Kim Jong Un Offers 33 to God
News has been going around that North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong Un, has ordered the execution of 33 Christians. Christians are the most persecuted demographic of North Korea, but this event stands out in how specific it is. They were helping South Korean missionary church planter Kim Jong Wook, who himself was arrested and imprisoned (though some reports say the North Koreans kidnapped him and set him up). These Christians reportedly started up to 500 churches! An astonishing feat–probably why Kim Jong Un got so ticked. On one hand I weep for these believers, and countless others, for what they…
The First Porsche
Everybody has to start somewhere. Behold, the first Porsche. In 1898 Ferdinand Porsche fastened a three-horsepower electric motor to the rear axel of a wagon and a steering wheel to the front wheels. He built four of them. This first one was stored in a barn in 1902 and sat untouched until recently. It had two bench seats that apparently disappeared. Porsche went on to build tanks for the Nazis and the original Volkswagen Beetle. After World War II, he started building sports cars. And now the name is synonymous with them. Have you started something that seemed (or was)…
Growing New Body Parts
Humanity is taking another step toward being like God. Japanese researcher Haruko Obokata and her team have discovered a way to create personalized stem cells that do not involve human embryos or manipulating DNA. So ethical issues are minimized or erased. Obokata’s idea was so crazy, that no one really thought it would work. But it did. She immerses the tissue cells of newborn mice in mild acid, which causes a near-fatal shock, which makes the cells “pluripotent”–capable of growing into any type of body cell. She, and others, theorize that the procedure could very likely work with humans….
Nelson Mandela: What’s Inside a Person?
What’s inside a person? Nelson Mandela is born and raised in a country village, becomes a lawyer against all odds, sacrifices everything in a fight for political freedom, becomes the leader of that fight, goes to prison for life in lieu of the death penalty for attempting to overthrow the government, gets released after 27 years, and forgives all the people who oppressed him and his people, then becomes president of the same nation and one of the most significant people of our generation. He wasn’t perfect and had a less-successful private life–divorced twice–yet he himself was the first to…
Meeting God after Disaster
In the aftermath of disaster, people worship. It’s happened in the Philippines after the great Typhoon. And we see it wherever there are believers. We’d like to think that when disasters strike, churches would be miraculously exempt from damage. After all, they’re God’s houses. But if they were, I wonder what effect it would have. Would it really make a positive difference? Somehow I think not. I suspect we would start to lean toward a magical take on our beliefs rather than living them out by faith. We would focus on what happened or didn’t happen versus meeting God in…
