James Tonkowich

Disgusting, inhumane, vile, and any others of a host of possible adjectives could be used to describe all this, but let me suggest that the most apropos is "expected."

"Suicide," notes the New York Times, "has typically been viewed as a problem of teenagers and the elderly, and the surge in suicide rates among middle-aged Americans is surprising."

A culture that wants to be sure that kids 14 and younger have access to contraceptives is wildly disordered.

The combination of single parents, absent parents, dual-income professional parents, daycare, after-care and easy, no-fault divorce have strained sometimes to the breaking point the relationship between parent and child, resulting in varying degrees of attachment disorder and thus children with insufficient discipline, compassion and empathy.

How much Christian engagement in politics over the past few decades has been with the presumption that we can’t possibly lose?

We need to communicate that the Christian understanding of sexuality and marriage is not an onerous, out-of-date burden, but the good news that the sexually exhausted and disillusioned men and women in our culture long to hear.

We've walked into the trap. If procreation is not a part of the nature of marriage and thus required for those who are able to procreate, there is no good reason for denying marriage to same-sex couples.

Why the fascination with the pope?

It’s no surprise that fertility rates are down and, with no children to worry about, our concerns for the future, including our nation's economic future, are a bit dulled if not entirely numb.

Warning! Alert! Gloom, despair, and agony on all of us! The end of life as we know it! Not really, but that’s what they’d like you to think.

The defense of freedom — particularly religious freedom — is incumbent on us all.

Perhaps the way to our neighbor's heart is through his or her stomach. Perhaps modern people who reject the true, the good and the beautiful in most of life can be wooed to consider God's grace by the truth, goodness and beauty of food.

Hats off to all those who through history have defended religious liberty and a free conscience.

While we can all cite examples of how their parents’ divorce turned some children to a strong and growing faith in Christ, that is far from the typical story. According to a new report, "when children of divorce reach adulthood, compared to those who grew up in intact families, they feel less religious on the whole and are less likely to be involved in the regular practice of a faith."

From the start of Obama’s first term, his administration has talked about "freedom of worship" rather than "freedom of religion." In doing so they’ve substituted the right to practice religion as a hobby for the muscular right to live our religious convictions and to take them fearlessly into the public square.

Gays, lesbians and bisexuals from all over France gathered with others to protest. Their demands: legislation proposed by French president François Hollande allowing same-sex couples to adopt must be stopped and same-sex marriage must not be permitted. You read that correctly.

We should be safe and we should keep our children safe. But in the process of making things safe, we need to ask ourselves two prudential questions. First question: "How safe is safe enough?" Second question: "How much freedom are we willing to give away for a little extra safety?"

People in general believe that good news is for sharing. If you get a great new job, you tell your family and friends. If Apple really is giving away free iPads for answering three simple questions, you forward the email. And if there’s a way to find hope in difficult times -- times like our own -- it’s only fair to tell others where to find that hope.

This sad and violent world is precisely the world into which the Savior was born. Jesus didn't inhabit a sanitized version of reality, but lived in this world as it was and is, a world where innocents are senselessly slaughtered (Matthew 2:16-18) and where human life is treated as cheap (Luke 23:13-25).

The observance of Advent reminds us that regardless of what happens next, the King is coming.