I don’t envy others their big houses or frequent vacations (or not much!). Here’s what I do envy: Those grandparents who get to visit their grandkids more than twice a year. Living less than a day’s drive—say, three hours—away from grown children seems ideal. It’s close enough to join them for school plays and tournament games and sleepovers, but not near enough to be an imposition (or a convenience?). I’ll have to say, though, if my offspring wanted to move down the road I wouldn’t object. Instead, they both live on opposite sides of the country.

The accumulation of 20-plus years in the same house can be intimidating—not so much from the plastic bins stacked on garage shelves, but from the little stuff, the mementos that weep when you think about pitching them. Do you have boxes of old photographs under the bed or in the closet? Vacation pics from the Grand Canyon or that collection passed down from Great-Aunt Susan that never got labeled (who are these people)? As I was sorting through my last box of photos, and categorizing them to put in another box, it struck me that none of them were more recent than 2008.

The new documentary One Child Nation explores the effects of China’s infamous “one-child policy” from 1980 to 2015. In the film, co-director Nanfu Wang returns to her home village to reflect on growing up while the policy was in place, though ignorant of its implications. Only when she herself became pregnant, as an adult living in the United States, did her thoughts turn to the bitter harvest of the one-child years in her home country. While interviewing an elderly midwife, she asks how many babies the woman delivered. “I really don’t know how many I delivered.

Does the date Aug. 20, 1619, mean anything to you? It’s the day the first African slaves were traded into North America.

Joshua Harris’ divorce from both his wife and Christianity stunned many evangelicals. Here are analyses written by WORLD Magazine columnist Janie B. Cheaney and WORLD News Group board member Albert Mohler, republished here with their permission. —Marvin Olasky

Joshua Harris and the perils of idolatry

By Janie B. Cheaney

It was bound to happen sooner or later. At the church where I help serve dinner for the downtown community once a month, I meet all kinds: street people, addicts, gays, and the occasional cross-dresser. This individual flaunted the figure and clothing of a teenage girl, with the facial hair and facial structure of a man. It wasn’t just the face, though; no one would have taken this person for anything but male, no matter the accoutrement.  

July’s 50th-anniversary commemoration of the Apollo moon landing struck a few sour notes about where we were then and what we’ve done since. A great achievement, for sure, but it didn’t open a Star-Trekkian world of possibility for exploring “the Final Frontier.” Going to the moon looked like a great leap, but compared to the inconceivable size of space, a modern cynic might compare it to a puddle jump.