Category: Feature Stories
The Shadow of Christmas
by Karl Persson “They said there’ll be snow at Christmas. They said there’ll be peace on Earth. But instead it just kept on raining. A veil of tears for the virgin birth.” So sings Greg Lake, disaffected by Christmas—and he is not alone. Perhaps it…
God in the Flesh: The meaning of Christmas
by Mathew Block When it comes to Christmas, the picture of the baby Jesus asleep in a manger is etched in our cultural consciousness. We imagine the little Lord Jesus laying down His sweet head in the hay, while stars twinkle away in the sky….
Word and mind-games in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1
by Ted Giese Francis Lawrence’s Mockingjay: Part 1 is the third movie in the film franchise based on the popular young adults book series Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Picking up after the events of the second film, Catching Fire, Katniss Everdeen finds herself under…
The Holidays… How Soon?
by James Morgan How soon? It’s a question I ask myself every year about how early my friends, family, and I should observe the festive season. In the Church, Christmas begins on December 25 when we celebrate the birth of Christ, and it continues for…
Ukrainian Church Elects New Bishop
UKRAINE – The Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Churches of Ukraine (SELCU), meeting in convention November 17-18, elected Rev. Aleksandr Yurchenko as its new bishop. He succeeds Rev. Dr. Viktor Gräfenstein, who served as bishop for 18 years and had declined to accept nomination for another…
Interstellar: Thoughtful sci-fi delivers love, evil, and a black hole
by Ted Giese Christopher Nolan’s new film Interstellar is more like his 2010 film Inception than his trilogy of Batman movies. It’s both cerebral and emotionally intense. This is no Star Trek, Star Wars space opera (space-soap-opera); Interstellar is a more “hard” sci-fi film in…