By Jim Nichols She sensed that her elementary-aged child was reluctant to go to school one morning. Speaking to the child, she said, “I believe that God has a surprise for you today. I want you to keep your eye out for it and tell me about it when I pick you up this afternoon.” Some might suspect that this

By Jim Nichols As an early teenager, it was a short trip either walking or bicycling. Head south on our residential street to Johnson Drive, then west toward the high school. Mrs. Scott, the piano teacher, lived across the street from the school. Through the front door and to the right was her piano room; in retrospect, I think it

By Jim Nichols Something flew out a window of the White House and landed on the ground. I saw the brief video, as did others. It looked like something that had weight to it rather than just being a paper that floated. It was more solid than that. Later in the day a reporter asked the President about it. His

By Jim Nichols There are two sections to this article, with tension in both parts. The first is the tension of writing at all; the second is the tension I have regarding the topic. An author I admire notes that he receives criticism from two opposite directions. On one hand his writings tend to be slanted toward religious, even Christian,

By Jim Nichols I can remember the specific place on the street where the encounter occurred. During my third semester of college, hundreds of miles from where I grew up, I was with a classmate in the evening. He said, “Do you want to go get a Coke?” I replied, “I would like to, but I need to go home

By Jim Nichols The first character we meet in the musical play Mary Poppins is Winifred Banks as she returns to her London home in 1910; she has been attending a Suffragette rally. She finds that her two children have run away from home again, and yet another unacceptable nanny has quit. The father in the house (George Banks) insists

By Jim Nichols Consider with me the following list of categories: UnthinkableRadicalAcceptableSensiblePopularPolicyPopularSensibleAcceptableRadicalUnthinkable In the 1990s Joseph Overton developed the concept of the “Window of Political Possibilities.” This has been an influential concept in public policy, and it has enough logic that we can spin it into church policy and, in fact, personal behavior policy as followers of God. As you

By Jim Nichols It was a conversation I had multiple times in my academic office at the university. A student (frequently in their second or third year of college) appears in my office. They have a serious expression on their face and, eventually, appear to be pushing back tears. A compressed version follows. “I came to college with a well-defined

By Jim Nichols The question from the church class leader sought to stimulate thinking and it certainly did at our table of four. Randomly arranged with three women that I knew only slightly, we were a group that surprised me with the number of ideas and consensus that we had. The consensus may reflect that our collective age was the