Highlights from a 2008 Harris Poll nation-wide survey of 2,126 U.S. adults:

• Americans who believe in God: 80 percent (unchanged since the last survey in 2005)
  
  
• Americans who believe Jesus is the Son of God: 71 percent
  
  
• Americans who believe in the resurrection of Jesus: 70 percent
  
  
• Americans who believe in the Virgin Birth: 61 percent
  
  
• Americans who believe in the survival of the soul after death: 68 percent
  
  

Knowing tells the story of John Koestler (Nicholas Cage), a professor who discovers a cryptic document that was hidden in a time capsule in 1958. A scene early in the film shows the depth of Koestler's existential wrestling—a struggle that has been going on long before the strange document makes an appearance.

The scene begins with a wide angle shot of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ...

The greatness of God is most clearly displayed in his Son. And the glory of the gospel is only made evident in his Son. That's why Jesus' question to his disciples [in Matthew 16] is so important: "Who do you say that I am?"

The question is doubly crucial in our day, because [no one is as popular in the U.S. as Jesus]—and not every Jesus is the real Jesus. …

There's the Republican Jesus—who ...

In his book The Cell's Design: How Chemistry Reveals the Creator's Artistry, Fanzale Rana gives the following account of the approach used to authenticate a piece of artwork by Picasso, often referred to as The Unknown Masterpiece:

In the early 1970s, a junk dealer came across five ink drawings while clearing out a deceased woman's apartment in London. He hung onto them for several years, [and then] ...

My youth group was hundreds of miles from home on a mission trip in New Orleans. We were piled in the van on the way back to the motel when someone yelled out, "I get the pay phone first!"

"Why?" another kid asked. "Who do you need to call?"

"It's Father's Day, dork!" came the reply.

Father's Day. I hadn't thought about that in years. As everyone scrambled for coins and planned out a calling schedule, ...

...

This impulse can be hard to quantify, mainly because thinking about it makes us uncomfortable. But it's pictured well in a disturbing practice currently employed by the Nigerian judicial system in western Africa.

The country of Niger has an established police and criminal justice system—one of the remnants of its days as a French colony. There are Nigerian police officers and judges, as well ...

A new movement has emerged from California's Silicon Valley. It's a combination of philosophy, faith, and science known as transhumanism. An article in The Futurist magazine describes transhumanism as "radical life extension and life expansion." Those devoted to the movement "perceive the human body as a work in progress." They believe that "evolution took humanity this far…and only technology ...

Churches are talking trash. No, not badmouthing other congregations; they're examining ways to reduce the waste they produce. Earth care is in vogue, and many Christians, believing that stewarding creation is a spiritual mandate, are looking to mesh environmentalism with their faith.

One leader in the movement is Joel Hunter, pastor of Northland: A Church Distributed, out of Longwood, Florida. Hunter ...

My friend and I sat on my patio, drinking tea and catching up with life. She had just moved to a new situation, away from familiar work, beautiful spaces and valued friends, and she was experiencing the exhausting emptiness of a job that was too full, a context where she felt undervalued, and a place where friends were not naturally found. The tears filled her eyes as she spoke of her weariness, her ...

After years of urban living had ground down my childhood love of nature, I found it suddenly rekindled through my friendship with a young photographer named Bob McQuilkin. I was working as a magazine editor at the time, and Bob seemed determined to drag me out of my stale routine and reintroduce me to the joyous world outside.

Once Bob drove his jeep to my office and insisted that I come see two baby ...