One of the features of the new tax reform law is doubling the standard deduction – and that is a good thing. The increase will be a genuine benefit to many middle-class families. However, it also means there will be less incentive to itemize deductions for giving and likely as well that charitable donations will suffer as a result. Much of the tax advantage of giving for 30 million people who currently itemize their deductions every year will go away. To offset this change one of the strategies proposed by advisors is putting off any annual giving not covered by the standard deduction and only give when the amount becomes…

For some time now I have been questioning if philanthropy is one of those words that has either lost its traditional definition (love of mankind) or should never have been used to describe giving in the first place. In fact, I wonder if our using “love of mankind” is possible or even desirable. Yes, there are numerous examples where giving springs from sincere feelings about the poor or a genuine desire to alleviate suffering, spread the Gospel, deliver health care, rescue young girls and boys from the bondage of trafficking, and restore dignity to people. No doubt these are good things – but are they really philanthropy? Or, are they…

Discoveries made through a mistake, battles lost by a sudden change of wind, unintentional inflection points in a life through a wrong turn. The history of our world is full of them. In fact, the closer we study major shifts the more likely we are to see they often hinged on seeming unimportant choices that made the outcome radically different. What if Archduke Ferdinand’s driver had not accidentally turned down the wrong street giving a Serbian nationalist his opportunity? What if the wind had not shifted on the Spanish Armada destroying their fleet? What if a dish of bacteria in the lab of Alexander Fleming had not been contaminated with…

More often than not when people long for the earliest church they have in mind an ideal that never existed. Almost from the beginning, it was tested with schisms, false teaching, infighting, jealousy, greed and celebrities with fans. I say almost because there actually was a short time – a matter of days – when things went smoothly. It’s likely those few days that people have in their minds when saying they want to restore the church to its original purity. It was the same with the disciples as Jesus was leaving them after forty days. What was their expectant question?  “Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom to…

Looking back now, it is difficult to believe in early 1972 I was singing “Bridge Over Troubled Water” in a choir for one of Arthur Blessitt’s crusades in Boston. You might remember Arthur as the man who carried the wooden cross around the world on foot. He logged 38,000 miles and visited 315 nations. A new Christian and like so many others, I had been swept up in the adventure of it. In June of that same year, I was part of the 100,000 high school and college students swarming in Dallas, Texas at the Cotton Bowl for Explo‘72. Sponsored by Campus Crusade, we had come from around the world…