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 …

Sometimes I just have to clap at the end of a film in a movie theater. I did that one recent Saturday at the end of the showing of  ”The Help,” and it started a modest clapping by others at a Harkins theater in Chandler. You just have to clap when insidious human practices are so wonderfully exposed.  Blatant racism of the Old South is showcased.
“The Help,” which has finished three weeks in a row at the top of  film ticket receipts, demonstrates why movies are made, why they need to be …

It was nearly four years ago that a Boeing engineer, Lyndon Lamborn, contacted me at the East Valley Tribune to tell me the Mormon Church was excommunicating him and making it quite public — as a kind of warning to the rest of the flock that his ideas and criticism of the church were too explosive.
I especially remember my front-page Sunday morning article for the huge reaction – more than 18,000 hits on the Website story (the newspaper’s record at the time) and hundreds and hundreds of  reader comments.   I did a number of follow-up stories and was amazed by the public interest in the …

On the days of July 1st to July 3rd 1863, the Union and Confederate armies clashed in the largest battle of the American Civil War at a little village named Gettysburg. More than 160,000 soldiers dressed in blue or gray entered those Pennsylvania fields, and a staggering 51,000 became casualties in the fighting. Some of the fiercest combat occurred on the last day of the battle with what historians call “Pickett’s Charge.” General Robert E. Lee ordered an advance of some 14,000 Confederate troops led by George Pickett, across an …

From time to time in Christian history there have been those who claim to have come into possession of relics associated with Jesus. Pilgrims and collectors have gathered together items like the Shroud of Turin, the alleged crown of thorns worn at Christ’s crucifixion, or the Veil of Veronica, used to wipe our Lord’s sweaty, bloody brow. And since Helena, the Emperor Constantine’s mother, first claimed to have found the true Cross of Jesus more than 1700 years ago, pieces of it have shown up every where. Tongue in check, …

When my wife and I bought our first house together, it was a cute little ranch-style home sitting high up on a ridge. We loved everything about it except the master bathroom. It was a hideous, dark, Barney-the-Dinosaur purple. We talked almost every day about how we needed to paint it, but just kept putting it off. One Saturday my wife was gone to work so I decided I would surprise her by painting the bathroom. To get started, I sat a chair in the middle of the bathroom floor, …

Do you remember the day you earned your driver’s license? Was it not one of the greatest moments of personal freedom you ever experienced? It definitively felt that way to me. Finally, after those months and years of wishing and preparing, that piece of plastic with the goofy photo set me loose in the world.
Of course, having a license doesn’t mean one is a very good driver. But at least the license testifies to some basic knowledge, at least some basic skills behind the wheel. And you probably acquired those …

In 2002, two young girls and their parents filed a federal class-action law suit against the McDonalds Corporation. It was the claim of the plaintiffs that eating a consistent diet of Happy Meals, Big Macs, fries and shakes had led to their morbid obesity, and McDonalds was responsible for this condition.
Inspired by these events, independent film-maker Morgan Spurlock produced, starred in, and released a curious piece of American documentary entitled Super Size Me in 2004. The premise was simple: Over a thirty day period, Spurlock conducted an unscientific experiment in …

Recently my father gave me a superb little book that contains three great speeches by past Native American chieftains. One speech was by Chief Joseph; one by Chief Seattle – both leaders of tribes in the American northwest; and the third was by a lesser known man named Chief Red Jacket.
Red Jacket was of the Seneca tribe, who lived in what is now New York State and regions of Canada. Red Jacket was once called to a council in 1805 by Christian missionaries from New England. The purpose of this …