(ANALYSIS) President Donald Trump had a really interesting idea: Identify the 250 greatest Americans of all time on the 250th anniversary of the United States. There could have been a lively nationwide discussion, perhaps with a festival of varied experts and online balloting. Instead, some unknown process produced Trump’s designation of 192 men and 52 women.
Read More(OPINION) In one of those strange turns of life, Christine Powell found herself navigating a world that she had once only observed as a young professional right out of college.
Read More(OPINION) As I wrote two weeks ago, this will be my last column for the Lexington Herald-Leader. Leaving its pages feels like saying a final goodbye to a treasured friend. My columns will continue to appear monthly on an excellent (and free) website, Religion Unplugged.
Read More(OPINION) I arrived at the Lexington Herald-Leader in 1986 as the oldest intern anybody in the newsroom had ever seen. I was 30, working on a Ph.D. in communications at the University of Kentucky and playing catchup from a misspent youth that had put me way behind in my career journey.
Read More(OPINION) We often talk about polarization, or division, or dysfunction. But underneath all of that is something deeper: We are losing our civil contract. Not just a legal contract, but a human one.
Read More(OPINION) Most of us can recognize and control that primitive impulse to club everything in sight in favor of safety and civilization. Between wars from way back, humans dropped the club and learned to speak, to convey meaning from sounds and symbols, and I kinda like the words-over-weapons thing we had going. You can make friends with words, only enemies with weapons.
Read More(OPINION) Striving for success, status, and achievement often deepens emptiness rather than fulfillment. True meaning comes from cultivating love, faith in something greater, hopeful expectation, benevolence toward others, a sense of humor and mercy. These qualities, more than external rewards, sustain a satisfying, grounded life and ease the burden of human imperfection.
Read MoreA new documentary film “explores how baseball and faith intertwine in powerful and surprising ways.” It’s based on the 2013 book “Baseball as a Road to God: Seeing Beyond the Game” by former New York University President John Sexton.
Read MoreIn true Trump fashion, Jackson Lahmeyer — founder of Pastors for Trump — is touting a “HUGE Announcement” next week and hinting strongly that he’ll enter the race for Oklahoma’s 1st Congressional District seat.
Read MoreInevitably, international reporting trips produce a memorable moment, be it frightening, frantic or funny. Sometimes, the notable occurrence relates to the actual story. Other times, an indelible personal experience stands out.
Read More(OPINION) As a journalist, I’ve met thousands of people over more than three decades, and heard a lot of … interesting theories about life, spirituality, current events and so forth.
Read MoreIt’s a tough time for Christian farmer Jorge Sanchez. A U.S. blockade on oil shipments to this Caribbean island nation has spurred Cuba’s deepening humanitarian crisis.
Read More(Opinion) It’s all about being faithful. You do what you can, and what you should, even if the results are out of your hands. Of course, the results are always out of your hands. You plant flowers even if the vandals trample them down.
Read More(OPINION) Conservative Christians want the Ten Commandments in our classrooms and courtrooms, while their preferred candidate and president shreds the Ninth Commandment’s order to not “bear false witness against our neighbor” with abandon.
Read MoreThe Rev. Jesse Jackson’s life was not without controversy. Still, the civil rights icon’s immense influence was evident in the wake of his passing.
Read More(OPINION) Drawing on a quote attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald and a passage from Ecclesiastes, I look at the challenges today’s binary thinking. From immigration debates to religion and marriage, it argues that wisdom lies between extremes, where justice and compassion, conviction and humility, can coexist without flattening complex human realities in society.
Read MoreU.S. Army soldier. Republican congressman. Executive pastor. That was former U.S. Rep. Steve Russell’s career path before his 2022 recruitment to lead a North Carolina-based international ministry known as JAARS — which stands for Jungle Aviation and Relay Service.
Read More(OPINION) As a prolific writer — both fiction and non-fiction — when an inspiration hits me, I have to follow through on the process of getting my ideas on paper (or, in these modern times, typed into the computer) or it bugs me no end. My latest effort will, eventually, be a book about how not to be “beige.”
Read MoreWith a record $1.76 billion expected to be wagered on the Super Bowl, more people are asking if legal sports betting is good or bad for America.
Read More(OPINION) When winter streets freeze and night skies are black and snow swerves down against the glow of porch lights, my thoughts inevitably turn to one of the more powerful works of fiction I know, James Joyce’s story “The Dead,” which appeared in his 1914 collection “Dubliners.”
Read More
