Dr Paul Allen

On July 20, 1969, moments after the lunar module, The Eagle, alighted upon the Sea of Tranquility, a solitary Presbyterian church elder celebrated the Lord’s Supper in reverent silence—on the Moon. Commander Buzz Aldrin had stashed a communion wafer, a capsule of wine, and a tiny silver chalice onboard the Columbia, and smuggled it into space with him. Before his historic walkabout, Aldrin requested a brief radio silence. He described the following moment in the 1970 issue of Guideposts magazine: “I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine curled slowly and gracefully up the side of the cup. It was interesting to think that the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the first food eaten there, were communion elements.” His actions were at first kept secret because NASA was embroiled in a lawsuit with an atheist who was suing them for broadcasting a public reading of the Bible by the crew of Apollo 8 (ev...

Moon (Photo credit: Paul Garland ) We have just experienced the first of a series of four lunar eclipses. Acccording to  NASA , “The action starts [started] on April 15th when the full Moon passes through the amber shadow of Earth, producing a  midnight  eclipse visible across North America.  So begins a lunar eclipse tetrad—a series of 4 consecutive total eclipses occurring at approximately six month intervals.  The total eclipse of April 15, 2014, will be followed by another on  Oct. 8, 2014 , and another on  April 4, 2015 , and another on  Sept. 28 2015 .” These four consecutive total lunar eclipses will each result in the moon appearing red for the duration of the eclipse. This phenomenon is known as a blood red moon. Well, if you are deeply involved in biblical prophecy, this is the kind of thing you will find difficult to ignore. After all, Joel  2:31  says, “The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to ...

Image via Wikipedia There is an embarrassing, unfortunate moment in  “Transformers: Dark of the Moon”  that reveals what is perhaps the most troubling aspect of this critically reviled, audience-beloved franchise. As a few characters are getting a tour of a collection of vintage automobiles, the collector ( Patrick Dempsey ) points out, in a drooling tone, the seductive curves and lines of the vehicles.  Meanwhile, the camera ignores the cars completely and instead slowly pans up the body of the series’ new, designated babe ( Rosie Huntington-Whiteley ). Herein lies the real problem with the “ Transformers ” movies . It’s not the idiocy of the plots. It’s not the incompetence of the action sequences. It’s not the increasingly brutal violence. It’s the sexism . As that scene makes all too clear, series director  Michael Bay  can barely distinguish between a woman and a vehicle. This has been the case for all of the movies (in the second installment, a villa...