The legendary country singer, songwriter and entertainer died on Tuesday at 80. Raised in a deeply Christian family in Tennessee, she credited her faith in God for guiding her life, music and philanthropy. Her enduring legacy includes countless hit songs, films, charitable work and a message of hope.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Confession time: My wife and I watch a lot of reality TV. I’ve always loved it, really. Even back to “The Osbornes” and “Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica” on MTV. When I was in college, we had “Survivor” night. It was always Thursday. We would gather around in someone’s apartment, watch the show, complain about who got eliminated, then walk to the Vespers service across campus.
Read MoreAbout 25 years ago, I wrote two columns examining the Church of Rome’s priest shortage — through the eyes of faithful mothers, with the help of a priest who had led a seminary. The headline: “Fathers, mothers & Catholic sons.” I was reminded of themes from those columns during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast.
Read MoreTo say the least, Indiana Fever star Sophie (“Do the Sophie”) Cunningham’s quotes about trans athletes and women’s sports has ignited a firestorm in sports, politics, social media and the elite press. In this case, the sports world includes the small, struggling WNBA.
Read MoreA charismatic televangelist who created a career out of her past as a career criminal and drug dealer now has a startling new revelation: Aliens harvested her eggs. Katie Souza, whose show “Healing Your Soul” airs on Trinity Broadcasting Network and Faith Broadcasting Network, told said she was a child victim of an extraterrestrial conspiracy to create alien-human hybrids.
Read MoreTerrorism that began in northeast Nigeria with the founding of Boko Haram in 2002 spread to the northwest, has become common in the Middle Belt and is now spreading to southern Nigeria — leaving safe for daily living only perhaps 20 to 40 percent of Nigeria, the largest nation in Africa and the sixth most populous in the world. Nigeria is the deadliest country for believers globally.
Read More(ESSAY) At Christian colleges across the nation, a “ring by spring” is a polarizing cultural phenomenon that comes with quirky rituals. There’s the “freshman frenzy,” the “senior scramble” — and on my campus, one infamous ice breaker known as “Awk Walk.” Underneath these traditions is an inescapable anxiety: Will you meet your spouse or graduate single?
Read MoreFor Charli Turner and Julie Montgomery, the idea of starting a school that could serve as a Christian mission started years ago. “We had this funny vision that we were going to take in all the lost, hurting kids,” Turner said. Finally, they’re realizing their dream in rural North Idaho.
Read More(ANALYSIS) For Christians working in sports, the challenge becomes even greater. Faith calls believers to engage culture without allowing society to define them. Identity comes not from applause, criticism or trending hashtags, but from Christ.
Read More(ANALYSIS) In her student days, Ann Widdecombe's first Oxford Union presentation was an attack on censorship, even if practicing free speech turned out to be risky or painful. A half-century later, the former Conservative MP and outspoken Catholic returned to the legendary debate club to address the same subject, at one point explaining why she once agreed to share a speaker's platform with an Irish Republican Army activist.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Fewer marriages, fewer believing mothers and fewer traditions carried forward add up to a generation raised inside a custom-built crisis of meaning. America needs religious men. To endure and thrive as a civilization, it may need religious women even more. The reasons aren’t mysterious.
Read More(REVIEW) Are humans really all that different than primates? Harvard primatologist Christine Webb blends science, philosophy and legal developments to challenge humanity’s presumed supremacy over nature. Drawing on evolution, animal cognition research and Indigenous worldviews, she argues that consciousness extends beyond humans.
Read More(REVIEW) The Jewish Museum’s exhibition “Modernity and Opulence: Women of the Wiener Werkstätte” highlights the pivotal role Jewish women played in Vienna’s influential design collective. Featuring nearly 200 works, the show explores how artists and patrons transformed modern art, fashion and women’s professional opportunities in the early 20th century.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The secular world has engineered a brilliant liturgy of despair and its high priests come with PhDs in economics. You’re no doubt familiar with the prevailing narrative, as familiar as it is depressing. Marriage has become a luxury product, crushed by stagnant wages, soaring living costs and, in many places, a housing market where buying your first home is impossible.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The Vatican’s latest statement on the canonical trial of Father Marko Ivan Rupnik was intended to quash rumors that one of the Catholic Church’s most controversial abuse cases had quietly ended in acquittal. Instead, it highlighted a different issue: The secretive process by which the church’s judicial system operates and whether it’s capable of delivering justice.
Read More(ANALYSIS) To be sure, embryo adoption occupies a small corner of U.S. fertility medicine. Few people choose to donate remaining embryos for procreative use. Nor is embryonic personhood a popular idea: Only 39% of Americans support laws declaring that human life begins at fertilization. A majority of white evangelical Protestants, Hispanic Protestants and Latter-day Saints support that view, yet majorities of these religious groups also oppose banning IVF.
Read MoreThey may share a congregation, but men and women have different discipleship needs, according to new analysis from Lifeway Research.
Read More(ANALYSIS) A new academic study argues that India has built an “infrastructure of inattention” around dowry killings — referring to legal and cultural processes that once made such deaths the focus of mass public protest but now allow such murders to pass with little public attention.
Read MoreThe Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home was back in court defending its federally approved exemption to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate in a case dating to 2013 and involving three Supreme Court victories. The ministry in Pittsburgh last won its case before the U.S. Supreme Court in July 2020, when the justices said the Department of Health and Human Services acted lawfully when it granted exemptions to the contraceptive mandate to employers with religious and conscientious objections.
Read MoreAkinyi Kaula postponed the “American Dream,” dropped out of her nursing degree studies and flew back to her homeland of Kenya — only to end up in a polygamous marriage. Now, her story is igniting online debate in Africa. The debate over polygamy, Christianity and Western values continues as many men ponder whether to wed multiple wives.
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