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Barren women dominate the biblical narrative, and by no means are these women perfect. Sarai, Abraham’s wife, displayed unbelief, impatience, anger, and disrespect after waiting a lifetime for children. Rebekah, the wife of Isaac, waited twenty years to have a son. Leah and Rachel, sisters, married to Jacob, spent years in competition and felt deep envy towards one another. Hannah, the wife of Elkanah, was taunted for years by Peninnah and experienced depression. Elizabeth, wife of Zachariah, and Samson’s mother, wife to Manoah, both stood firm in their faith even when their husbands doubted God’s plans. The Shunammite woman begged...

Every semester, the largest classroom at Northwestern University in Chicago is filled with hundreds of students who are eager to take a course devoted to Russian literature. The answer as to why comes down to the who. That says something not only about the class, but about the professor who happens to be my guest today. Professor Gary Saul Morson, welcome to Thinking in Public. Gary Saul Morson:Oh, it’s my pleasure to be here. Albert Mohler: Professor, I just want to tell you right up front, this was one of the most significant reading experiences I have had in a...

Black and Latino Christians often turn to their pastors for mental health care, even when those clergy have limited expertise in working with those who are mentally struggling, according to a new study by the Religion and Public Life Program at Rice University. For the study, co-authored by [Daniel Bolger and] Pamela Prickett at the University of Amsterdam, the researchers held focus groups in 2015 and 2016 with 14 Black and Latino pastors from different Protestant denominations and conducted 20 interviews with church members across two congregations in Houston, Texas. Church members were between 24 and 65 years old. More...

A married woman with kids thanked Dr. Ben Carson at a Texas A&M university event last night for saving her life decades earlier. Dr. Carson, a former pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center who later served in the Trump administration as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, spoke at the Turning Point USA event. “God truly had his hands in this miracle,” Sara Bowker said. She was born with craniosynostosis, a condition where the skull improperly fuses together, according to Bowker. “You gave me the opportunity to graduate high school, college, and start graduate school, play competitive sports,...

Comedian and actor Russell Brand recently announced that he is going to be baptized as a Christian. The famous actor, comedian, and podcast host made the announcement in a brief video he shared to social media on the morning of April 26, In it, he also remarked on how it seems that other people are also turning to Christianity as the modern world loses meaning. "This Sunday, I’m taking the plunge. I’m getting baptized," he declared while filming himself standing outside. Noting his fascination with the Christian sacrament, he continued, "What’s been explained to me is, it’s an opportunity to...

Veterans are reacting to a new cancer study done on contaminated drinking water at a military base in the east. “Was asking for this study to come out months long, but the Department of Justice said it wasn’t ready and hasn’t been peer-reviewed,” said Camp Lejeune advocate, Jason Johns. “Clearly it has as it is showing the right data and enforcing what many people have known for decades.” A new cancer study released Wednesday, says that military personnel stationed at Camp Lejeune from 1975 to 1985 had at least a 20% higher risk for a range of cancers compared to...

They can't bring back their children, siblings or partners, but five years on, the families of the 2019 Boeing crash victims want to ensure a similar tragedy never happens again. "We've got French people, Canadians, Americans, Irish, British, we're all there together and we're fighting for something together," Naoise Ryan, holding a photo of her late husband Mick, told reporters on Wednesday. The Irishman was one of 157 killed when a Boeing 737 MAX operated by Ethiopian Airlines plunged into the ground minutes after take-off on March 10, 2019. Ryan is among hundreds of family members calling for the US...

Most of us are used to seeing well-known Evangelicals who live together outside of marriage celebrated in the news media—without any suggestion of a contradiction between their claims to be Bible-believing Christians and their choice to cohabit. Recent examples include top-rated Kansas City Chiefs Quarterback Patrick Mahomes and A-list Hollywood actor Chris Pratt. Pratt and Mahomes are not anomalies; living together in sexual union outside of marriage is now accepted by most Evangelicals. Among those under 45, most have practiced cohabitation, plan to live together in the future, or are open to the possibility. A Pew Research Center study in...

A new album by Taylor Swift is not merely the release of a new collection of songs. It is a major pop-cultural event, given the widespread consensus that Swift is the world’s biggest pop star... ...What’s lacking from Swift, however, is very little hint of proportionality. There is almost no evidence leading a listener to believe that Swift understands that this romantic heartbreak and loss of which she sings is mostly ordinary, everyday stuff, and not a matter of earthshaking proportions. Try as she might, this is no Blood on the Tracks. (Coincidentally, Swift is the same age, 34, that...

The market for oral contraception is being turned upside-down as Perrigo has begun shipping Opill to thousands of retail stores nationwide, to be sold as the first over-the-counter birth control pill in the U.S. The FDA approved Opill July 2023 as an OTC birth control option. Perrigo did not publicly release sales projections for the product, and The Motley Fool reported last July that the company is “quite unlikely” to generate $110 million per quarter—the value needed to “make a significant dent” in overall company revenues. The current U.S. prescription birth control pill market is likely worth about $3 billion...

A whistleblower last week said that Boeing's 787 assembly put excessive stress on airplane joints that could reduce some of the planes' lifespans. The whistleblower, Sam Salehpour, is scheduled to appear at a Senate hearing on Wednesday. Boeing has denied the allegations and defended the quality and safety testing on its 787 Dreamliner and 777 aircraft.

American Airlines’ pilots union has reported a “significant spike” in safety issues, raising red flags over fewer routine aircraft inspections and shorter test flights on planes following major maintenance work. The Allied Pilots Association cited a slew of “problematic trends” in an email to members Saturday, noting a “significant spike in safety- and maintenance-related problems.”

Whistleblower Sam Salehpour, a Boeing engineer, alleges that Boeing took shortcuts when manufacturing its 777 and 787 Dreamliner jets, and that the risks could become catastrophic as the airplanes age. His formal complaint to the Federal Aviation Administration, filed in January and made public on Tuesday, is not specific to the newer 737 Max jet that has been grounded twice… Salehpour on said his complaint raises “two quality issues that may dramatically reduce the life of the planes.” “I am doing this not because I want Boeing to fail, but because I want it to succeed and prevent crashes from...

Let me pose a difficult question: Who gets to determine who lives and who dies? Personally, I don’t think that any human has the right to do so. Human life is in the hands of God, and God only. But there are those who believe that people, specifically pregnant women, should be able to determine whether their unborn children deserve to live or not. As you all know, I am talking about genetic testing, specifically amniocentesis, and its link to a much greater problem, abortion. Ultimately, whenever a woman goes to a clinic for testing, she is considering aborting what...

Speaking at the annual convention of the Rabbinical Assembly in 1968, Dr. King said: The response of some of the so-called young militants does not represent the position of the vast majority of Negroes. There are some who are color-consumed, and they see a kind of mystique in blackness or in being colored, and anything non-colored is condemned. We do not follow that course ... Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all of our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity. I see Israel, and never mind saying it, as one of the...

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is the latest person dealing with problems with a Boeing jet. Blinken and other State Department officials who are in Europe for talks about the wars in Ukraine and Gaza were forced to ride by car between Paris and Brussels Wednesday because the Air Force C-40 jet, a modified version of the Boeing 737 used commercial airlines, developed unspecified problems, according to the press pool traveling with him. Blinken travels on aircraft from the Air Force fleet. The top US diplomat arrived without incident to the Belgian capital for a meeting of the NATO...

Trump called into conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt’s show Thursday morning and was asked about recent comments he made that were perceived to be critical of Israel’s campaign in Gaza. “And so, are you still 100 percent with Israel? And what’s your advice to Netanyahu, beyond ‘Get it over with in a hurry?’” Hewitt asked. “Well, that’s all the advice you can give. I mean, that’s the advice,” Trump said. “You’ve got to get it over with, and you have to get back to normalcy.” “And I’m not sure that I’m loving the way they’re doing it, because you’ve got...

While Trump and Netanyahu were close allies for years, the former president turned on the embattled Israel leader after Netanyahu congratulated then-President-elect Biden for winning the 2020 election while Trump was still trying to overturn the results. In interviews for a book about his Middle East peace efforts, Trump, according to its author, used an expletive to describe Netanyahu and said he believed the Israeli leader never really wanted to make peace. Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary who serves on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said he wished Trump would “let his personal grievances with...

While serving on the board of Boeing in 2020, GOP presidential candidate and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley helped kill an initiative designed to force the company to more comprehensively disclose its spending to influence politicians and safety regulators, government filings show. Haley joined the company’s board of directors after the two fatal 737 Max crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. Amid allegations of fraud and a coverup of safety problems following the disasters — resulting in a $243 million fine and $3 billion in compensation to airlines and victims’ families — Haley served on the board’s audit committee, according...

Speaking exclusively to The Mirror US, PR expert Ryan McCormick suggested: "This devastating news will likely jolt William into reassessing what he truly values most in life. As cancer grips both his father and wife, the Prince of Wales may hastily reconcile with Harry. "Yes they have had their differences but, they probably need each other now more than ever." Ryan also suggested the two brothers may come together to offer their support to others who have been affected by cancer. He told us: "I think in the coming days and months, William will become an advocate for cancer victims....