Fifty years ago today, at 6:01 p.m. EST, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot. He was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m.

Redemption: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Last 31 Hours is a riveting narrative of the events that led to Dr. King’s tragic death. Written by veteran journalist Joseph Rosenbloom, the book chronicles the last thirty-one hours and twenty-eight minutes of Dr. King’s life.

Rosenbloom explains why the great civil rights leader was in Memphis and paints an extraordinary picture of his commitment and courage.

Why he came to Memphis

In 1968, Dr. King was working to mobilize what he called the “Poor People’s Campaign” in Washington, DC. His goal was to gather thousands of impoverished people of all races from all across the country. They would stage protests at our nation’s capital until lawmakers enacted reforms to eradicate poverty in this country.

In the midst of this massive effort, he was asked to divert his attention to Memphis to support a garbage collectors’ strike that had been ongoing in that city for weeks. Dr. King felt he owed these men and their families his support, so he and his leadership team made their way to join them.

Continue reading Denison Forum – How Martin Luther King Jr.’s courage challenges us today →

The experts were right: favored Villanova defeated Michigan last night to win the NCAA men’s basketball championship. But they were wrong about how the Wildcats won their second title in three years.

Their best player wasn’t the best player in college basketball. Jalen Brunson has been named AP’s Player of the Year, the Oscar Robertson Player of the Year, and the Naismith Men’s Player of the Year. But he scored only nine points in last night’s game.

It turned out, a player who didn’t start the game dominated it. Donte DiVincenzo scored thirty-one points and was named Most Outstanding Player.

Market predictions were “pathetically wrong”

Continue reading Denison Forum – Villanova beats Michigan: what the experts got wrong →

Lottie Williams is still the only person known to have been hit by falling space debris. She was struck but not injured by a falling piece of a US Delta II rocket while exercising in an Oklahoma park in 1997.

More famously, America’s seventy-seven-ton Skylab crashed to Earth in 1979. It spread wreckage near the Australian city of Perth, which fined the US $400 for littering.

Now we can add China’s Tiangong-1 space station to the growing list of spacecraft that have returned unceremoniously to our planet.

As Space.com headlines, it met its “fiery doom” last night, breaking apart and burning up in our atmosphere at 8:16 p.m. EDT. Some pieces of the school-bus-size craft “almost certainly survived the fall,” but they landed harmlessly in the South Pacific.

The Chinese space station’s demise points to the fact of mortality—ours and everything we make. No matter how sophisticated our technology, it has an expiration date. How many cell phones have you owned in your life?

Nothing on our fallen planet lasts forever. But the good news is that the worst thing is never the last thing: “The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17).

We know this to be true because of Easter Monday.

“A European revival has started” Continue reading Denison Forum – Chinese space station has met its “fiery doom” →

Cade Brenchley serves as a sergeant with the Utah Highway Patrol. He has delivered twins on the side of the interstate and helped save a victim from a burning car. He serves as a soccer coach in the community, where the Utah DPS says he is “well respected and known.”

Now he’s known around the world.

Last Sunday, Sgt. Brenchley was responding to multiple car accidents in northern Utah’s Sardine Canyon. He was wearing a yellow safety vest and walking toward what appears to be a disabled car when a dark sedan came skidding by. It threw him into the air so violently that he struck the disabled car in front of him before landing on the snow-covered ground.

The video of the accident has been played and replayed on television and across the internet. The sedan continued skidding forward before finally coming to a stop facing backward. Several bystanders rushed to Sgt. Brenchley’s aid. He suffered broken ribs and a broken scapula but is expected to make a full recovery.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Trooper forgives driver who struck him on side of road →

I don’t remember the last time I had this much fun researching a topic.

You know you’re a celebrity when the world knows you by your first name. In the case of Jean Dolores Schmidt, it’s “Sister Jean.”

As the world now knows, this ninety-eight-year-old nun is the chaplain for the Loyola University Ramblers men’s basketball team. The Ramblers are the Cinderella story of this year’s playoffs. And Sister Jean is their inspiration.

What Sister Jean gave up for Lent

She has been interviewed on Good Morning America and featured in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. ESPN says that she has been mentioned in more than twenty thousand media stories.

On Monday, the university announced a series of merchandise bearing her name and image. You can buy socks, T-shirts, collectible toys, and more. One T-shirt is emblazoned “AIR JEAN” with a silhouette of her as Michael Jordan.

And you can get the “Sister Jean Bobblehead.” The company has made around five hundred different bobbleheads over the last three years. In just thirty hours, hers became their bestseller.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Sister Jean: The nun who is inspiring the world →

Anderson Cooper’s 60 Minutes interview with Stormy Daniels drew the highest ratings for the show in ten years. Reaction was divided afterward, with some commentators criticizing her as “not credible” and others using the interview to disparage President Trump.

In the coverage I have seen, attention has been focused on money paid to her by Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer and on whether she had an affair with Mr. Trump, a claim he “vehemently” denies.

Here’s the question no one seems to be asking: Should they have had an affair?

“Whatever consenting people choose to do”

The alleged affair would have been between a married man and a porn star who was herself married at the time. I’m old enough to remember when pornography was widely understood to be immoral in all its forms. Sexual relations were to be reserved for heterosexual marriage.

If two married people, one a porn star, were alleged to have had an affair, the immorality of such an act would have been a major part of the story. But as they say, that was then and this is now.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Stormy Daniels: The question no one is asking →

The largest student protest in American history took place on Saturday. More than two million students and their supporters packed the streets in Washington, DC, and more than eight hundred other events in the US and around the world.

The DC rally was funded by Oprah Winfrey, George and Amal Clooney, and other celebrities. It was led by students from Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, who vowed to make reducing gun violence the central issue of their generation. The White House issued a statement Saturday: “We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights today.”

Meanwhile, other groups gathered at the nationwide marches in support of the Second Amendment. “I came to open dialogue,” one participant explained.

The first recorded use of a firearm was in 1364. While guns were obviously not available in the biblical era, Scripture does encourage self-defense (Exodus 22:2–3; Luke 22:36) while forbidding murder (Exodus 20:13) and mandating protection of the innocent (Genesis 9:6). We are to uphold the law (1 Peter 2:13–14), but we are also to change the law when necessary (cf. Acts 15:1–31).

Our society will continue debating the best ways to reduce gun violence. Meanwhile, my attention this morning is focused on the young people around our country who marched last Saturday.

Consider what they did—whether you agree or disagree with why they did it.

“Let no one despise you for your youth” Continue reading Denison Forum – March for Our Lives rallies draw more than two million people →

As authorities hunted for the Austin serial bomber, people phoned in hundreds of tips. A reward of $115,000 was posted. Police pled with the bomber through television.

But the case was solved by hundreds of federal and local authorities working tirelessly. They pieced together the bombs that were used, discovered that the batteries had been ordered online, and determined that a single person was responsible.

They were also able to use cell tower signals to distinguish mobile phones near the blast sites. They canvassed neighborhoods where the bombs were delivered and sifted through hundreds of reports of suspicious packages. Examining surveillance footage at FedEx centers, they identified the suspect.

These unnamed law enforcement professionals are heroes today to everyone in Austin and the rest of us as well.

A SWAT officer and courageous athletes

In related news, Blaine Gaskill is being recognized for his courage in stopping the shooter at Great Mills High School in Maryland last Tuesday. The police deputy rushed toward the sound of gunfire, risking his life to disrupt what could have been another mass shooting.

Continue reading Denison Forum – The heroes who caught the Austin serial bomber →

“I started this when I was so young and inexperienced. I made technical errors and business errors. I hired the wrong people. I trusted the wrong people.” This was part of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s statement to CNN last night in apologizing for the data breach that has made headlines this week.

A few days ago, news broke that data firm Cambridge Analytica reportedly accessed information from about fifty million Facebook users without their knowledge. The controversy cost Facebook’s stock price to fall nearly $50 billion this week.

Earlier in the day, Zuckerberg pledged in a Facebook post to take steps to protect data and fix what he called a “breach of trust” between the social network and its users. “We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you.”

In other news, scientists say there is a small chance that an asteroid the size of the Empire State Building will collide with the Earth. Thursday, September 22, 2135 is the date when the object could strike us.

NASA says it could send up a nearly nine-ton “bulk impactor” to push the asteroid out of Earth’s orbit. Or it could use a nuclear device for the same purpose. The scheme is called the Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response. The acronym is less subtle: HAMMER.

The good news is that the odds of the asteroid hitting us are about one in twenty-seven hundred. The bad news is that, according to NASA’s experts, there are ten thousand extraterrestrial objects headed toward Earth that could be unaccounted for.

The peril of unknown asteroids may seem ominous, but technological breaches are much more dangerous to the typical American. Just because we don’t see a threat makes it no less threatening.

We cannot anticipate or prevent suffering in this fallen world. But we can prepare for it.

One reason Christians suffer

Psalm 80 begins, “Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock. You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth” (v. 1).

Note the present tense: “You who lead Joseph. . . . You who are enthroned.” Even though the people have become an “object of contention for our neighbors” such that “our enemies laugh among themselves” (v. 6), God is still their shepherd.

Daniel was so godly that his enemies “could find no ground for complaint or any fault, because he was faithful, and no error or fault was found in him” (Daniel 6:4). But this holy man was nonetheless subjected to the lions’ den (vv. 16–23).

Joseph went through Potiphar’s prison on his way to Pharaoh’s palace (Genesis 39–41). Jeremiah had his pit of mud (Jeremiah 38:1–13). Paul had his imprisonments and persecutions almost beyond description (2 Corinthians 11:23–33). Jesus’ “beloved disciple” had his Patmos (John 13:23; Revelation 1:9).

Scripture is clear: “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12, my italics). As Paul told his fellow believers, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22 NIV).

Godliness invites temptations and attacks from Satan: the more we seek to please Jesus, the more we threaten the enemy. We can choose to be ungodly to escape such persecution, but the consequences of sin are far worse than its supposed benefits.

Daniel’s enemies were devoured in the pit he escaped (Daniel 6:24). It is still true for all people at all times that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). The momentary rewards of sin inevitably pale in comparison to their cost.

However, “godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:8).

How to refuse temptation

Here’s my point: the time to decide whether we will choose godliness over sin is before temptation strikes.

Solomon urged his reader to “be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding, that you may keep discretion, and your lips may guard knowledge” (Proverbs 5:1–2). Here’s why his advice was so urgent: “For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword” (vv. 3–4).

Solomon wanted his reader to seek wisdom and choose discretion before he faced the “forbidden woman,” knowing that the longer we consider temptation, the stronger it grows. The closer we get to sin, the harder it is to resist.

It will never be easier to refuse temptation than it is right now.

The way to prepare for tomorrow’s hardships is to draw closer to Jesus today. Make the “Shepherd of Israel” your shepherd. Listen for his voice through Scripture and prayer. Ask his Spirit to help you obey what you know his will to be. Stay faithful to the last word you heard from him and open to the next.

Not only will you be prepared for the temptations and travails of this fallen world—you will be a light for those who are perishing in the darkness (John 12:35–36). Helen Keller: “Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.”

Let it begin with us.

Denison Forum

The suspected serial bomber who terrorized Austin, Texas, died in a confrontation with police overnight.

According to the Austin American-Statesman, authorities identified a twenty-four-year-old man using security video from a FedEx store, store receipts, and cell phone technology. They traced his vehicle to a hotel and began following it.

As SWAT approached, the suspect detonated a bomb in his car.

Interim Austin Police Chief Brian Manley told reporters, “We believe this individual is responsible for all of the incidents in Austin.” However, he urged the community to remain vigilant for other possible explosives, adding that “we do not know where (the suspect) has been in the past 24 hours.”

In other news, two students were shot yesterday at Great Mills High School, sixty miles southeast of Washington, DC. A sixteen-year-old girl is in critical condition, while a fourteen-year-old boy is in stable condition.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Austin bombing suspect dies as police close in →

The Supreme Court will hear arguments today on a California law that requires pro-life pregnancy centers to display a public notice informing clients about free or low-cost abortion services. Advocates of the law argue that all women deserve to know all their options regarding pregnancy. Critics say that the law violates pro-life providers’ freedom of speech.

One attorney summarizes the issue: “Can the government impose and compel a faith-based ministry to proclaim a message that they are fundamentally opposed to with the risk of being fined or shut down?”

In other news, Time magazine asked sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer, “Is Porn Healthy for Me and My Relationship?”

Dr. Ruth replied that some pornographic material “can be helpful to a sexual relationship and some harmful.” She concluded: “If it’s just the occasional use of erotica, then maybe it’s not worth examining too closely. Just chalk it up to one more way to add some variety to your sex life so that it doesn’t become boring.”

Continue reading Denison Forum – Should pro-life pregnancy centers be forced to advertise abortion services? →

Another explosion in Austin, Texas, the fourth this month, injured two men last night. Vladimir Putin was elected to his fourth term as Russia’s leader with 76.67 percent of yesterday’s vote, his highest score ever. And March Madness saw so many upsets over the weekend that Fox Sports called the tournament a “once-in-a-generation kind of ride.”

However, I’d like to focus today on someone who made global news on Saturday but didn’t.

Chicago dyed its river green in his honor; Vice President Pence marched in a parade in Savannah, Georgia; the US women’s hockey team appeared at yesterday’s parade in Boston. Countries around the world celebrated his day.

All in honor of a saint whose real story few people really know. Here’s why you should.

“Come and walk still among us”

Imagine that you were credited with 120,000 conversions and the planting of three hundred churches. How would you begin your memoirs?

Continue reading Denison Forum – The popular saint hardly anyone knows →

This is the best headline I’ve seen in a while: “Call Her Jane Dough: New Hampshire Lottery Winner Can Stay Anonymous, Court Says.”

Here’s the story: A woman who won the $560 million Powerball in January signed her ticket with her name, as required. Per state lottery rules, this act made her name a matter of public record.

She learned later that if she had signed her ticket with the name of a trust, she could have kept her identity secret. But lottery officials wouldn’t let her make the change. So she went to court, asking to keep her name out of the headlines.

“Her heart is in the right place”

Jane Doe was right to be concerned.

Forbes describes numerous horror stories involving past lottery winners: Craigory Burch was killed during a home invasion in Georgia after winning $430,000 in the state lottery; Andrew “Jack” Whittaker was victimized numerous times by thieves after winning $315 million; Urooj Khan was found dead of a cyanide-induced heart attack in Chicago after the check was cashed for his $1 million scratch-off win.

Continue reading Denison Forum – $560 million lottery winner can remain anonymous →

Thousands of students, teachers, and supporters plan to walk out of schools today. Their action is intended as a memorial to those killed in the Parkland shooting and a call for stricter gun control laws.

In other news, world-famous physicist Stephen Hawking has passed away. President Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. And absentee ballots are still being counted in a much-watched special election in Pennsylvania, though NBC News has declared Democrat Conor Lamb the apparent winner.

Any of these events are worthy of a Daily Article. But my attention has been drawn to a story few reporters are still following today. I’ll explain why.

“What was most surprising to us”

It’s been three weeks since Billy Graham died. In this time, there have been hundreds if not thousands of retrospectives published on “America’s Pastor.”

The most interesting one I have seen is an interview with Nancy Gibbs, one of America’s most perceptive journalists and former editor-in-chief of Time magazine. After reading her comments on the famous evangelist, I knew I needed to discuss them with you.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Why Billy Graham’s greatest fear should be ours →

Two package bombs killed a teenager and wounded two women yesterday in Austin, Texas. Investigators believe the attacks are linked to a similar bombing that killed a thirty-nine-year-old man in Austin earlier this month. Given the victims’ races, it’s possible that the bombings are hate crimes.

In other news, a mother had her legs, her right arm, and the fingers on her left hand removed after she contracted sepsis in an English hospital. Officials later admitted that medical staff did not recognize the warning signs of her infection. She is now suing the hospital.

And a match between two soccer teams in Greece was suspended when the owner of one of the teams stormed onto the field while armed with a gun. He complained to a referee about a disallowed goal, though he never drew his weapon. Once the gun was identified, however, the game was suspended.

If someone passed a law that conflicts between people could no longer be reported in the news, there would be little news to report.

Imagine a world where everyone chose to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). But there are two sides to this commandment: loving our neighbors enough to do only what is best for them and loving our neighbors when they do what is evil to us. Let’s consider the latter today.

Who has hurt you most recently or most deeply? Have that person in mind as we explore God’s word together.

Hating those who hurt us Continue reading Denison Forum – Package bombs kill two, injure two in Austin, Texas →

President Trump shocked the world last week when he accepted North Korea’s invitation for direct talks with Kim Jong-un, to be held in May. We were less shocked when China’s government voted yesterday to make Xi Jinping president for life.

Both developments carry enormous implications for Christians in these two countries and for the larger body of Christ around the world.

North Korean Christians risk their lives for Jesus

Let’s start with North Korea. Some analysts believe that talks between the two leaders are a positive step forward; others are far more skeptical.

In a previous article, I gave a brief overview of North Korea’s history and its drive for nuclear weapons. My purpose today is to focus on the state of the church under Kim, a dictator described by one commentator as “the criminal proprietor of the world’s largest open-air prison.”

Open Doors, an organization that advocates for persecuted Christians around the world, ranks North Korea as the worst nation on earth for believers. According to their analysis, followers of Jesus are viewed as direct threats to the government and its continued power.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Kim Jong-un and Xi Jinping: the threat to Christians →

Seventy-two-year-old actress Helen Mirren made headlines recently when she released pictures of herself before and after she was made up for her appearance at Sunday night’s Academy Awards. Time magazine claimed that the candid pictures “prove she’s a queen among mortals.”

Aging is a decision as well as a reality.

Scientists have confirmed that exercise in old age prevents the immune system from declining. After following 125 long-distance cyclists, some now in their 80s, they found that they had the immune systems of twenty-year-olds.

On the other hand, we can miss some of life’s greatest opportunities at any age.

A note written by Albert Einstein to an Italian woman scientist who declined to meet him sold at auction this week in Jerusalem. Einstein wrote the note to Elisabetta Piccini, a chemistry student who lived one floor above his sister. However, as the auction house explained, she was “introverted and too shy to meet with such a famous person.”

Live life in chapters

Continue reading Denison Forum – Why was Helen Mirren called a “queen among mortals”? →

Aviator Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared on July 2, 1937 as they attempted to fly around the world. Their fate has remained a mystery for more than eighty years.

But an anthropology professor now says that human bones found on the remote Pacific island of Nikumaroro are likely hers. His research indicates that she was more similar to the skeletal remains than 99 percent of the individuals in a sample of 2,776 people.

Earhart was a brilliant and celebrated pilot. She was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean and the first person to fly over both the Atlantic and the Pacific. But her skills and resolve were apparently insufficient to save her from a lonely death.

Meanwhile, another nor’easter is expected to bring power outages to the northeastern US. A person with the mumps attended a national cheerleading competition in Texas last month, potentially exposing thousands of people from thirty-nine states. And a seventeen-year-old girl was killed by gunfire at an Alabama high school yesterday.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Professor may have solved the Amelia Earhart mystery →

The sky is falling, literally.

China has lost control of Tiangong-1, its 8.5-ton space station. It will collide with our planet’s atmosphere sometime between March 24 and April 19. It is likely to hit somewhere in the northern US.

However, the odds of being struck by debris are one million times smaller than the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot.

There’s plenty of other news to worry about, from the Nor’easter bearing down on the East Coast today, to Russia’s expanding role in the Middle East, to “superbugs” that are resistant to all known antibiotics. But there has always been plenty to worry about.

And every obstacle is an opportunity for people of faith.

A “teachable moment” for all time

Exodus 14 is a chapter that changed the world.

Before the cataclysmic events of this narrative, the Jews were enslaved to the mightiest empire the world had ever known. After this chapter, they were an empowered people protected by the mighty God of the universe. Their lives and destiny would never be the same.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Chinese space station will soon crash into Earth →

We live in a culture that separates everyone into two categories: winners and losers.

There were twenty-four winners in Sunday night’s Academy Awards. Conversely, there were ninety-eight losers.

But at least they received nominations. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 249,607 actors and other professionals in the motion picture and video production industry; almost all were excluded from the Oscars.

And yet, each of them is a winner in a way. They have a job in the film industry, unlike the multitudes who would like to work in the movies but don’t.

Meanwhile, odds are being calculated for college basketball’s “March Madness” tournament. As baseball’s spring training continues, analysts are debating who is likely to win this year’s World Series.

The underlying message is clear: if you win, you’re a winner; if you lose, you’re a loser.

“The smell of rain is grace”

Continue reading Denison Forum – A description of grace your soul needs today →