A country up for grabs
Myanmar’s military toppled the civilian government. Now the country’s diverse population is banding together in protest
Dead seriousness
Rethinking the death penalty: The Bible sets a very high bar for capital punishment, and the American legal system today rarely reaches it
Covering tracks
One year after a devastating attack in Benghazi, the Obama administration is throttling investigations into what happened
A long way from Tehran
Naghmeh Abedini and her two children face daily life in Idaho without her unjustly imprisoned husband Saeed
An effective extinction?
A month of deadly violence by Islamic terrorists aims to wipe out Christian communities
Voices
Mindy Belz
Eats broken bottles and kills rats with her teeth
In today’s lethal cultural confusion there was in fact no more important role than preaching to the choir, which otherwise would become demoralized—in every sense—and would no longer know quite wh...
The Editors
Mailbag
‘Back to school’ Sept. 7 The questions and issues listed on your Sept. 7 cover are vital ones that I fear too many, even Christian parents, are unaware of. Do we understand scientism?...
Marvin Olasky
Better off dead?
Not much in politics upset Chuck Colson as he approached his 80th birthday late in 2011, but on his Breakpoint broadcast of Sept. 23 that year he said, “a recent political event left me deeply sha...
Andrée Seu Peterson
A letter to Mary Jo
In the fall of 1969 an all-male college in Worcester, Mass., threw open its doors to women for the first time. It attracted those who fancied themselves pioneers, liked the 9-to-1 male/female rati...
Joel Belz
Clash of worldviews?
So here’s a newsworthy event—guaranteed to be worth whatever it costs to cancel whatever else you had in mind, and buying a handful of tickets for you and your friends. I’m talking about a one-on-...
Janie B. Cheaney
A complete circle?
I’m more consistent about praying for the persecuted church than I used to be, thanks to better news coverage (and WORLD). But even as I pray, thoughts are prowling in the back of my mind that wou...
Notebook
Houses of God
First Christian Reformed Church
Members of the First Christian Reformed Church in Muskegon, Mich., take part in the church’s final service on Sept. 15, 2013. The church, first organized in 1867, is closing its doors, church offi...
Sports
Kick of death
FIFA, the international governing body of soccer, expressed concern over reports alleging human rights violations in Qatar. As the tiny Gulf state prepares to host the World Cup in 2022, media out...
Technology
Watching closely
The thousands of documents former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden stole from government computers earlier this year have resulted in a series of bombshell security leaks. One...
Science
Polar puzzles
The pack is back. When the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado marked the end of the Arctic ice-melting season in mid-September, 2 million square miles of ice covered the North Pole. Tha...
Religion
Global salt
United Methodist pastor Stephen Heiss conducted his first same-sex marriage in 2002, wedding his daughter Nancy to her lesbian partner. Heiss calls that event “the highlight” of his career. Since ...
Lifestyle
Sharing spaces
On most weekday mornings 1-year-old William Niles wakes to his mother’s smile. His mother, Kristen Holt, 32, changes and feeds him before leaving for her job managing a clothing boutique. Instead ...
Culture
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 ...
Movies & TV
Gravity
When the Challenger space shuttle exploded a little over a minute after launching from Cape Canaveral in January of 1986, I was sitting in my grandparent’s living room, watching on television as i...
Q&A
Cowboy logic
Michael Martin Murphey had his first hit song in the 1960s, when The Monkees took his “What Am I Doin’ Hangin’ Round” to the top of the pop charts. The singer-songwriter had hits in the 1970s with...
Documentary
Smiling barbarians
The documentary opens with late-term abortionist Leroy Carhart squirting ultrasound gel on a pregnant belly and looking at the baby on the screen. He tells the mother, lying on the exam table, “Yo...
Music
The roots of jazz
In a Season Three episode of the HBO set-in-New Orleans series Treme, the local-music entrepreneur Davis McAlary (expertly played by Steve Zahn) is leading tourists through neighborhoods of musica...
Music
Notable CDs
Even if Alessi weren’t the director of the School for Improvisatory Music, it would be nice to know which came first, the titles or the music, where these 11 intriguing compositions of his are con...
Books
Death reads
Three hundred and thirty-eight. That’s the number of books on capital punishment I counted in two areas of the main library of The University of Texas at Austin (Library of Congress catalog number...
Books
Notable Books
Pastoral ministry can be a uniquely difficult calling not only for a man, but for his wife and children as well. The greatest challenge the pastor faces may well be his internal desires for approv...
Movies & TV
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
If you’ve been mourning the end of the summer blockbuster season with its strapping superheroes, explosive stunts, and snappy one-liners, then ABC has good news for you. The network is bringing on...
Dispatches
Looking Ahead
Looking Ahead
Oct. 13 How might someone mark Clergy Appreciation Day? Lifeway, the Christian retailer, suggests parishioners make kitschy greeting cards, custom bookmarks, or even buy full Bible commenta...
Quick Takes
Quick Takes
New force A long time ago a pair of scientists had a dream that seemed far, far away. But now, researchers at Harvard and MIT say they’ve channeled the power of photonic molecules to create...
Quotables
Quotables
‘Death has made war upon our house.’ Poet Kofi Awoonor of Ghana, 78, who was killed in the al-Shabaab attack on Nairobi’s Westgate Mall on Sept. 21. He was due to recite from this well-know...
News
Dispatches
FEARING GOD MORE THAN MAN: At All Saints Church in Peshawar, Pakistani Christians who survived a Sept. 22 suicide bombing, the worst attack on Christians in the country’s history, returned to the ...
News
Ceiling dealings
WASHINGTON—With days left to avert a federal government shutdown, Senate chaplain Barry Black opened the Sept. 27 congressional session with a prayer. “Keep us from shackling ourselves with...
Human Race
Human Race
Died Presbyterian author, pastor, and theologian Robert Reymond died on Sept. 20 at age 81. Reymond wrote more than 10 books and is best known for his New Systematic Theology of the Christi...