Opinion

The news that Fred Phelps, the 84-year-old founder of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., has died drew predictable reactions from just about everyone, from anger, to glee to relief. Phelps and the congregation, which includes most of his many children and their children, have become best known for protests arising out of their disgust of homosexual behavior and their hatred for every gay.

We have all had, or need to have, difficult conversations. An email that offended or troubled us, a blow-up at a family dinner, a situation at work that is unbearable, a church feud that is spilling out into the community or friction within a house between spouses or siblings — the examples are endless.

CVS pharmacies announced in early February that its 7,600 stores would cease selling cigarettes and other tobacco products, a decision that will cost the corporation roughly $2 billion a year in revenues.

Here’s a paradox. Last year, I preached a sermon on doubt, which actually helped some people’s faith. I asked the question: Does your faith have any question marks? Doubt -- the searching kind -- really does have a place in the faith process.

People of faith are keenly aware that “we are our brother’s keeper” and our children’s, our parents’, other relatives’, acquaintances’, strangers’ — everyone’s. They also are fully aware that Jesus was in the lifesaving and life-restoring business and admonished his disciples to be like him in attitude, compassion and action. Everyone can take steps to be better equipped to help people in this life and to make plans to help others significantly when we die.

February is Black History Month, also known as African-American History Month. It is a fitting month for Americans —- all Americans —- to observe this time and catch up on this aspect of America’s rich heritage.

Faithful congregations empower members, and their corporate faithfulness impacts those around them, those who benefit from the church's ministry and hunger for Christ themselves. Each church is God's temple.

Live your life throughout a new year that likely will be filled with unpredictability and uncertainty.

Celebrating the Messiah’s birth is important in worship, to be sure. But it also carries the opportunity/responsibility/risk of walking and acting in the Jesus way in the daily moments of life. It means not even withholding Christ from those who might seem unlikely to embrace it. God took that risk with Jesus. We are eternally grateful that he did.

The angel Gabriel was working overtime back in the first chapter of Luke. It was his job to deliver the top two birth announcements in Christendom to (1) the priest Zechariah, whose wife Elizabeth was to become pregnant and bear a son, John, who would be the forerunner of Jesus and to (2) Mary, the young virgin chosen to give birth to the long-awaited Messiah, Jesus, the savior of the world.