Ghost ships from North Korea carry few clues other than corpses

Ghost ships from North Korea carry few clues other than corpses

Sizuo Kakutani sees no great mystery in the things that wash ashore in Monzen, his quiet fishing village on the Sea of Japan — the fishing boats ravaged by fierce winter storms, the Chinese garbage carried to land by the strong winds …. The ghost ships, however, are harder to explain. On an early morning […]

God finding home in Godless China

God finding home in Godless China

Officially, the People’s Republic of China is an atheist country but that is changing fast as many of its 1.3 billion citizens seek meaning and spiritual comfort that neither communism nor capitalism seem to have supplied. Christian congregations in particular have skyrocketed since churches began reopening when Chairman Mao’s death in 1976 signalled the end […]

Vicar of Baghdad: ‘It’s not just Iraq that’s falling apart, it’s society’

Vicar of Baghdad: ‘It’s not just Iraq that’s falling apart, it’s society’

Canon Andrew White, who was the only Anglican Vicar in Iraq when the Islamic State terrorist organization rose to power in Iraq and Syria, [said] that Muslims, Christians and Jews need to work together to support the persecuted refugee communities in the Middle East and combat extremist ideologies that are causing society to “fall apart.” […]

Why do evolved humans believe in God? Researcher credits ‘hypersensitive agency-detecting device’

Why do evolved humans believe in God? Researcher credits ‘hypersensitive agency-detecting device’

Is faith in God just a holdover from our evolutionary past? . . . Once upon a time on the African Serengeti, our Australopithecine great-great-grandparents heard a rustle in the tall grass. Those who shrugged it off were frequently killed and eaten by lions. But those who got spooked and ran away survived to pass […]

Americans’ faith in organized religion falls from No. 1 to below the police

Americans’ faith in organized religion falls from No. 1 to below the police

Americans have less confidence in organized religion today than ever measured before — a sign that the church could be “losing its footing as a pillar of moral leadership in the nation’s culture,” a new Gallup survey finds. “In the ’80s the church and organized religion were the No. 1″ in Gallup’s annual look at […]

Cruz: If not for Dad’s conversion, ‘I would have been raised by a single mother’

Cruz: If not for Dad’s conversion, ‘I would have been raised by a single mother’

Presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, announced his presidential bid at Liberty University, a well-known conservative, Christian college founded by Jerry Falwell. It’s a testament to his faith and Southern Baptist roots that have kept him grounded throughout his life. “You know, when I was a young child, my parents were living up in Calgary,” […]

Only after leaving a N. Korean prison camp, after 28 years there, did woman learn why she was there

Only after leaving a N. Korean prison camp, after 28 years there, did woman learn why she was there

NEW YORK — Kim Hye-Sook, who survived 28 years . . . in a North Korean prison camp, offered a detailed account of the forced labor, starvation and torture she endured . . . at the U.N.’s “Victims Voices: A Conversation on North Korean Human Rights” event. . . . “I was taken to prison […]

N.Y. Times condemns Atlanta Fire Chief for book on biblical morality

N.Y. Times condemns Atlanta Fire Chief for book on biblical morality

Apparently, The New York Times is in favor of faith in the public square — if the purpose is to mock it. Editors at the Times poured gasoline on the fire of Atlanta’s latest controversy with an editorial that should shock even their most liberal readers. … In a stunning column yesterday, the newspaper … […]

Heaven above, North Korea below

Heaven above, North Korea below

[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION / Jia Hao] Known in the north as a winter meteor shower, the 2014 Geminids rain down on this rugged, frozen landscape. The scene was recorded from the summit of Mt. Changbai along China’s northeastern border with North Korea as a composite of digital frames capturing bright meteors near […]

Chicoms busy putting a stop to Christmas and proliferating religious movements

Chicoms busy putting a stop to Christmas and proliferating religious movements

SHANGHAI — China is to publish online details of legal religious venues, the official Xinhua news agency reported, apparently in an effort to identify unsanctioned groups as part of an effort to “root out illegal religious activities”. … [A university in northwestern China banned Christmas, calling it a kitsch foreign celebration unbefitting of the country’s […]