The Scientific Revolution of the 16th-century changed humanity?s perspective and understanding of the physical universe. At the end of the Scientific Revolution (the 17th century), Sir Isaac Newton synthesized the work of others (e.g., Galileo, Kepler, Brahe, etc.) with his own original thinking, and produced a compressive understanding of the laws of the physical world (e.g., inertia, gravity, etc.). . . But on 25 November 1915, Albert Einstein published a theory that challenged this understanding of the physical world.

In the United States, capital punishment remains legal in 31 states and in the federal civilian and military legal systems (for specific crimes). The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution has been understood as the key section of the Constitution governing capital punishment, and it has been interpreted to apply to murders committed by mentally competent adults.

More than 90% of presidents and prime ministers are men, as are nearly all corporate executives. In some areas of culture, men arguably dominate (e.g., finance, technology, film, sports). But that reality is changing?and rather rapidly. In fact, although men cluster at the top of worldwide culture, they also cluster at the bottom. Men are far more likely to be in jail, be estranged from their children or to commit suicide.

Since 2014, President Obama has consistently underestimated ISIS. For example, in January of 2014, he characterized ISIS as the ?JV? team and that it ?was not a direct threat to us or something that we have to wade into.? Shortly before the horrific ISIS attack in Paris last week, he declared that ?I don?t think [ISIS] is gaining strength? for ?we have contained them.? However, ISIS recently blew up a Russian airliner over the Sinai, engineered a bombing in Lebanon, and has expanded into more than half-dozen countries?and then carried out the strategic and coordinated attack in Paris; the worst attack on Paris since World War II.

Life is about choices, both individual choices and institutional choices. Government is the most significant institution in most of our lives. It sets policy and then organizes resources, usually through taxation, to fund those policy choices. Throughout much of the world, governmental institutions and their political leaders believe that climate change is the result of human choices. Therefore, we must alter those individual choices so that climate warming will slow. Those governmental policy choices to effect individual, personal change will necessitate an enormous transfer of wealth and national treasure.

Bernie Sanders, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, has declared himself a democratic socialist, which means that he rejects capitalism. Sanders manifests a troubling development within the Democratic Party?a skepticism about or an outright rejection of capitalism. In socialism, generally, the means of production are owned by the public (i.e., the state) or by the workers, so that the state can provide a wide range of basic services (e.g., health care, education, child care, housing, energy, etc.) to its citizens free of charge or at a significant discount. This necessitates a redistribution of national income and wealth via the power of the state.

We live in a technological age in which science dominates our thinking and offers solutions to many of our fundamental problems. We depend on science and hold this discipline of human knowledge higher than we hold others (e.g., history, literature). At the end of the Scientific Revolution (the 17th century), Sir Isaac Newton synthesized the work of others with his own original thinking, and produced a compressive understanding of the laws of the physical world. We owe him much [. . .]

The events unfolding in the Middle East are of immense significance, but, with presidential politics, same-sex marriage debates and the news-as-entertainment phenomenon, most Americans are ignorant of these developments. For that reason, I am adding a second part to the Issues of a few weeks ago, ?What is Vladimir Putin doing in the Middle East??

In the early days of December in 1983, I received a call in my office from my father in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He shared with me the tragedy of my 23-year-old brother?s suicide. My brother knew Jesus as His Savior, but struggled much of his life with severe depression. At the low point in one of those cycles of depression, he took his life. As a family, we asked the typical questions: ?Why? What could we have done to prevent this? Why did we not see the signs? Why did we miss them?? Guilt, questioning, doubt in God?s goodness and grace naturally followed. These were some of the most difficult days of my life. But those days drove me to a deeper exploration of God?s goodness and His grace.

The role of evangelical Protestant Christianity in the development of America has been profound. The linkage between the First Great Awakening and the decision for independence from Great Britain is incontrovertible. Consequently, the desire for both political liberty and religious liberty energized the independence movement (see Thomas S. Kidd, God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution). Evangelical Christianity therefore maintained its location at American culture?s center until the waves of immigration began in the late 19th and into the early 20th centuries, when Protestant evangelicalism competed with Roman Catholicism and Judaism for the cultural center. Into the 20th century, especially after the immigration laws were changed in the 1960s, new religious faiths entered American culture, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam, among others.