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  • A World on Fire0

    The world is burning, literally and symbolically. And no one knows how to put out the “fires.” As we watch TV images of wildfires from California to Australia, and mass riots from Asia to Latin America, it’s very hard to suppress a feeling of impotence; that we are faced with “fires” raging beyond human control.

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  • A Read Letter Day0

    As Thomas Jefferson stood at the door of the White House, there was one guest that stood out among those he welcomed that New Year’s Day.Approaching with fanfare and driving a team of six horses, Elder John Leland arrived with a 1,235-pound wheel of cheese. The cheese, a congratulatory gift for the recently elected Jefferson,

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  • ​A Gentle Solution?0

    Recently I overheard a group of teenagers discussing a celebrity who had committed suicide not long before. They eulogized him in glowing terms briefly, but then began to talk about the way he died. One of the kids said, “Well, he was in a lot of pain, so I can kind of understand why he

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  • ​The Quiet Revolution0

    I was born in a place where the atmosphere had no oxygen. Where organized religion was, and still is, the substitute for air, water, food, and the social contract. Lebanon, my birthplace, is a country like no other: a black hole of multiple religions and sects coalescing into a hot pot, which is at a

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  • The Kingdom0

    On one level, events of late have had a certain air of déjà vu for me. As a young man I followed the events leading up to the decision to impeach President Nixon. The story line was a bit like a John Le Carré spy novel, involving as it did money payoffs by courier, a

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  • ​Playing the Game0

    Sekulow [Jay Sekulow, founder of the American Center for Law and Justice, and now an attorney for President Trump] kept bringing cases to the Court. . . but in the 1999-2000 term he discovered the limit of his free speech arguments. The case arose out of one of the central rituals of Texas life—the high

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  • ​Christians, Citizenship, and Rights0

    We live in a society that is increasingly being defined by the struggle for rights and access to the public square. The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed the watershed of the civil rights movement, which has defined contemporary America up to this moment. The civil rights movement continues to branch out into other

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  • ​A Matter of Honor0

    It was one of those “by invitation only” events. A special, select group alone could attend: military people, journalists, and a few notables. However, a large crowd of the unchosen gathered outside the walls, making its presence known with shouts of “Death to the Jew!” and “Death to Judas!” The mob numbered in the thousands,

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  • ​A Living Rebuke0

    As World War II was nearing its end, and the conundrum of an Eastern Europe “liberated” from Hitler by the Soviet Union was becoming a hot-button issue, Winston Churchill warned Soviet dictator Josef Stalin about the power of the Catholic Church in these countries. Without missing a beat, Stalin countered, “How many divisions does the

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