Early in his career, the great American playwright, Eugene O'Neill, wrote the imaginative play Lazarus Laughed. It's about Lazarus's life after Jesus raised him from the dead. Near the beginning of the play, guests from Bethany are gathering for a banquet in Lazarus's honor. They are all desperate to hear what Lazarus has to say about his experience. As they take their seats, one guest says, "The ...

I was on an airplane and the flight attendant started going through the pre-flight spiel, instructing us on what to do "in case of a water landing."

I looked around. We were on a 747 jet. This plane isn't equipped with pontoons. A 747 doesn't "land" on the water. It explodes on impact into pieces the size of my toenail.

The proper way to prepare for an event like this is not to stick your head between ...

On the afternoon of May 2, 1990, I heard holy things. I was visiting Larry Hildreth, a father and husband from our church in Pennsylvania. He was in his thirties, but he was near death from cancer. I was at his home to serve him Communion, because he was too weak to come to church.

Larry was a deeply thoughtful man, and as he spoke that day, slow and deliberately, I realized I was hearing extraordinary ...

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 ...

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
  
  

We live in a time when people have become extremely conscious of nature, its beauty, its wonders, its indescribable value. We appreciate our planet more than we did before. We realize that in a very real sense, the earth gives us physical life. It's not surprising, then, that some people take this truth one step further and regard the planet as somehow giving them inner life as well.

This worldview ...

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 ...

Though there were auspicious signs that preceded and accompanied his birth, preparing the world for the majestic and kingly, the birth of Jesus itself was of the humblest peasant parentage, in an unimportant town, and in the roughest of buildings. He made a career of rejecting marks of status or privilege: He loved lepers, washed the feet of his disciples, befriended little children, encouraged women ...

On May 17, 2008, Christian recording artist Steven Curtis Chapman and his family suffered a devastating loss. Five-year-old adopted daughter, Maria, was struck and killed when Chapman's seventeen-year-old son was backing his SUV out of the family's driveway. After much prayer and counsel, Chapman recently returned to touring in promotion for his newest album. Elizabeth Diffin, a freelance reporter, ...

A few years ago, a good friend of mine took his three-year-old daughter, Amy, to her first circus. Before the event her father tried his best to describe the exciting atmosphere of the big top. She asked lots of questions along the way. Would she get to pet the elephant? Could she swing on the trapeze? Would the clowns come and talk to her? The night before, she could hardly sleep. She woke her parents ...