Neveah Thompson is a student at Liberty Middle School in Spanaway, Washington. She was being interviewed for a video on classroom technology, or so she thought. The topic turned to her mother, 2nd Lt. Cherie Thompson, who had been gone for seven months of military training. The interviewer asked Neveah if she’d seen “surprise military” return videos, and she said she had. Then he asked if she’d like to be in one. She quickly said she would.

At that moment, Neveah heard the door close behind her. Her mother had entered the room holding a bouquet of roses. She flew into her mother’s arms and the two embraced and cried together. The fact that Neveah couldn’t see her mother in the room made her presence no less real.

The video makes a point that is larger than the moving story it tells.

It’s easy to be discouraged in times like these. Voters are increasingly frustrated by the presidential race. The economy may be slowing, as last Friday’s bad employment report indicates. Atheists gathered over the weekend in Washington, DC for another so-called “Reason Rally.” (For more, see Nick Pitts’s Thousands of Atheists in DC for Reason Rally.) ISIS is shooting civilians trying to flee Fallujah as fighting intensifies there. There’s much bad news in the news.

But here’s the truth: When it seems that good is outnumbered by evil, it’s not. When it seems that God is absent, he isn’t. You may not see him in the room, but that fact makes him no less present.

Continue reading Denison Forum – AN ENCOURAGING VIDEO YOU NEED TO SEE   DR. JIM DENISON →

The date was October 29, 1974. My brother and I were in Houston’s Astrodome along with 50,000 others, there to watch a closed circuit telecast of Muhammad Ali’s fight with George Foreman. Even though Houston was Foreman’s hometown, ninety percent of the crowd chanted “Ali! Ali! Ali!” through the entire fight.

Such was the global celebrity of Muhammad Ali. As the world knows, Ali died last Friday at the age of 74. Testimonials about his life and significance made global headlines across the weekend. Born Cassius Clay, he converted to the Nation of Islam in the early 1960s and to Sunni Islam in 1975. He was perhaps the most famous American convert to Islam in our nation’s history. (For more on Ali, see Nick Pitts’s The Fight and Faith of Muhammad Ali.)

As many as 20,000 Americans convert to Islam every year. However, it is estimated that seventy-five percent of new Muslim converts in the U.S. leave Islam within five years. Meanwhile, more Muslims are coming to Christ than ever before, many after seeing visions and dreams of Jesus. (For more, see my friend Tom Doyle’s excellent book, Dreams and Visions.)

Muslim authorities in Indonesia are warning that two million Muslims in their country convert to Christianity every year. At this rate, the world’s largest Muslim nation will be mostly Christian by 2035. Over six million Muslims in Africa convert to Christianity every year. More Muslims around the world have become Christians in the last fifteen years than in the previous fifteen centuries.

Here’s how you can help.

Continue reading Denison Forum – MUHAMMAD ALI AND GOOD NEWS IN THE MUSLIM WORLD   →