The title and subtitle of Greg Cootsona’s Mere Science and Christian Faith: Bridging the Divide with Emerging Adults (IVP, 2018) suggests his two chief ways of selling Darwinism to Christians: C.S. Lewis (who should have trademarked “mere”) was for it, and evangelicals should make their peace with Darwinism for the sake of the children who will otherwise abandon the gospel.

The origin of the word news may lie in the letters themselves: North East West South. That certainly made sense for 14 days in May lowlighted by suspicions about North Korea’s intent, the continued decline of liberty in what was the Middle East’s one Muslim democracy, and the growth of homelessness among those who hit the Pacific coast and cannot go any farther west.

Nancy Pearcey’s new book, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality, helps us understand how to respond when a Wisconsin resident born male becomes a high-school prom queen and a Missouri resident born female sues a school district. Pearcey is a professor at Houston Baptist University and the author of Total Truth and other books.

Kay Coles James on Jan. 1 became president of the Heritage Foundation, America’s premier conservative think tank. Her previous leadership roles: secretary of Health and Human Resources in Virginia, director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in George W. Bush’s administration, and many more. Here are edited excerpts of our interview in March.

Matthew Kaemingk’s Christian Hospitality and Muslim Immigration in an Age of Fear (Eerdmans, 2018) has both good specific detail and thoughtful abstractions. He praises attempts in Amsterdam to break down walls between citizens and refugees by cooking and sewing together. Kaemingk also understands that neutrality doesn’t exist, and we often learn more from reading strong positions than from attempts to be value-free.

Last year I was in a car for three hours with a person I care about deeply. He is theologically adrift. Like an idiot, I talked with him about politics, instead of about what’s really important. I’m still kicking myself about that wasted time.

Last month I gave a lecture on journalism and worldview, leaving half an hour for the questions, and the first question was, “What do you think of the Johnson Amendment?” Lyndon Johnson’s amendment, passed in 1954, gives all 501(c)(3) nonprofit groups, including churches, a simple command: Don’t endorse political candidates.

An alphabet soup of provocative news filled the last two weeks:

A is for Alfie Evans, who died at April’s end, 11 days short of his second birthday. Maybe he would have died then anyway had Britain’s High Court of Justice allowed his parents to move Alfie to the hospital in Rome that was eager to accept him, but we’ll never know. Thirty British police officers guarded Alfie to keep his supporters from rescuing him. How odd for a hospital to treat a toddler like a roach: He can check in but he can’t check out.