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This impulse can be hard to quantify, mainly because thinking about it makes us uncomfortable. But it's pictured well in a disturbing practice currently employed by the Nigerian judicial system in western Africa.

The country of Niger has an established police and criminal justice system—one of the remnants of its days as a French colony. There are Nigerian police officers and judges, as well ...

I recently read an article about 2009's Tyson, a documentary about the life of former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. Tyson is remembered for being one of the most feared boxers of all time, not just for his knockout punch—he knocked out 44 of his 50 losing opponents—but also for his anger, his unpredictability, and the impression that he was a powerful man wildly out of control. In 1992, ...

Many of us act as if repentance is a matter of the will. [But] we can't "will" ourselves into change. We can't "will" ourselves into feeling contrition or remorse. Repentance isn't doing something about our sin; rather it means admitting that we can't do anything about our sin. We cannot woo ourselves into anything but the most external form of repentance.

All our effort, striving, and willpower have ...

A transformation occurred in me with the birth of my children. I traded in that professional look for sweatpants. I found myself at the park with my children, looking at working women and thinking, I'd like to be doing that.

But the transformation went deeper than trading my business suit for a pair of sweatpants. There was something else going on when I had children. I knew my life had been invaded ...

The first time I visited Rwanda, I went looking for monsters, albeit a different category of monster—the kind that isn't relegated to B movies. I had heard about the 1994 genocide that had left one million people dead—tortured, raped, viciously murdered—and somehow I thought it would be easy to spot the perpetrators. I naïvely assumed I would be able to look men and women in the ...

The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is not a problem of physics but of ethics. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denounce the evil spirit of man.

—Albert Einstein, German-born theoretical physicist (1879–1955)

In his book Ministry in the Image of God, Stephen Seamands writes about the relational side of our personhood, which reflects the Trinitarian nature of God. In fact, Seamands calls this our trinitarian personhood. It means "we will never be able to complete the journey on our own. Since to be a person is to be in relationship with others, involvement in a small group of fellows Christians…is ...

God has made [our] fantasies … so preposterously unrewarding that we are forced to turn to him for help and for mercy. We seek wealth and find we've accumulated worthless pieces of paper. We seek security and find we've acquired the means to blow ourselves and our little earth to smithereens. We seek carnal indulgence only to find ourselves involved in the prevailing erotomania.

—Malcolm ...

Percentage of Americans who say they would act immorally—including lying or backstabbing—to keep their jobs: 28

The Power of Forgiveness is a collection of seven short stories that, taken together, reveal the limits, difficulties, healing qualities, and unforeseen effects an act of forgiveness can have in the lives of the people who give it—or in the lives of those who refuse to give it. One of the stories centers on acclaimed author and holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.

This clip begins with footage of ...