Sometimes Christian

A couple of weekends ago something tragic happened in Boise, Idaho. An angry man tore through a three-year-old's birthday party with a knife. He killed the birthday girl and injured many others, mostly children of varying ages. There are many reports on what happened and everything I have read concurs that the man had been asked to leave due to his behavior days before. So far they have stated that this does not appear to have been a hate crime, more a "revenge" sort of thing. At least, that's what's being painted right now. Perhaps more will come out during the upcoming trial and things. I realize that this is one incident, that tragedy happens everywhere and all the time. We have shootings in our schools. Children are neglected and abused across the globe and no matter how hard we try to fight against it, we keep seeing it happen. How can we believe in a good, loving God when faced with this on a daily basis? If God loves us all so much, why does He...

I've waited a while to address the children at the border issue because I was researching and following all the claims being tossed around. I wanted to make sure I had the facts and not the sensationalized right or left wing "I don't care what the other side is saying, I'm right and you must listen to me" stuff we see in the media these days. Honestly, the vitriol in politics should scare us more than it does. Vilifying people based on the fact that we disagree with them is not the way to be heard. I can remember eighth-grade speech class and the persuasive speech we had to do and ZERO PERCENT of it was "this is the way I believe and if you don't follow suit then you're just plain wrong." In fact, we weren't supposed to say "I believe" in it at all, but I digress. When facing the very real problem happening on our border today, how should Christians respond? Like many people, I was first confronted with this issue by news r...

A party of luxury raged through the night, full of laughter and dancing and vice. Drapes in vivid blues and purples hung through the hall, and the table was bursting with a feast of overly spiced meat and wine. Firelight cast shadows into hidden alcoves and set the gilded trappings to a warm, golden glow, and servants wove their way around merry guests as they indulged Antipas. Outside in the corridor, a young girl prepared to perform a special dance for her stepfather under the careful instruction of her mother. Far from the revelry, in a dark place made for forgotten men, a jailer sat with his prisoner. The two were a study in contrasts; the prisoner with shaggy hair and a full beard, arrayed in camel skin and several weeks’ worth of grime, and the jailer neatly groomed in a linen tunic. The jailer stood calmly outside the cell, one shoulder propped against the wall, and the prisoner shuffled from wall to wall, hands clasped behind his back and head bowed in thought. “You know ...