False convictions, ruined lives
False rape accusations may be statistically ‘rare,’ but they happen every day in the United States
Voices
Marvin Olasky
Forty years in the wilderness
Abraham Lincoln, deeply troubled by four years of Civil War bloodletting, gave a great second inaugural address in 1865. By then Lincoln saw slavery as a terrible stench in God’s nostrils, so he m...
The Editors
Mailbag
‘Remember those who are in prison’ Dec. 15 Francis Schaeffer noted that the Romans persecuted Christians, even though they were taught to obey the government and love others, because ...
Janie B. Cheaney
Broken arrows
Perhaps one of the more unfortunate shifts of the English language in recent years has been the expansion of parent to a verb. Both forms of the word poked like twin sore thumbs from the title of ...
Joel Belz
All but over
It was 20 years ago this week that I argued in this space that we were in the late stages of a crucial ball game focused on the First Amendment. The clock was running, I said, and the buzzer was s...
Mindy Belz
Flashing red
In early January Sen. John Kerry visited State Department headquarters at Foggy Bottom and received “a huge pile of briefing materials,” according to department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. He beg...
Andrée Seu Peterson
Sleds painted pink
A frost-stenciled showcase window displays a snow sled painted pink. No self-respecting sled in my day would have submitted to that humiliation. It would have been laughed off Campeau Street, the ...
Notebook
Lifestyle
Egg fight
Surrogacy—one woman bearing children for another, or a couple—is a growing part of our brave new birth world. California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill into law last September allowing pre-birth e...
Houses of God
RiverGate Church
A former Walmart is now the home of the RiverGate Church in Tulsa, Okla. ...
Sports
Un-super bowls
After three years of declines, attendance figures for NFL football games have climbed for the second consecutive season. Hand-wringing over high ticket prices and the watch-from-home appeal brough...
Money
March madness
The proper name for the “fiscal cliff” law is the American Taxpayer Relief Act. Whether it provided relief for taxpayers is an open question (see "A cliff that keeps on giving" in this issue), but...
Technology
Spring cleaning
For months, a secret, global network of would-be thieves apparently has been planning a massive bank heist. The targets? The websites of 30 U.S. banks, where the thieves intended to siphon million...
Science
Violently ill?
In the gun control debate sparked by last month’s shooting in Newtown, Conn., some pundits have called for greater efforts to keep guns from the mentally ill. National Rifle Association chief exec...
Religion
Godless chaplain
Although it may sound like a contradiction in terms, Stanford University has appointed an atheist “chaplain” to serve its non-believing students. Stanford’s independent Humanist Community technica...
Culture
Movies & TV
The Impossible
Chasing beach balls across the sand, sipping bubbly drinks by a sparkling pool—suddenly the power goes out in your hotel, and a distant rumble turns to a maddening rush as a 96-foot wall of water ...
Movies & TV
Zero Dark Thirty
Seeking justice isn’t always pretty, but when it’s accomplished, it’s a beautiful thing. Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal depict that vividly in Zero Dark...
Movies & TV
Box Office Top 10
Cautions: Quantity of sexual (S), violent (V), and foul-language (L) content on a 0-10 scale, with 10 high, from kids-in-mind.com S ...
Q&A
Choosing to sing
It’s easy to become depressed when thinking about the tens of millions of aborted children. It’s also easy for people who are physically suffering to become despondent. Here’s the second part of an...
Books
Learning curve
John S. Dickerson’s The Great Evangelical Recession (Baker, 2013) is a young pastor’s thoughtful discussion of what American Christians are doing right—and what we’re doing wrong. Wha...
Notable CDs
Notable CDs
Forget Madonna comparisons. Kylie Minogue’s scoring five paltry hits in the United States while being one of the biggest pop stars everywhere else for the last quarter century makes her, if anythi...
Notable Books
Notable Books
Sittser explores redemption, using plot, story, and setting to discuss who we are, what we are becoming, and how God changes us. Returning often to his own story—two decades ago his mother, wife, ...
Movies & TV
Prequels and sequels
2012 was a record-breaking year for box-office receipts with sequels accounting for seven of the top 10 highest-earning films. The dominance of established franchises looks likely to continue in 2...
Music
Taut strings struck
When the legendary jazz pianist Dave Brubeck passed away on Dec. 5, one day before his 92nd birthday, it was difficult not to consider his passing from the American scene in relation to the passin...
Dispatches
News
Court dismissal
The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to the Obama administration’s funding for embryonic stem cell research without comment on Jan. 7, allowing a circuit court’s ruling to stand upholding ...
Human Race
Human Race
Returned Almost a year after suffering a major stroke, Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., returned to the Senate Jan. 3. Kirk, 53, was welcomed up the Capitol steps by a crowd of onlookers and lawmake...
Looking Ahead
Looking Ahead
Israeli elections Polls show the coalition of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will win enough seats in the country’s Jan. 22 election for the Likud Party leader to remain in offic...
Quick Takes
Quick Takes
Don’t ask, don’t tell The interesting part about a no-questions-asked program run by police is that you never know what the answers will be. When the Los Angeles Police Department ran a one...
Quotables
Quotables
‘We don’t think the timing of the visit is helpful.’ State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland on a January trip to North Korea by Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt with forme...
News
A cliff that keeps on giving
WASHINGTON—Remember when then–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remarked in March 2010, during the height of the healthcare debate, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it?” ...
News
Adding to the law, taking away from military chaplains
WASHINGTON—When President Obama signed a defense spending bill into law on Jan. 2, he included a statement suggesting that his administration might ignore a provision in the law providing religiou...
News
Cold war on adoptions
For thousands of children waiting in Russian orphanages, one path to a permanent home went cold in December: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning adoptions of Russian children by ...