A note from Brian Lowery, managing editor: "News That Illustrates" is a new feature that we're adding to our weekly illustrations. Each week I'm going to offer links to ten, up-to-the-minute news articles that I feel have some real illustrative potential for you as a preacher. Enjoy!

The folks at Slate asked readers to share what they have sacrificed in light of the recession. Some of the responses ...

Already on the operating room table and moments from an abortion, Anna Chernocke made a life-changing decision—she backed out.

The U.K.'s Daily Mail carries the story:

Minutes away from having the abortion she thought she wanted, each second felt like a second closer to murder rather than the blessed relief she had imagined. Overwhelmed with guilt and fighting back tears, she was led by two nurses ...

A Christian writer named Mike Barrett got interested in the idea of connecting with and learning from those who live a more radical faith. In an article for Christianity Today, he writes about a lesson he discovered along the way:

I began randomly interviewing strangers. Pity those like the woman in her mid-50s who sat on an airplane next to me between Portland and Denver. "What do you think about ...

The American public's support for Roe v. Wade has reached its lowest point since the Supreme Court issued that 1973 decision legalizing abortion, according to a survey released in May of 2006. The Harris Poll reported 49 percent of more than 1,000 adults surveyed expressed support for Roe, marking the first time less than half of the population endorsed the ruling. Forty-seven percent opposed Roe, ...

Fresh from a debate on whether or not humans can be moral without God, author and apologist Dinesh D'Souza offers a few reflections on his sparring partner, Princeton University's Peter Singer, a bioethicist:

Singer is a mild-mannered fellow who speaks calmly and lucidly. Yet you wouldn't have to read his work too long to find his extreme positions. He cheerfully advocates infanticide and euthanasia ...

We're all probably familiar with the Roman Catholic Church's list of seven deadly sins: pride, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, wrath, and sloth. But did you know the Roman Catholic Church recently added seven more? Pope Benedict XVI was concerned about the "decreasing sense of sin" in today's world, evidenced by the declining interest in the disciplined act of confession. The list, published in the Vatican ...

In the 2006 book Unprotected, an anonymous campus psychiatrist writes:

Radical politics pervades my profession, and common sense has vanished. Dangerous behaviors are a personal choice; judgments are prohibited—they might offend…

Where I work, we're stuck on certain issues, but neglect others. We ask about childhood abuse, but not last week's hookups. We want to know how many cigarettes ...

In a small apartment in Washington, D.C., a group of young Christians have taken up a life of radical, intercessory prayer. Each person in the group strategically prays in shifts six days a week for eight hours each day. Then, in two-hour shifts, groups of six to ten gather directly on the steps of the Supreme Court to pray silently with red duct tape covering their mouths. The word "LIFE" is scrawled ...

Since the fall of Communism in the Soviet Union in 1991, the life expectancy of Russians has decreased and poverty has increased.

One tragic side effect of this economic difficulty is that more Russians choose abortion to avoid the cost of raising children.

Vladimir Kulakov, vice president of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, stated, "About 1.6 million women had an abortion last year, a fifth ...

What happens to our prayers after we send them out? For 300 people living in the New Jersey area, the answer to that question is not very encouraging.

Bill Lacovara was fishing on the coast of Atlantic City, New Jersey, when he spotted a plastic bag floating in the water. Inside, he found about 300 prayers that had been mailed to a local pastor—most of which were unopened. The pastor had died ...