Breaking Christian News on The Gospel Herald

Last week, Patty and I attended a performance of a Living Christmas Tree at my church, the First Baptist Church of Naples, Florida. It was the best I’d ever seen. The performers did not simply offer music and a manger scene; they also brought out flags. One read: “The Great I AM”; another proclaimed “King of Kings.” Yet another said “Lord of Lords.”

I left New York City in 1994, but I still feel like a New Yorker deep down. I’ve come to appreciate the San Francisco Bay Area where I now live and enjoy the local sports scene, but I still secretly root for my New York teams.

Regular Christian Post readers know about the inhumane lengths some environmentalists are prepared to go to “save the planet.”

Sadly, Americans these days are notorious for their ignorance of world history. Ask the average American who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, or what happened in 1066, or where the Battle of the Bulge took place, and you will probably get a look of, “I don’t know.”

This Thanksgiving Day recalls another Thanksgiving many years ago-the happy hours I spent with my children and grandchildren. Over turkey and dressing, I decided to quiz my then 8-year-old grandson, as proud grandparents often do.

Many were shocked last February when Secretary of State Clinton said that pressing China about its human rights abuses “can’t interfere” with more important things-like ''the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis.''

In the early 1980s, Joel Belz, who would go on to become the founder of World magazine, had five daughters in grade school or getting ready to head there. He was eager to show them how a Christian worldview had something to say about everything they were going to be studying.

This December, world leaders will gather in Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Conference. There they-and we-will be told that if they don’t take “decisive” or “bold” measures, catastrophes of biblical proportions await humanity.

Five years ago, I told BreakPoint listeners about the relationship between people and the giant panda. I pointed out an unfortunate truth about this star of zoos and fundraising campaigns: Almost everything it does seems designed to ensure its extinction.

Adultery. It’s a common word and a common occurrence in our society.

What is the vision of the Church? That was the sermon topic one Sunday a dozen years ago or so when I visited a friend’s church. But as I listened, I found my mind wandering. I had just signed a contract to write a book on Christian worldview, and I was experiencing writer’s remorse. Did this book really need to be written?

Perhaps you remember the media frenzy over Mother Teresa’s letters, which were published after her death. Because those letters revealed depression, doubts, and spiritual darkness, many argued that Mother Teresa’s Christian faith could not possibly have been real. Atheist Christopher Hitchens, for instance, insisted that she must have realized that “religion is a human fabrication.”

Remember all the Malthusian scare talk of a generation ago about overpopulation? Boy, were they wrong.

Say you’re having a conversation with a non-believing friend or a co-worker, and you want to defend the traditional Christian view of marriage. You are well prepared to appeal to Scripture-to talk about how God made man and woman, how He instituted marriage.

In 1984, a video called The Silent Scream helped change the way people think about the unborn child. The footage of an actual abortion and the fetus’s reaction reminded us that abortion involves the death of a real person.

It was good news when I picked up the New York Times and read that a good friend of mine, Francis Collins, was picked by President Obama to become the head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

I am an aging, white conservative Baptist. My taste in music runs from Bach to Mozart to Lawrence Welk. Indeed, my staff might say I am the un-hippest man alive.

We’re hearing a lot these days about human rights and social justice-particularly among younger evangelicals, but also among secularists. It’s a good thing that there is a growing concern for the poor and the oppressed around the world.

eHarmony is a popular online dating service designed by Neil Clark Warren, an evangelical Christian psychologist. The site claims that, on average, 236 eHarmony members marry every day. That’s good news.

As more states-like Iowa-approve same-sex “marriage,” conservatives are claiming that freedom of religion is in peril. Same-sex “marriage” supporters accuse them of engaging in hysterical gay-bating. Who’s telling the truth?

There is a group of extraordinary thieves in southern China that has ordinary people rattled. They know when their would-be victims are most vulnerable, and they take advantage of this vulnerability. In the proverbial blink of an eye, they strike-and abscond with a family’s greatest treasure, leaving it without a future.

A few nights ago a colleague of mine called her son, who was away at college in Chicago-and got no answer. She called twice more that evening, and the same thing happened. Very frustrating.

Edgar Hernandez probably doesn’t understand the fuss he created. When the 5-year-old from the Mexican state of Campeche coughed, the world caught a nervous breakdown.

I went through relationship after relationship searching for happiness but found myself lonelier than when I started. So I began experimenting with drugs and dealt drugs to pay for my habit. I tried to live this double life of school and parties, but it did not work. After being expelled from school, when I was to receive my doctorate, I pursued the euphoria of decadence as I moved to Atlanta and became a major drug supplier in the southeast.

You would never think that three simple words could cause so much pain within the family. It was May 17, 1993, after his fi rst year in University of Louisville School of Dentistry, our son Christopher told us, “I am gay.” Those three words changed our lives forever. But the timing could not have been worse for my wife Angela and me.