.
Lichtenberg was a Catholic priest serving in Berlin before the outbreak of World War 2. When Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power, he recognized the coming terror …

Roger Williams arrived in Massachusetts almost four centuries ago, just a decade after the first Pilgrims disembarked from the Mayflower. He joined that Puritan effort to build a “city on a hill,” to prove to the nations of the world how God’s people should live. How did things go for Roger? Not so good. He never got that Puritan thing figured out.
After beginning his role as pastor of the church at Salem, Massachusetts, it didn’t take long for Williams’ sermons to ignite an inferno of controversy. He was quickly branded …

Near Mpumalanga, South Africa, are the marvelous and mysterious Echo Caves. Rediscovered in the last century and turned into a tourist site, these caverns are home to a truly remarkable ecosystem. One of the more amazing species found there, is its famous and unique wild fig trees.
As far as plant life goes, these fig trees appear to be normal run-of-the-mill fruit bushes. What makes them so famous is the unseen: Their roots. Researchers and spelunking scientists have followed the roots of these trees deep into Echo Caves – 400 feet …