Here they stand

Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate forces businesses to cover abortion-inducing drugs for employees. It has sent several evangelical and Catholic business owners to court to fight for their religious liberty—with varying degrees of success

Soldiering on

Armed by three decades of combat duty, retired Lt. Gen. William Boykin takes on Washington’s culture battles

Dry counties

Crops and cattle hang in the balance as drought in the Great Plains extends into winter

Prayer and politics

A worldview split leads to sharp differences on how to fight oppression in North Korea

Voices

Mindy Belz

Mission accomplished?

The rumble of helicopters enveloped black fields, the earth vibrating to the beat of their rotors. “Bullets rattled every corner,” a neighbor said. “Helicopters were firing at nearby homes.” ...

The Editors

Mailbag

‘2012 news of the year’ Dec. 29 Thank you for another well-done year-end issue. Reading through “2012 Events” was sobering and brought to mind Isaiah 5:20: “Woe to those who call evil...

Janie B. Cheaney

A little hypocrisy, please

If there’s one thing we all agree on, it’s how much we despise hypocrites. Whether left or right, religious or secular, the thing that really gets under our skin is the pious canting of those who ...

Andrée Seu Peterson

Culture creep

I almost started this column by saying The Guardian is a mainstream British daily newspaper and not the U.K.’s version of the National Enquirer. But that would insult the National Enquirer, which,...

Marvin Olasky

Don't waste your medical mistakes

I’m pretty good about the little things. If I start to slip or trip but then right myself, I’ll say or think, “Thank you, Lord.” But I recently had an opportunity to be thankful about a big thing,...

Joel Belz

Prayers for the future

No part of my task here at WORLD magazine is more stimulating and rewarding than to monitor your responses. That’s why, when the new issue first arrives here at our office from the printer, I alwa...

Notebook

Lifestyle

Fire starter

“I set mattresses on fire,” says Tommy Davis about his years in the prisons he now visits as a Christian minister. “I was so violent I had to be incarcerated 23 hours a day in my cell. I felt my...

Houses of God

The Snow church

For over 100 years, the town of Mitterfirmiansreut, Germany, has built The Snow church, constructed entirely of ice and snow. It began in 1911 as a protest church, with worship services of its own...

Sports

Cycle of lies

In a day of college football cover-ups, secret mistresses for a golfing superstar, and stubborn denials of steroid use among baseball’s best, the prospect of confession from one of the biggest nam...

Money

Boom town

If you drive north on I-395 into Washington, D.C., the last hill before you descend to the Potomac River presents an inspiring vista. The Air Force Memorial rises to the left, and profiles of the ...

Technology

Only deal in town

Does this sound fair? You visit Staples.com, search for a stapler, and purchase a decent-looking black Swingline for $15.79. Your cousin, who lives a few towns over, decides to buy the same staple...

Science

Mass mortality

In terms of personal weight, the chances are slim you carry around what U.S. health officials call a “normal” figure. According to surveys the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cond...

Religion

Inglorious revolutions

The Church of England has announced that it is open to appointing gay men in civil partnerships as bishops, as long as their gay union is “celibate.” The decision came on the heels of an equally c...

Culture

Movies & TV

Faulty Playbook

Nearly every awards season a small(ish) indie film with a small(ish) budget, originally released to only a handful of large cities, begins picking up buzz and winds up beating movies with much big...

Movies & TV

Amour

Amour is the first foreign-language film to receive a Best Picture Oscar nomination in six years, and it admirably showcases the deep and tender love forged by decades of marriage and a spouse’s i...

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

Coming home

Late in 1987, the frontrunner for the following year’s Democratic nomination for president was Sen. Gary Hart. Reporters asked him about rumors of extramarital affairs, and he dared reporters to...

Documentary

West of Memphis

In 1993, searchers for three missing 8-year-old boys found their bodies in a drainage ditch in West Memphis, Ark. Investigators believed that because of the injuries to the boys’ bodies, the murde...

Music

Gleeful nihilist

One of the stranger repercussions of the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., was the temporary removal of the pop singer Ke$ha’s latest chart-topping single from ra...

Books

Changing history

What role do leaders play in changing history, and what role does God play in changing them? Stephen Mansfield’s Lincoln’s Battle with God (Thomas Nelson, 2012) lucidly captures the scholarly deba...

Movies & TV

Nashville

Now in its second season, ABC’s romantic comedy Nashville (Wednesdays, 10 p.m. Eastern) may not be burning up the charts, but it is turning heads. In many ways a country version of Glee, stars of ...

Notable CDs

Blaudzun’s recording career antedates Mumford & Sons’ by at least a year. So, if anything, they sound like him and not vice versa. Still, to the many fans of over-earnest folk-rock who discove...

Notable Books

When 16-year-old Gabby Douglas won the all-around gold medal in women’s gymnastics at the 2012 Olympics, she tweeted, “I give all the glory to God.” Now she has teamed up with Michelle Burford— ...

Dispatches

News

Robed victim?

Newly retired Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, The Episcopal Church’s first openly homosexual bishop, often refers to his own courage in the face of danger. At his 2003 consecration as bishop of Ne...

Human Race

Charged A federal court indicted former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, 56, on charges that he accepted bribes for personal gain during the devastated city’s grueling recovery from Hurri...

Looking Ahead

Soccer spectacle The United States Men’s Soccer Team continues its quest to make the 2014 FIFA World Cup on Feb. 6 when it opens the last round of qualifying games with a co...

Quick Takes

Batty bid How much would you pay for a 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car? At a Scottsdale, Ariz., auction on Jan. 19, Rick Champagne paid $4.2 million for one. The reason: It was the car used...

Quotables

‘The last time the Senate has passed a budget, the iPad wasn’t even invented yet.’ House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on the U.S. Senate not having approved a budget fo...

News

Left ahead

WASHINGTON—Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell sounded a hopeful note after President Obama’s second inaugural address on Jan. 21, stating that Obama’s second term represents a fresh start fo...

News

Crossing the red line

A classified State Department cable and a spate of firsthand videos posted on YouTube from hospitals in Syria suggest that the Syrian government attacked non-combatant citizens in December and mor...

News

In their dreams

Millions of Westerners got a rare glimpse inside the Chinese government’s propaganda machine in January, when journalists at Southern Weekly, a popular newspaper based in Guangzhou, revolted again...