Death in the Congo

Last week the International Rescue Committee released its latest mortality survey for the Democratic Republic of Congo. They do a survey every 2-3 years; the methodology is as sound as it can be given the circumstances, and these surveys are widely acknowledged as the...

My Meeting With Ian Smith

Ian Smith, the former white minority president of Southern Rhodesia, has died. Smith and his supporters unilaterally (and illegally) declared independence from the United Kingdom in 1965 and ran a white minority regime for 14 years, until an insurgency led by Robert...

What You Can Do About Rape Crisis in Eastern Congo

It’s been about two months since I returned home from my last trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and, since life is busy no matter where you are, I’m still reconnecting with friends. Out last weekend with a friend from college, I described my...

Violent Young Men

I saw the Halo youth-ministry story that everyone’s commenting on when I picked up a copy of the New York Times at the airport on Sunday. For those lucky enough not to have read the story, it seems that staging nights of playing Halo 3 (a rather violent video...