Christianity
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Who We Are on July 4th
Stephen Spielberg is at it again. Frequently controversial, his latest film is no exception—a SciFi movie about things from another world. Reactions to it range from genius to heresy. But occasionally he drops a movie-moment that simply soars. Such was the climatic speech in his movie Amistad (1997), where the screenwriters inserted their two-bits into…
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The Terrible Price of Being Afraid
(I don’t know who wrote this, but bless them…) The Wages of Fear: 2000 – Y2K is going to destroy everything 2001 – Anthrax is going to kill us all 2002 – West Nile Virus is going to kill us all 2003 – SARS is going to kill us all 2005 – Bird Flu is…
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You Shoulda Known Ray
I wish you could have known this man. I met him when I was fifteen years old and suicidal, and within minutes everything in my life changed. Five years before I was a ten-year-old avowed atheist living with my parents in Sacramento, California. I had a passion for nature and the outdoors—an aspiring forest ranger…
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Cure for the Culture War
“America has the most wise and just and Biblical and moral and constitutional foundation in the world—just like ancient Israel. America is one of the most religious countries in the world—just like ancient Israel. The church is big and rich and free in America—just like ancient Israel. And if God loves His church in America He…
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The Next Mosquito in the Room
“The early church didn’t have a Graham, a Finney, or a Moody. It didn’t have Promise Keepers, a Great Awakening, or user-friendly churches. Furthermore, it had no concise spiritual laws to share, no explosive method for talking to the unconverted. What it had seems quite paltry: it had unspectacular people with a hodgepodge of methods,…
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Bottom Layer of Ice
“Only God has the love we need—yet we’ve turned away from him, except to demand convenient instructions and cooperative help. So we manage every relational encounter with self-need as our ultimate value. We talk about topics we can handle. We try to build our mate’s self-esteem so we can feel good about ourselves. We pout so friends will…
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Beyond the Reach of Darkness
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tower high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him…
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A World of Geldings
“You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more ‘drive,’ or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or ‘creativity.’ [But] In a sort of ghastly simplicity, we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at…
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The Most Dangerous Thing in the World
“Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your…
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Sometimes There Are No Roads
Had supper yet? Feast on this… “I have learned…to let God be the mystery that He is and, with eyes wide open, to pursue Him, not with the precision of a crossword puzzle fanatic but with the reckless passion of a pilot flying into the Bermuda Triangle. Following Christ is a wild adventure full of risk, frustration,…
Jay McCarl 