The emergence of the megachurch as a model of metropolitan ministry is one of the defining marks of evangelical Christianity in the United States. Megachurches — huge congregations that attract thousands of worshipers — arrived on the scene in the 1970s and quickly became engines of ministry development and energy.

The sexual revolution of the last several decades has transformed any public conversation about sex and sexuality. The revolutionaries directed their attention to the dismantling of an entire edifice of sexual morality that had been basically intact for well over 2,000 years.

Do you go to the Internet for church? Cathy Lynn Grossman of USA Today reported this week on the increasing use of digital technology by churches. This trend is not new, of course, but some of the developments she traces are fresh and innovative.

The trial of Anders Behring Breivik represents one of the greatest tests of human justice in decades. Breivik stood in an Oslo courtroom this week and declared: “I admit to the actions, but not to the guilt.” The “actions,” of course, were the killing of 77 people on July 22, 2011. Eight were killed in a car bomb in Oslo. Breivik then shot 69 people to death on Utoya Island — most of them teenagers and young people involved in a summer camp sponsored by one of Norway’s major political parties.

Like most of America’s historic private universities, Vanderbilt University was founded by Christian believers for the purpose of inculcating Christian beliefs in its students. Vanderbilt was founded in the 1870s by Methodists and later funded largely by New York’s Vanderbilt family. Within a remarkably short period of years, Vanderbilt had forfeited its conservative Methodist roots in order to identify with the emerging secular consensus in American higher education.

Today’s Thinking in Public program features my interview with former President Jimmy Carter. The conversation was remarkable, and I was honored to have this interview with the 39th President of the United States. The focus of the interview was on the Bible, a book that has framed President Carter’s life from his earliest memories. Even now, he remains the world’s most famous Sunday School teacher.

And then they were no more. Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. announced Tuesday that it would no longer offer its venerable reference set in a printed edition. Western Civilization just took another hard blow to the chin.

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” [2 Timothy 4:7]  Writing to Timothy, the Apostle Paul was able to look back on his ministry and declare satisfaction that he had finished his course. Paul would be the first to insist that his entire ministry was evidence of the grace and mercy of God, but he was assured that, by grace, he had finished his race.

The debate over abortion comes down to one essential issue — the moral status of the unborn child. Those making the case for the legalization of abortion argue that the developing fetus lacks a moral status that would trump a woman’s desire to abort the child. Those arguing against abortion do so by making the opposite claim; that the unborn child, precisely because it is a developing human being, possesses a moral status by the very fact of its human existence that would clearly trump any rationale offered for its willful destruction.

Former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan had it just right — someone had better read Rick Santorum his Miranda rights. In the big leagues of national politics, she warns, “Everything you’ve said can and will be used against you.”

The casino stands as the great and most visible monument to the massive scale of the Gambling Industrial Complex in America. Just look across much of the American landscape, and you will see the glaring and garish lights of the casinos that serve to attract gamblers. It was not always so.

The nationwide explosion of legal gambling may well be the most underrated dimension of America’s moral crisis. With the expansion of state lotteries, casino gambling, and new technologies, the gambling industry is poised to grow even further in the next decade.