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In the early 1980s, Joel Belz, who would go on to become the founder of World magazine, had five daughters in grade school or getting ready to head there. He was eager to show them how a Christian worldview had something to say about everything they were going to be studying.

This December, world leaders will gather in Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Conference. There they-and we-will be told that if they don’t take “decisive” or “bold” measures, catastrophes of biblical proportions await humanity.

Five years ago, I told BreakPoint listeners about the relationship between people and the giant panda. I pointed out an unfortunate truth about this star of zoos and fundraising campaigns: Almost everything it does seems designed to ensure its extinction.

What is the vision of the Church? That was the sermon topic one Sunday a dozen years ago or so when I visited a friend’s church. But as I listened, I found my mind wandering. I had just signed a contract to write a book on Christian worldview, and I was experiencing writer’s remorse. Did this book really need to be written?

Perhaps you remember the media frenzy over Mother Teresa’s letters, which were published after her death. Because those letters revealed depression, doubts, and spiritual darkness, many argued that Mother Teresa’s Christian faith could not possibly have been real. Atheist Christopher Hitchens, for instance, insisted that she must have realized that “religion is a human fabrication.”

Remember all the Malthusian scare talk of a generation ago about overpopulation? Boy, were they wrong.

Say you’re having a conversation with a non-believing friend or a co-worker, and you want to defend the traditional Christian view of marriage. You are well prepared to appeal to Scripture-to talk about how God made man and woman, how He instituted marriage.

In 1984, a video called The Silent Scream helped change the way people think about the unborn child. The footage of an actual abortion and the fetus’s reaction reminded us that abortion involves the death of a real person.

It was good news when I picked up the New York Times and read that a good friend of mine, Francis Collins, was picked by President Obama to become the head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

I am an aging, white conservative Baptist. My taste in music runs from Bach to Mozart to Lawrence Welk. Indeed, my staff might say I am the un-hippest man alive.

We’re hearing a lot these days about human rights and social justice-particularly among younger evangelicals, but also among secularists. It’s a good thing that there is a growing concern for the poor and the oppressed around the world.

eHarmony is a popular online dating service designed by Neil Clark Warren, an evangelical Christian psychologist. The site claims that, on average, 236 eHarmony members marry every day. That’s good news.

As more states-like Iowa-approve same-sex “marriage,” conservatives are claiming that freedom of religion is in peril. Same-sex “marriage” supporters accuse them of engaging in hysterical gay-bating. Who’s telling the truth?

There is a group of extraordinary thieves in southern China that has ordinary people rattled. They know when their would-be victims are most vulnerable, and they take advantage of this vulnerability. In the proverbial blink of an eye, they strike-and abscond with a family’s greatest treasure, leaving it without a future.

A few nights ago a colleague of mine called her son, who was away at college in Chicago-and got no answer. She called twice more that evening, and the same thing happened. Very frustrating.

Edgar Hernandez probably doesn’t understand the fuss he created. When the 5-year-old from the Mexican state of Campeche coughed, the world caught a nervous breakdown.

Approximately $60 billion is spent every year on television advertising. That’s $200 for every man, woman, and child. It is spent in the hopes that by seeing something on television, people will think or act in some desired fashion.

Last month, Christians around the world celebrated Epiphany, commemorating the visit of the Magi. Epiphany reminds us that God’s salvation reached beyond the Jews. Christ would be, as Isaiah foretold, “a light for the Gentiles.” He would bring “salvation to the ends of the earth,” (49:6) as far as those very kings had traveled.

As Americans observe Martin Luther King Day today, I am reminded of the rich Christian tradition of activism in this country. For millions of Christians who have gone before us, activism was considered fruit of the faith. Not only was the civil-rights movement led by evangelical Christians like Dr. King, so too were campaigns for abolition and women’s suffrage heavily influenced by Christians expressing their faith.

The apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, “Physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things.” I trust that many of us are committing to make the spiritual disciplines of prayer and time in the Word a priority for 2009.

The fact that the hit movie WALL-E has a plot that even a child can follow doesn’t mean it’s juvenile. Released earlier this year, the Pixar film follows the story of a little robot named WALL-E. While the rest of Earth’s inhabitants have embarked on a 700-year cruise-like vacation aboard a space station, this little robot is left behind to clean up the planet.

Ever since I was a boy, I was driven to serve my country. As a 10-year-old at the outbreak of World War II, I could only dream that one day I could put on a uniform and fight the enemy. But I did what I could. I organized a neighborhood drive to collect scrap metal for the war effort. Before I had reached 40 years of age, I had served as a captain in the Marines and as special counsel to President Nixon.

The Josephson Institute of Los Angeles, which studies contemporary ethics and morals, recently released its “2008 Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth.” According to the Institute, the “results paint a troubling picture of our future politicians and parents, cops and corporate executives, and journalists and generals.”

A prominent religious leader recently said that sex, however pleasurable it might be in the short run, leads to long-term trouble. He argued that celibacy is the way that leads to “more freedom.”

The passage of Proposition 8, the ballot measure that banned same-sex “marriage” in California, has stirred the ire of gay activists like little else. Besides thuggish vandalism of church property, that anger is being translated into mockery of the faith community.