In Jesus Mean and Wild, author Mark Galli discusses the challenge of repentance in American culture:

I look at myself some days and it's hard to imagine that I am a miserable offender and that there is no health in me [as the Book of Common Prayer suggests]. I go to church. I read my Bible. I help at the homeless shelter once a month. At home, I do the dishes, take out the trash, and don't beat my ...

Refusing to clean up his own backyard has landed George Hartsuff in jail for 60 days. He can't say he wasn't warned. City officials have been asking him to do a little cleaning since 2000. Court action to ensure compliance was taken in 2002. On July 5, 2007, authorities gave Hartsuff 30 days to clean out the boats, crab pots, vending machines, and other assorted debris that littered his Maryland yard. ...

If there is a terror about darkness because we cannot see, there is also a terror about light because we can see. There is a terror about light because much of what we see in the light about ourselves and our world we would rather not see, would rather not have be seen.

— Frederick Buechner, U. S. writer and preacher (1926–)

A 2004 study at Temple University School of Medicine found that lying takes more brain energy than telling the truth. Participants were divided into two groups. Those in the first group were asked to shoot a toy gun and then lie and say they didn't do it. Those in the second group watched what happened and then told the truth about it. An MRI machine indicated that the liars had to use seven areas ...

The Piano chronicles the journey toward emotional freedom of a 19th-century single mother named Ada. Motivated by the promise of an arranged marriage, Ada (Holly Hunter) moves with her young daughter from Scotland to the New Zealand outback. Ada is mute, unable to speak since childhood. She lives in an emotional prison of shame and anger. Ada's sole source of pleasure is her piano, which she brought ...

The evidence for Jesus' resurrection is so strong that nobody would question it except for two things: First, it is a very unusual event. And second, if you believe it happened, you have to change the way you live.

—Theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg

Beyond the Gates of Splendor is a documentary film that tells the true story of five American missionaries: Jim Elliot, Pete Fleming, Ed McCully, Nate Saint, and Roger Youderian, who in January 1956 were speared to death in the jungles of Ecuador by the Auca Indians, an isolated tribe known as the Waodani.

At first, the missionaries found acceptance among the Auca, but eventually they experienced their ...

William M. Greathouse writes:

The new man in Christ is therefore actually living a holy life in Christ and in the power of the Spirit. The old man he once was in Adam has ceased to be.

An incident in Augustine's early Christian life illustrates this. Before his conversion he had a mistress named Claudia. Shortly after he found Christ, Claudia saw him on the street in the city. "Augustine! Augustine!" ...

The May 2002 issue of Fast Company tells the stories of five people who worked for Enron, the company that in 2001 filed for the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.

One person profiled in that article was Phyllis Anzalone. She went to work for the company in 1996 selling energy supply contracts. Her personal earnings quickly went to six figures. She says, "As devastating as it was, I'm glad I did it. ...

In a classic Leadership cartoon by Mary Chambers, two couples are seated in a living room engaged in Bible study. One of the women is speaking. "Well," she says, "I haven't actually died to sin, but I did feel kind of faint once."