What the heck is going on in Syria? If you are like me, you have a problem keeping all the players straight, and the unfamiliar Arab names don’t help. Thankfully, the Syrian President has a relatively easy name to remember, Bashar al-Assad, but keeping track of who’s who and which side they’re on is a real challenge. Frankly, even when I can keep track, I’m very skeptical that I am getting anything close to ...

Mother’s Day is not primarily a call for sentimental reflection about our mothers. It’s a call to disarm. It’s a call to nonviolence. It’s a call to follow the God of nonviolent love, not the violent Caesars of our world. Finally, Mother’s Day is a call to peace, justice, and love for all of creation. Only when our lives are patterned in that way can we live out Howe’s dream to “solemnly take counsel with e ...

How will the human species continue to evolve? That was the question posed earlier in the week by CBS’s Sunday Morning in a segment called “The Future of Evolution.” But before looking to the future of human evolution, Sunday Morning briefly examined its history. This was a wise direction for the segment, in my opinion, because before we speculate on what we’re evolving into, we need to know what we’ve evol ...

What if we surprised our enemies? I mean, really surprised them. What if we surprised them with something totally unexpected? When our personal, political, and national enemies strike us, they expect us to strike back. That’s been the human script since the foundations of human culture. We mimic violence blow for blow. Only each side wants to be the side who delivers the final blow. What if we surprised our ...

What do you say in the face of evil? The stories from yesterday’s attacks at the Boston Marathon are heartbreaking, gut-wrenching. One in particular stands out to me. A woman was waiting for her husband to cross the finish line when the bombs exploded. For three hours she searched frantically for him, not knowing if he was alive or dead, not knowing if he was frantic and looking for her. Her voice cracked a ...

Paul’s vision is that nothing can separate Matthew Warren from the love of God. Nothing can separate Rick Warren from the Love of God. Nothing can separate Fox News from the love of God. Nothing can separate American Christians who fear persecution from the love of God. Nothing can separate Iraqis and Afghanis from the love of God. Nothing can separate you from the love of God. And nothing, according to Pau ...

Does violence rule our species? The barrage of international conflicts now in the headlines seems to suggest that violence may be the one language we have in common. Though we all speak it fluently, very few of us learned it in school. We didn’t have to study its “vocabulary” and “grammar rules” – no, it was much easier than that. Humans pick violence up by immersion and so we are all native speakers. From ...

Today, March 19, 2013, is the tenth anniversary of the Shock and Awe campaign that was intended to rid the world of the threat of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. As it turned out, the threat was a lie. There was ample evidence at the time to prove that the WMDs didn’t really exist, but were manufactured in Saddam’s imagination for political gain. So why did we fall so easily for his li ...

Isaiah's political message is not good for national defense! But it's the only message that will lead to the reconciliation of the nations. Here are a few questions to think about from this video: ...

Can a song reconcile two nations? The captivating life of Monique Andree Serf, also known as Barbara, says yes... ...