Pastor Mike Breaux tells the following story of when his daughter Jodie answered God's call to go into missions work:

During her junior year of high school, Jodie struggled to find a faith of her own. She wanted to know in her heart that all of what she'd been taught to believe was true and that Jesus Christ was real. Honestly, she was headed down a dark road. But God pursued her down that road. She ...

In 2000, an Illinois scientist named William Walsh studied strands of hair from the body of famous classical composer Ludwig Van Beethoven. By studying those strands of hair, Dr. Walsh discovered that Beethoven's body had 100 times the normal amount of lead. He concluded that Beethoven's untimely death at the age of 57 was due to lead poisoning.

What's interesting is that Beethoven's lead poisoning ...

Kathy was one of 13 children raised by a common father and three mothers in a polygamist community in Utah. [The community was a part of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a sect that split from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the 1890's.]Growing up, she was burdened by the unrealistic expectations of the cult: "We were constantly told to 'keep sweet,' ...

A new religion invented by a Massachusetts psychologist has been gaining popularity over recent years. Called "Yoism," this system of beliefs is based on the "open source" principle—where the general public becomes a combined, creative authority and source of truth. One example of the "open source" phenomenon is the successful online encyclopedia known as Wikipedia.

Yoism operates and evolves ...

We become what we worship. Consider the following news item about the cult-like appeal of anorexia:

They call her "Ana." She is a role model to some, a goddess to others—the subject of drawings, prayers, and even a creed. She tells them what to eat and mocks them when they don't lose weight.

Ana is a reference to anorexia, the potentially fatal eating disorder.

"People pray to Ana to make them ...

Responding to persistent reports of human sacrifice last August, police raided several shrines of African traditional religionists in Okija, Anambra state, in largely Christian southern Nigeria. The reports had understated the problem. To their horror, authorities recovered more than 80 skulls and 50 fresh corpses. In these shrines, the police recovered three registers. They list 1,258 visitors who ...

In March 1995 followers of a Japanese doomsday cult called Aum Shinrikyo (meaning "Supreme Truth") released deadly sarin gas into the Tokyo subway system, killing 12 commuters and sickening thousands. The eccentric leader of the cult and instigator of the attack, Shoko Asahara, has been imprisoned since then, but the cult lives on, even under intense governmental scrutiny. In fact, it has grown, in ...

When asked if she has a life mission, alternative-rocker Tori Amos, long known for her brazen anti-Christian lyrics, responded:

Yes, I do have a mission. To expose the dark side of Christianity.…The problem with Christianity is they think everything is about outside forces, good and evil. With Christianity there's not a lot of inner work encouraged.…Kids get into weird cults [because] they're desperately ...

History shows that when religion wanes in any country, it is not replaced by popular nationalist philosophy that leads to universal happiness and peace. ... The vacuum left by the waning of religion in western countries has been filled by an army of superstitious cults and beliefs. Perfect secularism by no means casts out fear.

I met a man who was deeply involved in the New Age Movement for over five years. I said, "What caused you to second-guess what you were involved in?" He said, "It was the moral anarchy. I became part of a group, and we used to sit around and talk about what 'my truth' was. One person would say, 'My truth is doing/saying/acting out this form of morality.' And someone would say, 'Oh, that's nice. That's ...