Kaboom! A rousing first shot across the bow had been fired. Humanists declared their intention of transforming western culture and moving it from its Christian base into the enlightened religion of humanism. In 1933, when Humanist Manifesto I appeared, its co-author John Dewey was made honorary president of the National Education Association (US).

President Bush's recent decision regarding federal funding of embryonic stem cell research has charged a national debate on the practical and moral implications of such research. The stem cell issue is so complex that it is difficult for the average person to fully grasp all of the details, but the debate over stem cells will have implications reaching far beyond the obvious.

In our next two articles, we will be wrapping up our series on Faith in the Night Seasons. I pray this series has been a blessing and has helped you understand a little more clearly some of God's ways. Even though an intimate relationship with the Lord often comes through trials and brokenness, nothing in all the earth compares to it.

One of the most strategic locations in the Roman world was the isthmus of Corinth. This narrow neck of land between the Corinthian Gulf and the Saronic Gulf guaranteed its continued commercial prosperity. The transit across this isthmus avoided the long, risky voyage around the rocky, storm-tossed capes at the south of the Peloponnesus.

In our series called Faith in the Night Seasons, we've been talking about intimacy with Godwhat intimacy is, how we get it and what we must do to maintain it.

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution establishes the right of the people to be secure in their papers, persons and possessions and to not be deprived of them without due process. There was a reason the Founding Fathers wrote this amendment into the Constitution: they recognized that privacy and property are essential foundations of a free society, and that freedom cannot exist without them.

Nothing is more hurtful than to have Christian brothers and sisters turn against us. Matthew 24:12, however, tells us that in the "end times" this is exactly what is going to happen, "the Love (Agape) of many will grow (wax) cold."

You can't help but love Peter. He was the most lovable of the disciples: bold, candid, human. Peter was one of the first disciples called; he always stands first in the lists of disciples; he was also one of the three who formed an inner circle around the Master. His impulsive devotion is frequently portrayed, and he acted as spokesman of the Twelve.

The extradition in July of Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague was a subtle shift in the march toward global "law." It was the first time a former head of state had been successfully extradited for trial as a war criminal. However, while some might consider the trial of a "war criminal" a positive event, it should be considered negative because the precedent it is setting in global law is dubious.

Time magazine recently featured, as its cover article, "How the Universe Will End," a review of some of the current conjectures of cosmology and astrophysics.

It's hard to keep doing something when you continually have to deny you're doing it. For years, Britain's ruling Labour Party under Prime Minister Tony Blair has been refuting accusations that the emerging European Union would require Britons to cede large chunks of national sovereignty - including control over their currency and economy - to the socialist bureaucrats in Brussels.

In May the United States braced itself for the inevitable carnival that would surround the execution of Timothy McVeigh for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Then suddenly the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) revealed that - oops! - it had failed to turn over 3,000 pages of evidence to McVeigh's attorneys during the discovery process at McVeigh's trial.

"So, where are we?" This is perhaps the most cogent question that could be asked about the Middle East after a year of peace process go-arounds, collapses, violent attacks and reprisals: all of which ended a decade of "no-war."

Luke, Volume II, commonly known as "The Book of Acts," completes the "Pentateuch of the New Testament." Regarded by many as the most exciting and relevant book for the current believer, it is, indeed, one of the most rewarding and instructive.

Over the last several months, we have been talking about faith-faith in the "night seasons." Faith, we said, is accepting a situation that we cannot fully understand, and no longer being troubled by it. This kind of "naked" faith is developed through night seasons-times where God teaches us by depriving us of the natural light we have always been used to (our seeing, feeling and understanding), so that we will learn to walk by faith.

It is very clear that pornography cannot be viewed as a passive, inconsequential behavior. This is a tragic sin against God, against you and the Body of Christ, and it has to be exposed. Light expels the darkness and this sin can no longer be swept under the carpet, especially in the Body of Christ.

The whole purpose of the "dark night of the soul and spirit" is to bring us to an intimacy with our Lord that we have never before experienced.

"Finishing Well" is the name of the game. Here was a rich, young ruler - a 1st century "yuppie" if you will - who, although getting off to a rather problematic beginning, finished well, indeed.

Satan wants you to think contrary to the character of God and to the Word of God. His tactics are to accuse God and others. He wants to persuade you to act independently of God, to walk according to the flesh rather than the Spirit.

For decades the planet has been awash in doomsday environmental propaganda proclaiming the imminent demise of earth due to environmental calamity, which only drastic action (and large amounts of government money) can avert.