I’ve never seen Matt Lauer get choked-up on camera, but he did this morning while interviewing two Christian families for “The Today Show” (see video above). Lauer is astonished by their faith and even asks them if they ever doubted God through their ordeal. Both families confessed their faith in God’s sovereignty over painful tragedies, and it was an unusually beautiful thing to see on network television. What was the story about? In 2006, five students from Taylor University were in a deadly car accident, and only one of them survived. The lone survivor was a blond-haired co-ed who was hospitalized for weeks after the accident. For five weeks, the…

When I was a youth, the station wagon was the quintessential “uncool” car. Somewhere in the transition from ‘tween to teen, everyone my age learned that you didn’t want to be caught dead in a station wagon.

The New York Times reports on Ken Starr’s forthcoming tenure as the president of Baylor University. Starr begins on June 1. Here’s a snippet from the report: “Baylor’s growth into a large research university is now irreversible, but its Christian character remains unsettled. Dr. Sloan recruited several prominent evangelicals, and was known to reject potential hires for not being able to articulate how faith had influenced their academic lives. Even so, the faculty is perceived to be more liberal in its Christianity than many Texas Baptists, including Baylor’s alumni. “Despite his notorious prosecutorial history, Mr. Starr may be the Christian conciliator Baylor needs. In his faith life, he has tacked…

Trevin Wax has some great reflections on Jennifer Knapp’s appearance on “Larry King Live” last week. He writes: After viewing Friday night’s Larry King Live with Jennifer Knapp, pastor Bob Botsford, and Ted Haggard, I was struck with the question: Why is it that whenever a proponent of Christianity’s historical view of sexuality goes head to head with an advocate for gay rights, the traditional Christian almost always loses the argument? Read the rest here.

Last week, National Review Online published an anonymous article titled “Getting Serious about Pornography.” The testimonial of the author is heart-rending. She writes: “By his own account, my husband of 13 years and high-school sweetheart, was first exposed to pornography around age ten. He viewed it regularly during high school and college — and, although he tried hard to stop, continued to do so throughout the course of our marriage…

Over the weekend, I watched @GinaWelch interviewed by Richard Metzger of the LA Times, and I thought it worth passing along.

Anne Rice, the famous vampire novelist and author of Interview with a Vampire, shares her story for the “I Am Second” campaign. When she was a young woman, her faith gave way to existentialist philosophy, and she became what she calls a “Christ-haunted atheist.” Her apostasy lasted for 38 years before she returned to the faith of her youth. It really is a remarkable story. (HT: @drmoore)