An experienced witch-turned-Christian, Kristine McGuire offers her take on Halloween and how Christians should respond to the annual festivities.
Charisma
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Thank God for Halloween
A former Satanist explains the origins of Halloween and discusses how Christians can enjoy the holiday, despite the superstitions and stigma surrounding it.
From Death to Life
Easter took on an entirely new meaning after the sudden death of my 25-year-old son.
Six of us piled into our Suburban early on Easter morning. We were silent. I felt empty.
After what seemed like a long road trip, we finally arrived at the local cemetery where the body of my 25-year-old son, Nathan, was buried. He had unexpectedly died in a rock-climbing fall, just one day after we buried my husband’s father.
We slowly made the dreaded walk to Nathan’s grave. A year earlier, no one would have ever thought that this would be our first activity on our next Easter.
8 Ways to Change the World
Before spending hundreds of dollars on unnecessary Christmas presents, consider the impact you can make with these unique gift options.
A Season to Remember - Day 5
To help us celebrate the most wonderful time of year, Charisma asked several artists to share a favorite Christmas memory or tradition. From Dec. 20-24, each day we will feature two artists who shared their thoughts with us.
From all of us at Charisma, Merry Christmas!
My favorite memory is my brothers and me sleeping together Christmas Eve when we were little. We would wake up early in the morning and then form a single file line in the hall and wait for our mom and dad to let us attack our gifts. —Chris Tomlin
It’s incredibly hard to choose a favorite Christmas memory. I could say it was when I got the Hee Haw overalls I had asked for when I was 8 years old, or when I got the Madame Alexander Doll or the Easy-Bake Oven—these are great memories. But the memory that I’m so grateful for is that every Christmas Eve my dad would read the Christmas story—the entire story from beginning to end, not just the birth, but also the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It gave us the proper perspective before we began tearing into our presents the next morning, and I am so thankful for that. —Heather Payne
For exclusive videos, podcasts and songs, check out this month’s digital edition of Charisma magazine at charismamag.com/digital
A Season to Remember - Day 4
To help us celebrate the most wonderful time of year, Charisma asked several artists to share a favorite Christmas memory or tradition. From Dec. 20-24, each day we will feature two artists who shared their thoughts with us.
From all of us at Charisma, Merry Christmas!
If there had to be one special Christmas memory, it would be brand-new pajamas and slippers awaiting my brother and me as we braced ourselves for the brilliant, beaming, blinding lights on my dad’s Super 8 movie camera. Second only to that is the Christmas I received my first guitar, giving me musical bliss ever since. —Barry Graul of MercyMe
For the last four years, my family and church have gone to Fort Hood Army base and fed 1,500 families Christmas dinner. The absolute joy on the faces of these kids is priceless as they open presents we’ve brought them. But the thing I have loved is seeing the faces of my children as they give instead of receive. “You’ll never know what this means to my family”—when I hear those stories I remember why He came.·—Randy Phillips of Phillips, Craig & Dean
For exclusive videos, podcasts and songs, check out this month’s digital edition of Charisma magazine at charismamag.com/digital
A Season to Remember - Day 3
To help us celebrate the most wonderful time of year, Charisma asked several artists to share a favorite Christmas memory or tradition. From Dec. 20-24, each day we will feature two artists who shared their thoughts with us.
From all of us at Charisma, Merry Christmas!
The memory that sticks in my mind the most is about the first time I remember asking for a specific gift. I asked for a gray, leather-bound Bible, King James version. Oh yes, and it had to have the thumb tabs! I got vinyl covered cardboard and not leather. But the words were the same. I should go find it and see what Scriptures I marked as a young man. I am sure they will still speak to me today. —Nathan Cochran of MercyMe
One of my favorite things is that each year we pick something to do outside of just giving to our own family members. My favorite memory was the year my dad, mom, sister, brother and me made sack lunches for the homeless and delivered them along with gloves and blankets on a cold Christmas Eve. It has always remained a special memory of seeing how thankful they were. —Kari Jobe
For exclusive videos, podcasts and songs, check out this month’s digital edition of Charisma magazine at charismamag.com/digital
A Season to Remember - Day 2
To help us celebrate the most wonderful time of year, Charisma asked several artists to share a favorite Christmas memory or tradition. From Dec. 20-24, each day we will feature two artists who shared their thoughts with us.
From all of us at Charisma, Merry Christmas!
Two of my favorite traditions during the Christmas season are to attend candlelight services at church and to drive around and look at the Christmas lights in the community. —Mark Lee of Third Day
The smell of baking in my grandma’s house. Little squares of individually wrapped Cadbury chocolates. Country walks looking for holly growing wild in the hedges. The electricity in the air on Christmas Eve. Roaring fires and fairy lights. Raucous laughter. Longed-for-presents played with over and over again. The feeling of belonging to the best family in the world ... and the wonder of knowing we get to do it all again next year! —Kathryn Scott
For exclusive videos, podcasts and songs, check out this month’s digital edition of Charisma magazine at charismamag.com/digital
A Season to Remember - Day 1
To help us celebrate the most wonderful time of year, Charisma asked several artists to share a favorite Christmas memory or tradition. From Dec. 20-24, each day we will feature two artists who shared their thoughts with us.
From all of us at Charisma, Merry Christmas!
My favorite Christmas memory is when my wife and I picked out a tree and decorated it for our first Christmas together. Not only was it a blast, but it was an amazing feeling realizing that I had started a family of my own. —Phil Wickham
My favorite Christmas memory is Christmas Day, 2002, when my daughter, Skye, was born. I remember it was 3 o’clock Christmas morning. Tim, my husband, and I were holding our baby girl. We were the only ones on the floor and the nurses had turned all the TVs in each room to Christmas music. “Silent Night” was playing, and I will never ever forget those moments. God truly blessed us. —Heather Williams
For exclusive videos, podcasts and songs, check out this month’s digital edition of Charisma magazine at charismamag.com/digital
Christmas Soup
by Grandma Birr
Did you ever peek? Did you find your gift? What did you do with it? How did it make you feel? Taste and see that the Lord is good!!! Won’t you join Timmy and me for a bowl of Christmas Soup?
$4.25 (includes shipping); Ages: 3 to 7+
COMING SOON - Website: www.GrandmaBirr.com; Email: blayne@hardynet.com; Phone: 410-259-5931; Ordering Information: Send check or money order to: Covenant Books, LLC, P.O. Box 29, Moorefield, WV 26836 Or….visit the website. It’s under construction NOW! Might be ready for purchasing items.
10 Overlooked Ways to Save a Life
We often hear that our financial donations can do major feats such as feed hungry children or provide medical supplies to impoverished people. But did you know your money can also provide everyday things you probably take for granted, such as air or water?
Christmas! A Newsboys Holiday
Newsboys | Inpop Records
For the first time, Newsboys venture into the land of Christmas music. Their new album, Christmas! A Newsboys Holiday, covers several of the most popular and beloved songs of the season, including "O Holy Night" and "Winter Wonderland." The short song list will leave listeners wanting more of the band's high-quality, high-energy holiday music.
Newsboys kick off the Very Merry Christmas Tour 2010 at the end of November. The 20-plus city tour takes off in North Carolina and wraps up in Georgia on Dec. 20. Visit newsboys.com for tour dates.
Click here to purchase this CD.
It’s the Thought That Counts
Lets be honest, giving Christmas gifts isnt easy in a recession. So here are some economical ways to make your presents creative and meaningful.
Jesus Took Your Pain
This Easter, remember that Jesus refused to take pain reliever on the cross. There was no shortcut for Him when He drank from the cup of suffering.
Easter's Dark Side
The actual origin of the name Easter is still unknown, but people have speculated since the eighth-century that the name could have originated with Eastre, the Anglo-Saxon Teutonic goddess of spring and fertility.
Here is some of the evidence built for this case.
The word Eastre is derived from the ancient word for spring.
The Greek month that corresponds with April is dedicated to Eastre.
A springtime festival, which was held in her honor, was celebrated utilizing a rabbit, which represents fertility.
Colored eggs, which represent the bright colors of spring and sunlight, were also commonplace during this festival.
Learn more about the resurrection celebration here.
Source: Funk & Wagnalls® New Encyclopedia. © 2005 World Almanac Education Group, A WRC Media Company
Of Monkeys and Men
Find out how Darwin's 'The Origin of Species' changed the world
As the scientific community prepares to celebrate Charles Darwin's 200th birthday on February 12, prominent Christian apologists and theologians say that besides the Bible no other book shook the world more than Darwin's The Origin of Species.
It was published 150 years ago, on Nov. 24, 1859. At that time, scientists believed the universe had been intelligently designed by a divine creator.
But Darwin's theory that life evolved through random mutation and natural selection over millions of years flipped the predominant worldview upside down.
"Darwin's theory had the impact of changing the basis of Western Civilization from a Judeo-Christian perspective to a secular-humanist perspective," says Norman Geisler, who for 50 years has been a professor of apologetics. "The culture was based on belief in God and God's moral law, and Darwin undermined that and gave us a culture that is literally without God or any absolute moral law."
Darwin borrowed a phrase from economist Herbert Spencer, "survival of the fittest." That concept, Geisler says, led to social Darwinism and eugenics, movements that advocated breeding better humans through racial purity, forced sterilization and weeding out "defectives."
These ideas were later adopted by Adolph Hitler, resulting in the Holocaust.
"People don't realize the Nazis developed shower stalls that were gas chambers for gassing handicapped children," says John West, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, an intelligent design think tank in Seattle. "They did this explicitly for eugenics' reasons."
After World War II and the forced sterilizations of tens of thousands of Americans, the term "eugenics" gained a negative reputation. But it re-emerged in the 1950s with proponents of birth control who coined the phrase "freedom of choice."
Says West: "So you find a big component of early efforts to legalize abortion from the eugenics movement for whom survival of the fittest was a key part of their ideology."
Despite decades of evolutionary teaching in the schools, polls show nearly two-thirds of Americans believe creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public schools and more than 50 percent believe God created humans in their present form. Another 30 percent believe God guided the process of evolution.
Nevertheless, most textbook writers and university science professors are atheistic evolutionists, and evidence for intelligent design, young earth and old earth creationism and theistic evolution is rarely presented to students.
"I think the way to understand evolution is that it is a worldview," says John Morris, president of the Institute for Creation Research in Dallas.
"It's a way of thinking that impacts everything we see in our society today. It seems like all the various '-isms' that have devastated our society go back to evolution for their foundational principles."
—TROY ANDERSON
Christmas in Bethlehem
Controlled by militant Muslims, the place of Jesus' birth is a danger zone for Christians today. But Arab believers say the gospel continues to be preached there.
Rami Ayyad was closing up at the Bible Society in Gaza where he worked when armed men whisked him into a car and sped away. For hours, Ayyad's whereabouts were unknown. Pauline, his wife and the mother of their three children-the last still in utero-finally got through to him on his cell phone.
He wasn't able to say much, and she could tell something was wrong. It turned out to be the couple's last conversation.
The Christmas Promise
Christmas really began in the Garden of Eden with a promise. Then it was revealed in Bethlehem. But the gift became a reality for us all at Calvary.
Compulsive Shopping
Shopping can be a seasonal balm for those who are depressed, lonely or anxious.
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