by Dan Schaeffer Jesus said “let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16 NIV) Allen Dershowitz begs to differ. He believes that most Christian’s good works have no real value whatsoever. It is the atheists and agnostics who are the truly moral people in our universe. (Being one himself, his conclusion shouldn’t be too surprising). In his book, Letters to a Young Lawyer, a chapter of which recently ap

By Dan Schaeffer A few months back I was reading an article about luxury items you could buy for Christmas, and one in particular caught my eye. You could, for a price, have yourself (or a loved one?) cryogenically frozen. It reminded me of a story in our local paper I read years ago of a man named Thomas Donaldson. The title of the article caught my attention. “Man Sues to Allow Freezing of Head Before He Dies.” Thomas Donaldson was a mathematician with a brain tumor.

by Dan Schaeffer One of the things that we treasure as Americans is our freedom of belief—that we can believe anything we want to believe—and practice it openly. And so we see so many different beliefs across the religious and non-religious spectrum pop up on social media, television, movies, books, magazines, Facebook, Twitter. But something we don’t often consider is—whatever we believe about life, or God, or what comes next—is it worth believing in? Are all beliefs equa

By Dan Schaeffer It’s been almost seven years since I gave up my earthly security. Twenty years ago I planted a church in a town and for thirteen years watched it grow from several couples to ministering to over 400 people each month. Once I was the only pastor, now there were three full time staff; once the office was in my garage, now we had professional office space in town. Our eight thousand-dollar a year budget had grown to well over three hundred thousand. My incom

by Dan Schaeffer We gathered in the living room, sitting comfortably around the table, all eyes on me. I did not know them well, they were distant cousins, but their old and beloved father had died, and relatives that I had never been close to were sharing tidbits of their father’s life. I asked the usual questions and then inquired if there was anything special they would like in the service. I was referring to music or a reading, but immediately a gray-haired son said pa

By Dan Schaeffer It started with a phone call. “Hello Danny, this is your Aunt Sue. I just thought you would want to know that your father died. His obituary was in the paper. I’ll send you a copy if you’d like.” If this sounds like a cold way to tell someone that their father just died, it really wasn’t. Actually, he was my father by adoption. My biological father and my second father had both left the scene years earlier. When I was eleven years old my mother married

By Dan Schaeffer My wife and I were browsing through an antique shop in Southern California when our friend Val came up to me holding a small box. “You’ve got to see this,” she said. She held forth a small wooden box. The outside of the box was decorative and attractive, but it was the tag on the outside of the box that riveted my attention. The sales tag read, “7 gods for ½ price.” Inside the box were seven small wooden gods that had once been the object of someone’s wor