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What We’re Giving Up by Abandoning Community 0
- August 31, 2015
In recent months I’ve been struck by a growing realization: it can sometimes be rather difficult to take an uninterrupted walk when you know a number of your neighbors. The fact is, stopping to pat Fred’s dog, getting hailed down by Carol to see her once-a-year blooming rose, and talking with Janet over the impending
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Learning from a Little Princess 0
- August 31, 2015
When it comes to life lessons, classic children’s books have a special way of conveying truths and wisdom. They don’t beat a child over the head or talk down to the child. Instead, the child comes to identify with the characters, seeing who is good and who is bad, and learning from the dialogue. The
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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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