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The most unflattering impression. The post The album David Bowie thanked God everyone forgot about first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

The pinnacle. The post The Beatles album Johnny Marr thought was everyone’s favourite: “I mean, it is, isn’t it?” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

by Alastair Crooke, Strategic Culture: A National Security Strategy (NSS) is produced periodically by U.S. Administrations (Trump authored one during his first term). Mostly these documents lay out an idealised version of an Administration’s foreign and security policy, and do not have great practical import – because of what is left out – i.e. entrenched U.S. political and […]

Switch came together in Mansfield, Ohio, in December 1976 when Gregory Williams, who had previously performed with White Heat, began assembling a new group that would merge musicianship, songwriting skill, and vocal range into a single unified sound. The lineup brought together Williams, brothers Bobby and Tommy DeBarge from Grand Rapids, Michigan, Phillip Ingram from Akron, Eddie Fluellen, and Jody Sims. Williams, Bobby DeBarge, and Sims had already shared time in White Heat, which had released material on RCA, and their experience in that earlier band shaped the level of professionalism they carried into Switch. Their name reflected the concept The post Complete List Of Switch Songs From A to Z appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.

Lee Strobel doesn’t mind those who question his midlife Christian conversion.Strobel’s shift from an atheist to rock-ribbed Christian came to life in 2017’s “The Case for Christ.” The film, based on his life story, showed how Strobel’s efforts to debunk the resurrection of Jesus Christ as the legal editor of the Chicago Tribune had the opposite effect.‘There is evidence that points — compelling [evidence] — to the truth of biblical miracles and contemporary supernatural encounters. I’m not afraid of that.’He says his shoe-leather reporting confirmed the resurrection. Looking back, Strobel tells Align his change of heart ruffled some professional feathers.“After I became a Christian at the Chicago Tribune, somebody told me later that they overheard somebody in the newsroom say, ‘What happened to Strobel? He became a Jesus freak, like, overnight,’” Strobel says, laughing.Miracle milesNow, Strobel is back on the big screen with “The Case for Miracles,” in select theaters Dec. 15-18 via Fathom Entertainment. The film finds Strobel and director Mani Sandoval hitting Route 66 in an old Ford Bronco to swap stories and reflect on modern-day miracles.Among the most poignant? A young woman with severe multiple sclerosis who is able to leave her hospice bed following a crush of community prayers.It’s part travelogue, part documentary, and Strobel only wishes he had time to share even more remarkable stories on-screen.“We had to leave out so many good ones. ... We had another case documented by medical researchers ... a guy who was healed from a paralyzed stomach,” he says. “He was prayed for, felt an electric shock go through him, and for the first time was able to eat normally.”“He’s fine to this day,” he adds. “It’s the only case in history of its kind of [someone] spontaneously healed from this stomach paralysis.” Meeting in the middleStrobel says the film offers two very different perspectives on modern-day miracles given the key players involved.“Mani grew up in a Pentecostal home. There was an anticipation that the miraculous would take place,” he says. “I was an atheist [growing up].”The film is based on Strobel’s 2018 book of the same name, but he hopes the Fathom Entertainment release reaches a broader audience beyond his loyal readers.“I think that cinema is the language of young people,” he says. “If we want to share this account, this evidence of the miraculous with a young generation, what better way than on the big screen? Among younger people, there’s something about a film that register deeply with them. ... We should seize opportunities to communicate to those outside the faith.”RELATED: Lee Strobel’s top supernatural stories to challenge your atheist friends Blaze MediaCreative controlAnd the timing couldn’t be better. Faith-friendly films and TV shows are all the rage in today’s pop-culture landscape. Think the groundbreaking series “The Chosen,” along with the upcoming “Passion of the Christ” sequel from Mel Gibson.Both Netflix and Prime Video are producing faith-friendly content, and recent hits like “Jesus Revolution” flexed the power of spiritual stories.“It satisfies me on a creative level when I see films that deal with very important topics, like the existence in God, in a way that’s creative and that aren’t going to make people cringe but sit forward in their seat and anticipate what’s coming next,” he says.And that creative explosion has only begun, Strobel predicts.“In three, four, or maybe five years, we’re gonna see stuff where we say, ‘Oh, I never thought of doing that,’” he says of the genre. The incredible made credibleStrobel isn’t a filmmaker by trade. He’s a busy writer, having penned more than 40 books that have been translated into 40 languages.Strobel, like the late Charlie Kirk, doesn’t mind interacting with skeptics on- or off-screen. He welcomes it. The book on which “The Case for Miracles” is based starts with an extended dialogue with noted atheist Michael Shermer.Strobel eventually befriended Shermer, who has a cameo in the film version of “Miracles.”“I let him have his say,” he says of their early exchanges. Strobel is confident in his faith and the miracles he sees flowing through it.“There is evidence that points — compelling [evidence] — to the truth of biblical miracles and contemporary supernatural encounters,” he says. “I’m not afraid of that.”For Strobel, a miracle requires four key elements:Solid medical documentation;Multiple, credible eyewitnesses who have no motive to deceive;A lack of natural explanation; andAn association with prayer.Meet all four requirements, he says, “and maybe something miraculous is going on.”Strobel doesn’t mind that some of his former colleagues may question his religious conversion. He’s comforted by the fact that he has company in that regard.“I’ve seen so many journalists coming to faith. ... I think God is stirring something in the culture right now,” he says.

Jesus is the reason for the season, but more often than not, it’s Santa who takes front and center stage. A 2,000-year-old baby offering an intangible gift just can’t compete with the big, red-suited, jolly man and his sleigh full of toys in the mind of a child.That’s one of several reasons Allie Beth Stuckey doesn’t do Santa with her three kids.On this episode of “Relatable,” Allie presents a compelling case for ditching the man in the red hat and putting Jesus back on the throne of Christmas where He belongs. Santa invites confusionWhile Allie acknowledges that Santa is a “Christian liberty issue,” meaning “we have freedom as Christians to disagree,” she feels personally convicted to forgo the tradition to avoid confusing her children.Santa “is a form of deceit,” she says.“We want our kids to trust us ... and it can cause this kind of dissonance or confusion in a child when we tell them that someone is real, is giving them gifts, is watching them ... is taking a tally of the good deeds they do, the bad deeds they do ... and then allocating gifts in accordance to their behavior — and then to tell them one day that that system of morality around Christmastime doesn't exist,” she argues.“I do believe that that causes, even if just for a moment, mistrust between the parent and child” and “confusion about what is actually true ... about the mysterious and supernatural realm.”But “causing mistrust through deceit” isn’t even the biggest issue, she says. Santa can also cause “theological confusion” in developing children.Santa and God have a lot in common, Allie explains. Both see us when we’re sleeping, know when we’re awake, and know if we’ve been bad or good, but the key difference is Santa takes his gifts away when we fail to be good, whereas God, infinite in grace and mercy, does not dangle salvation as a carrot in front of us to keep us behaving.Santa “is a legalistic form of Christ” and a “counterfeit form of God,” says Allie.And then there’s the flip side of this pitfall. Children might view God as a kind of Santa Claus, who gives them material gifts in exchange for obedience or good deeds, turning Him from the perfect and holy king of kings and the savior of humanity into a “feel-good” bringer of happiness.In either case, the similarities between the two figures can deeply confuse malleable children who are still learning to distinguish between fact and fiction, while simultaneously sowing distrust between them and their parents.Santa distracts from JesusAllie’s second reason for ditching St. Nick is that he draws the focus away from Christ.“Santa Claus is the one who will give you all of your immediate desires and will fulfill all of the temporary pleasure that you long for because he is giving you something in the form of a tangible gift. ... It's no wonder that we as people, but especially children, have such a hard time actually focusing on Christ — the real gift-giver,” she says.To Santa sympathizers who argue that his mysterious nature “makes Christmas really magical” and stimulates children’s imaginations, Allie says that we can still foster imagination in our kids without lying to them.And further, “The reality is that there is already a beautiful mystery of Christmas that no one truly understands,” she says. “We are natural people who were intersected by the supernatural when Jesus became Emmanuel, God with us, made flesh. That is the mystery of Christmas.”“And so why would we create a counternarrative to that? A cheapened narrative, a legalistic narrative that gives all of the wrong lessons about morality and about what saves you and about what satisfies you and about what fulfills you?” she asks.But Santa doesn’t just distract kids from the true Christmas story; he also distracts parents, who are stressed and spread thin trying to maintain the Santa narrative through elaborate gift displays, Elf on the Shelf, staging half-eaten cookies, and dodging pesky questions from their kids.“It seems like when that starts to be the taker of our joy or the source of our stress and our energy and not discipling our kids and telling them what the advent, the coming of the Lord, actually means in their lives, well, then we have veered into idolatry,” Allie warns.To hear the rest of her argument, as well as ways Christians can still incorporate Santa into their Christmas season without losing focus on what matters, watch the full episode above.Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Nothing bothers the European elite as much as American conservatives praising the European foundations of their shared, but threatened, Western civilization. Europeans especially resent having their social-welfare…

While overall divorce rates in the United States continue to decline, separations among adults over 50 have surged, reflecting longer life expectancy, changing social norms, and shifting views on marriage…