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This Advent, the Christmas child calls you and me

Mary’s call and response is a powerful reminder of how Advent calls us to model her in humble obedience and service, whatever our vocation. Read More… We arrive at the Christmas stable. We have prepared. The Christ child e to us—Immanuel. We begin by taking a step back. The candle that is lit for the final Sunday of Advent reminds us of Mary, the one who brings the Lord into the world. The Protestant Reformers reacted against Catholic overemphasis on...

Christmas in Connecticut: the holiday movie that promises you can’t have it all

Can a cynical newspaperwoman and a WWII vet live happily ever after a PR stunt? Read More… I continue my series on old Hollywood Christmas movies. After a movie about church as munity, The Bishop’s Wife(1947), and the workplace as munity, The Shop Around the Corner (1940), I turn to a movie about family, the smallest but most munity: Christmas in Connecticut (1945), starring Barbara Stanwyck, one of the great Hollywood stars, Sydney Greenstreet (the Fat Man from The Maltese...

The American family needs a Miracle on 34th Street now

The ultimate Christmas classic has proved over time to be both prophetic and bitterly realistic. Read More… My Christmas movies series has hitherto considered church (The Bishop’s Wife), work (The Shop Around the Corner), and family (Christmas in Connecticut), munities that constitute America. I’ll conclude with the most famous American Christmas fairy tale of all, Miracle on 34th Street (1947), in which merce, and even marriage are all in trouble, as they are today. The story is straightforward but unpredictable:...

Take recent polls about COVID hastening the demise of American religion with a grain of salt

Recent polls suggest church attendance and religious affiliation are declining at an even faster pace than before. But who exactly is answering these poll questions, and how do they understand them? Read More… The latest Pew Research Center survey on American religion reflects a familiar trend in recent years: declining levels of Christian affiliation and growing numbers of religiously unaffiliated (the “nones”). Almost 30% of those surveyed told Pew that they identify with no particular pared to 16% in 2007....

Pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai wins one in court, as Hong Kong prosecutor’s appeal is denied

In 2020, entrepreneur and Apple Daily publisher Jimmy Lai beat back an attempt to prosecute him for “intimidating” a pro-Beijing reporter during a Tiananmen Square Massacre vigil. The prosecution appealed, and has now lost, even as Lai remains in prison convicted on other charges. Read More… Hong Kong prosecutors lost their appeal against a magistrate’s decision in September 2020 that cleared charges against media tycoon Jimmy Lai on “intimidating a reporter from a rival newspaper,” according to the South China...

Hong Kong high court initiates final stages of Next Digital’s demise

The pany, founded by entrepreneur and pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai, is in its death throes, another victim of the draconian National Security Law. Read More… A Hong Kong high court has ordered the winding-up of Jimmy Lai’s prominent pany, Next Digital, following a local government petition. The order came from high court master Jack Wong Kin-tong on Dec. 15. No representatives from Next Digital were present at the hearing and pany submitted no objections, according to South China Morning Post....

The University of Austin is scaring all the right people

Whether the new university “dedicated to the unfettered pursuit of truth” will succeed is anyone’s guess. The real issue is why so many are trashing it before it even starts. Read More… Conservatives tend to be skeptical of the uses of the word diversity, but they love variety. They believe that American higher education is better when you have a rich choice among schools—uniformity being a feature of progressive ideologies—that each has a particular mission and identity. Such variety serves...

RELIGION & LIBERTY

In Six

　　Park Street Church voted to affirm senior minister Mark Booker on Sunday by a vote of 350 to 173, with 20 abstaining. 　　The prominent evangelical church in Boston has been roiled by controversy as ministers, elders, staff, and lay leaders disagreed over a series of decisionsas well as the process of making decisionsat the 220-year-old congregationalist church. Ultimately the entire...

Oct 28, 2026

Stuck in the Middle with Hayek

　　In 1944, Friedrich Hayek wrote in “Why the Worst Get on Top” in his The Road to Serfdom: 　　It seems to be almost a law of human nature that it is easier for people to agree on a negative program—on the hatred of an enemy, on the envy of those better off—than on any positive task. The contrast between “we”...

Oct 28, 2026

UK Churches’ Outreach to Muslim Migrants Scrutinized After Clapham Attack

　　A chemical attack that injured a dozen people in the South London suburb of Clapham a month ago has sparked the resurgence of a national debate over the UKs asylum system and the churchs involvement with migrant converts. 　　The suspected perpetrator, Abdul Ezedi, was an Afghan refugee who came to Britain illegally in 2016 and was granted asylum in 2020...

Oct 28, 2026

Amid Catholic Crackdown, Nicaragua Closes 250 Evangelical Ministries

　　When Hurricanes Hilary and Idalia flooded Nicaraguas coast last August and September, evangelical ministries in the country stepped up and served. 　　President Daniel Ortega and his wife, vice president Rosario Murillo, had expelled the Red Cross from their country last July after the organization had criticized the country for its inhuman treatment of prisoners. The departure had left a gap...

Oct 28, 2026

YWAM Rallies After 11 Missionaries Killed, 8 Wounded in Tanzania Bus Accident

　　Days after a bus accident claimed 11 of its missionaries in Tanzania, leaders of Youth With a Mission YWAM are devastated but rallying prayer and support to aid medical evacuations, repatriations, and funeral arrangements expected to total 350,000. 　　The Christian missionaries, seven of whom were from other countries, including one from the United States, died in the Ngaramtoni area near...

Oct 28, 2026

More Evangelicals See Immigrants as a Threat and Economic Drain

　　American evangelicals have complex perspectives on immigration and want a nuanced political response, but most want Congress to act soon. 　　A Lifeway Research study sponsored by the Evangelical Immigration Table found evangelicals are increasingly concerned about the number of recent immigrants to the US but still believe Christians have a responsibility to care for those who are in the country...

Oct 28, 2026

Trump on Track to Sweep South Carolina

　　In the lead-up to South Carolinas primary contest on Saturday, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley held a news conference to tell supporters that shes not going anywhere and is committed to offering voters an alternative to former president Donald Trump. 　　Meanwhile, her presidential rivalwho has a 21 lead in her home statespoke at an evangelical conference in Nashville, touting...

Oct 28, 2026

Living in the Confederacy of Dunces

　　When A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole came out nearly 45 years ago, it must have been one of the strangest books ever written. Its protagonist, Ignatius C. Reilly, is truly unique: a highly educated philosophical social critic who happens to be an obese, unhygienic, hypocrite who brings chaos to any situation. He lives with his mother in...

Oct 28, 2026

Petra Means Rock Churches: Jordan Permits Site’s First Prayers in 1,400 Years

　　Imagine yourself as Indiana Jones, traversing the narrow, nearly mile-long Siq gorge, with mountain cliffs towering on either side. Turning a corner then reveals the vast expanse of the ancient city of Petra and its majestic Treasury, the first-century rock-carved tomb of an ancient Nabatean king. You pass by the 121-foot-tall structure and its statues of Roman and Egyptian gods,...

Oct 28, 2026

The Life Changing Power of the Cross and the Resurrection

　　The Life-Changing Power of the Cross and the Resurrection 　　By Debbie McDaniel 　　“Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6 　　The cross is empty and so is the tomb. 　　You can try to bury Power, but it wont stay there. You can try to bury...

Oct 28, 2026