Thankful for Public Servants

By Tim Cooley

By Tim Cooley, Shepherd Project Ministries

Thanksgiving.  It’s a time to reflect and give thanks for all our blessings over the past year.  Even though many of us have perhaps experienced set-backs with respect to health, finances, relationships, and careers, those of us in America have many blessings.  One of the blessings I find that I often overlook is the many elected officials who are Christian men and women and stand for Biblical values.

The United States was founded 235 years ago on Biblical principles.  The belief and proclamation …

A day of prayer for judicial common sense

by Jim Daley, President, CEO, Focus on the Family

(reproduced from The Washington Post (http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/jim_daly/2010/04/a_day_of_prayer_for_judicial_common_sense.html)

The news came as a bit of a shock last week: According to a federal judge in Wisconsin, the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled that a federal endorsement of the day somehow violates the “Establishment Clause” of the First Amendment.

To even the casual observer, Judge Crabbs’s decision was a curious and perplexing one. After all, there have been federally recognized days of prayer in America for as long as there have been stars on the flag.

In fact, to review …

What’s Mine Is…n’t?

by Craig Smith

Millions of people will wait until the last possible moment, filing their tax returns late in the day on April 15th.  Most federal post offices will be open late on Tax Day, many until midnight to accommodate what might just as easily be called National Procrastination Day.

Why do we wait so long?  Part of it is surely that filling out our tax returns is a difficult and dreaded task, something that we naturally want to put off as long as possible. But part of it is that tax time reminds us that what is ours…well, isn’t really ours, …

Give to Caesar

by Jon Cook

            Taxes.  How does one word create an automatic groan from a vast portion of the population?  Couldn’t something be done to lessen the pain?  It’s the paperwork, the frustrating collation of information and the different forms that need to be filled out, i’s dotted and t’s crossed, before it can be all neatly tied into a bundle and sent off to Uncle Sam.  We groan and fuss about the hassle, claiming that it’s highway robbery and that we should stick it to the man by cutting our own various corners.  We all do it; we all wish …

The New Moral Vocabulary or, How to Win a Debate Without Ever Actually Saying Anything At All

by Craig Smith

Recently in my home state of Colorado, a man was charged with a hate-crime for killing a transsexual.
On the surface this sounds like an obvious example of a hate-crime, but the reality is a
bit murkier. See, what happened was the man thought the trans-sexual was a woman. So they

were getting…ah, how shall we put this…intimate, when the truth became obvious. Reacting in

disgust and anger, the man beat the trans-sexual so badly that he/she (??) died. Now, obviously,
this was horrible and morally wrong in every way. But was it a hate-crime? I mean, the
murdered hadn’t sought this trans-sexual out …

Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church, and the Bible: Book Summary

Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church, and the Bible – by M. Daniel Carroll R.

Synopsis by Ryan Holloway

The purpose of Christians at the Border is to present a relevant, biblical and culturally informed discussion of the current state of Hispanic immigration in the United States. The author’s intent is to present the foundational considerations for understanding immigration from a culturally American worldview, as well as a Christian worldview and show how the two work together. Carroll provides unique insight into the discussion from his own background of being “the son of …