My 7-year-old daughter, Jessica, is a deep thinker when it comes to theological questions. Recently we discussed why bad things happen sometimes, re-reading the story of Adam and Eve and how sin came into the world.

Later that week, Jessica was ill and had to stay home from school. Feeling miserable, she told me: "If only Adam and Even hadn't eaten the fruit, I wouldn't be sick." Before I could answer, ...

The doctor said, "If you are a believer in miracles, this would be one."

The doctor was talking about Alcides Moreno. By every law of physics and medicine, Moreno should have died. Moreno was a window washer in Manhattan. He rode platforms with his brother Edgar high into the sky to wash skyscrapers. From there he could look down to see the pavement far below where the people looked like ants. On ...

For almost 10 years, Adam Bruckner, [assistant coach for the Philadelphia Kixx indoor soccer team], has made it his personal mission to help the homeless. Actually, "help" would be an understatement for what he does. Although he earns a modest income, he gives away practically everything. And when he decided that wasn't enough, he whittled his living expenses down to two items: gas for his car and ...

Bee Movie centers on the life of Barry B. Benson—a maverick bee who is less than enthusiastic about taking his place in the hive as a life-long worker. When Barry takes an unauthorized trip into the human world, he makes a shocking discovery: humans are stealing the honey that bees work so long and hard to produce.

Incensed at the injustice, Barry files a lawsuit on behalf of all bees demanding ...

We want a kind of knowledge that eliminates mystery and puts us in charge of [the] world. Above all, we want to avoid a knowledge that calls for our own conversion. …

The sin, the error, is not our hunger for knowledge—and the way back to Paradise is not via intentional ignorance (despite some latter-day Christian claims). Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden because of the kind of ...

At the end of his sermon on Isaiah 9:6, Ken Langley, pastor of Christ Community Church in Zion, Illinois, shared this powerful thought about the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, juxtaposed with the story of Aragorn in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Return of the King, the final book in The Lord of the Rings trilogy:

The emotional power of [Isaiah 9] lies not only in the Messiah's titles, but in their cumulative ...

In the movie The Perfect Man, teenager Holly Hamilton (Hillary Duff) is tired of moving every time her single mom, Jean, (Heather Locklear) has another personal meltdown involving yet another second-rate guy. To distract her mother from her latest bad choice, Holly conceives the perfect plan for the perfect man: an imaginary secret admirer who will romance Jean and boost her shaky self-esteem. Holly ...

It seems the confessional booths of many Roman Catholic Churches are buried somewhere beneath layers of dust. According to a 2005 survey by Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research on the Apostolate, 42 percent of practicing Catholics said they never go to confession, while only 2 percent said they go regularly.

Theories as to why so many believers are abandoning the long-cherished discipline ...

When I was about ten years old, my dad, a medical doctor, received a special gift from one of his patients: a beautiful globe with shiny sequins. The globe spun around on its base and played one of my dad's favorite songs. My dad proudly demonstrated how it worked: grab it by the base, slowly wind it counter-clockwise, and then release it, letting it spin clockwise while playing beautiful music. He ...

After discovering how to clone humans, two scientists challenged God:

"We don't need you anymore," they said. "We can make life by ourselves now."

"Okay," God replied, "let's have a man-making contest."

"All right," said the scientists. "We'll do it like you did in the beginning." Then they reached down to grab a handful of dirt to begin to form a man.

Then they heard God's voice from heaven: "Hold it—get ...