In 1998, Michael Crichton, author of the best-seller Jurassic Park, wrote a book entitled State of Fear, a fictional look at a global disaster caused by eco-terrorists. To prepare for the writing of the book, Crichton researched global disasters. He was particularly intrigued with what happened in Chernobyl, one of the worst man-made disasters in history. He was surprised to find, though, that Chernobyl ...

In May of 2009, author and speaker Gordon MacDonald was invited to spend a weekend at the Mount Zion Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Mount Zion's pastor, Bishop Joseph Walker, III, had invited MacDonald to preach to his congregation on a day devoted to honoring those who were graduating from one level of education to another. In an article for Leadershipjournal.net, MacDonald shares how the ...

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 ...

Early in his career, many had hoped A. N. Wilson, a brilliant philosopher, would become the next C. S. Lewis. But as a young man, he began to wonder how much of the Easter story he accepted. By his thirties, he had lost all religious belief and publicly repudiated his Christian faith, becoming an atheist. He soon embraced the role of a harsh, cynical critic of Christianity and any faith in God at ...

A few years ago, ChristianityToday.com asked readers to share how much their mothers and grandmothers meant to them. In response, Bill Fix, of Taylor, Michigan, shared a moving testimony about his mother's faithful witness:

[Mom] grew up around the coal mines where her daddy worked, deep in the mountainous regions of Virginia. She came from a large, poverty-stricken family, so she learned how to be ...

While serving in Iraq, Courtney Birdsey experienced the protective hand of God, forever changing her. She says:

On one of [our] missions, my unit made a return trip to Samarra, north of Baghdad, to gather data. As we were leaving the town, the Humvee I was riding in approached a tank from behind. A soldier riding on the tank gave us an urgent "turn around" signal. We didn't hesitate to follow orders. ...

Improvisation is the willingness to live within the bounds of the past and yet search for the future at the same time. Improvisation is the desire to make something new out of something old.… It is experienced in being open to letting the people around you…have impact on what you are creating.

Wynton Marsalis is the artistic director of jazz at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts ...

Remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would strongly be tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, ...

As our Bible study group began focusing on the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, I felt pretty smug. After all, I didn't worship more than one God, steal, commit adultery or murder, lie about my neighbors, or plot to cheat them out of what was rightfully theirs. But one evening we came to the command to honor our father and mother (v. 12). Against my will, I thought of my mother, who'd passed away ten ...

What is the most beautiful thing you have experienced this week?

Maybe something you heard. Maybe some beautiful music—perhaps in church, or in the cathedral. Maybe something in the world of nature: the sun breaking through the mist and making the autumn leaves luminous, the curl of a squirrel's tail as he sat nibbling a nut. It might be something you smelt: the scent of a rose perhaps, or the ...