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Friendship is a Gift, Not a Guarantee 0
- August 28, 2015
There’s a line at the end of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life that has always bothered me. After he has just experienced an influx of generosity from the people of Bedford Falls, and while everyone is singing “Auld Lang Syne,” George Bailey picks up the angel Clarence’s copy of Tom Sawyer. The inside cover
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Michigan Public Schools Reading Religious Poetry?0
- August 28, 2015
In today’s schools, it seems it’s anathema to make any mention of God, the Bible, or Christianity. But surprisingly, that doesn’t seem to have been the case 100 years ago in Michigan Public Schools. Published in 1916 by the Michigan Superintendent of Education, the Manual and Course of Study [for] Elementary Schools recommends ten poems
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The Porn Debate 0
- August 28, 2015
The debate over the rightness or wrongness of pornography has arisen again with the news about Josh Duggar’s infidelities, which he in part attributes to an addiction to internet pornography. When it comes to the morality of pornography, it seems there are two main competing views today. One view holds that looking at pornography is
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The 7 Social Sins 0
- August 28, 2015
Interestingly, you usually see the above “sins” attributed to Gandhi, as he published them in his weekly newspaper in 1925. But Gandhi is not the origin of this list. Rather it was first uttered earlier that year in a sermon delivered in Westminster Abbey by an Anglican priest named Frederick Lewis Donaldson. Here is a picture
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Remember This Line?0
- August 28, 2015
“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” Spoken by Kevin Spacey’s character Verbal Kint, it’s probably the most oft-quoted line from the 1995 movie The Usual Suspects. Some people mistakenly attribute it to C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, which involves a dialogue between two demons who are trying to bring about the
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How New Orleans Schools Turned Around After Katrina 0
- August 28, 2015
This week marks the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. For non-residents of Louisiana, the news of the Hurricane was a dark cloud over their lives for a few days, which then moved on as the initial disaster passed out of the news. For others, the effects of the disaster remain present. But what was a
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