Guest Writer

David Aikman, former Beijing Bureau chief for Time magazine, says he has seen first-hand how Christianity is growing in China and how even the former ruler of the Communist state has noted the practicality of its shift toward Christianity. Aikman says just before China’s former President Jiang Jemin left office, he made a remarkable statement at a dinner party. According to the journalist, the Communist leader said that, if he could, he would officially decree…

Many air conditioners and heaters today come with a small unit that hangs on the wall. This small unit has two things in it — a thermometer and a thermostat. Which one are you? We all tend to function as either one or the other. Are you a thermometer or a thermostat? A thermometer measures the temperature. A thermostat changes the temperature. One tells about the conditions surrounding it while the other makes a difference…

Nikita Khrushchev understood this and graphically illustrated the difference between Communism and Christianity with this paraphrased remark: “The difference between Christianity and Communism is great. When someone strikes you on the face, you turn the other cheek. If you strike me in the face, I’ll hit you so hard your head will fall off.”

The Carnegie-Mellon study has focused on the common cold. For sixteen years now, researchers have been exposing volunteers to colds by spraying rhinoviruses into their noses. Persons are then quarantined for five days to see who gets sick and who doesn’t. Guess what… High-strung, anxious, and unhappy people are three times more likely to get sick than those who are relaxed and contented. When happy people do get sick, their symptoms are milder. The most…

Economists searching for reasons to explain why some nations of the world are richer than others have discovered an interesting correlation. Nations whose populations have a widespread belief in hell tend to be less corrupt and more prosperous. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis reported the study. Drawing on work by outside economists who studied 35 countries, including the United States, Europe, Japan, India, and Turkey, the report found that certain religious beliefs apparently…