Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Dane Skelton
Apollo 13 Commander James Lovell dies at 97
James A. Lovell, the famous astronaut who lived a life of firsts, died Thursday in Wake Forest, Ill., according to NASA. He was 97 years old. Lovell participated in the first successful space rendezvous in the Gemini 7 spacecraft. Lovell was known as Smilin’ Jim by his fellow astronauts because of his quick wit and grin, acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy said. He had an explorer’s bold resolve and optimism.
Apollo 13 Commander James Lovell dies at 97 - Crossmap News
To enjoy our website, you'll need to enable JavaScript in your web browser. Please click here to learn how. You are being redirected to WORLD If your browser does not redirect you there, please click here to continue.
COMMUNITY VOICE: Of wrong horses and counterpoints
Views expressed in community voices do not represent opinions of The Gazette-Virginian or staff members. Writers need critics if for no other reason, to help us see when we have failed to communicate the main thing. The Nov. 11 and 18 editions of community voice, a response to my Nov. 4 piece on the Virginia Values Act titled “Velvet covered tyranny,” served that purpose for me. So, allow me to be blunt.
COMMUNITY VOICE: Velvet covered tyranny
Views expressed in community voices do not represent opinions of The Gazette-Virginian or staff members. Wanda & Wendy (pseudonyms) visited the church I serve for a few weeks in 2003. It was evident to me that both were in deep emotional pain. They asked to meet with me. Sensing what this might be about, I asked two of our elders to join us. Both women told incredibly sad stories of abuse, sexual and otherwise, from fathers, ex-husbands and relatives.
LETTER: “Created Equal:” The Clarence Thomas story
To the editor: “Eah ya got ‘nud jah?” the sweaty, African American man said as he handed back the glass mom had given him. “Whut,”? I asked. “Eah ya got ‘nud jah?” “Momma, I cain’t unnerstan this man. Whuts he wont?” “He wants more water, honey. It’s awfully hot outside.
Australia Fires Lead to Canceled Mission Trips, Church Climate Change Conversations
Every summer, hundreds of young Australians devote two weeks to running Christian programs for families on the beaches of New South Wales and Victoria. But cataclysmic fires in southeastern Australia have interrupted the efforts of Scripture Union teams in the nation’s most populous states. Scripture Union has served in the Victoria beach town of Mallacoota for more than 30 years, Chris Mulherin, one of the team leaders, told Eternity News.
Amid Abuse Scandals, Legal Challenges Test Clergy Reporting Exemptions
The Montana Supreme Court this week unanimously reversed a $35 million judgment against the Jehovah’s Witnesses for not reporting sexual abuse to authorities, saying church representatives fell within a clergy exception found in the state’s mandatory child abuse reporting law. Montana law requires officials, including clergy, to report child abuse to state authorities when there is reasonable cause for suspicion.
Scam Lures Speakers to Fake UK Church Conferences
Late last year, writer Jonathan Merritt was offered the keynote spot at a church conference in Scotland. The cathedral provost emailed him, saying, “we received the Lords direction to invite you to speak in this event.” He detailed the tradition of annual lectures at St. Andrew’s in Aberdeen—this year’s theme “carefully chosen by the Lords’ inspiration due to the backdrop of the present situation in the United Kingdom”—and offered to pay Merritt a speaking fee and cover his travel expenses.
A ‘Tsunami of Disaster and Opportunity’ for Iran’s Christi......
The killing of Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani by order of President Donald Trump last week sent shockwaves around the world and prompted retaliation from Iran, an Islamic republic cited by some Christian groups as having one of the highest conversion rates in the world. Lazarus Yeghnazar, whose research suggests as many as 1 million Christians now live in Iran, has been expecting something like this for years.
‘The Two Popes’ Pits Tradition Against Progress
The Two Popes, a forthcoming film from Netflix, dramatizes conversations between Pope Benedict (formerly Cardinal Ratzinger) and Cardinal Bergoglio, the man who would eventually assume the papal office as Pope Francis. Inspired by true events, the film is ultimately a work of imagination since the details of their conversations are largely conjectural.
The Rise of the Bible-Teaching, Plato-Loving, Homeschool Elitists
In the fall of 2018, I spoke at Mars Hill Academy, a classical homeschooling co-op in Lexington, Kentucky. It began in 1995 and offers classes in Latin, Western civilization, rhetoric, and worldview, as well as English, math, and science. A cynic might have warned me that I would be greeted by insular families trying to protect their children from secular culture, a rigid Bible-only approach to learning, a legalistic mindset, and a withdrawal from civic engagement.
COMMUNITY VOICE: 7 pro-choice assumptions — and why they are wrong
The pro-life laws passed in nine states this year have released an avalanche of pro-abortion media, entertainment and political pressure on lawmakers and voters alike. Some of the pressure is pure power play, like the Netfix CEO’s threat to pull production from Georgia over its new law. But much of it comes from cleverly crafted messaging designed to play on our sympathies and sense of fair play. It’s hard to be rational when our emotional levers are being pulled.
COMMUNITY VOICE: The prayer God answers
What kind of prayer does God answer? That is really the $1M question isn’t it? A publisher made a pile of money with a book called “The Prayer of Jabez” in 2002. People took that little truncated sermon and treated it like a magic spell, “just pray this, and you’ll get rich.” God is not a cosmic vending machine. There is no magic way to pray that guarantees God will say “yes” to us. We aren’t given a formula. But we are given models, many models or patterns for prayer throughout the Bible.
COMMUNITY VOICE: Straight lines with crooked sticks
Parents of young children need eight hands, I thought as the mom and dad juggled tiny baby, luggage, diaper bag, car-seat, boarding passes and ID while shepherding their toddler through Phoenix Sky Harbor security. I wish they’d hurry up. Then the agent slowed things down even more by starting a conversation with the little guy. “Is this your daddy? Uh huh. No, you don’t have to take off your shoes. Is this your mommy? Uh huh, you can hold your bear.
Young Life organization to host annual fundraiser Saturday
It was a muggy fall evening in 2000 and our youth leader, Marty, and I were almost finished. We’d been at the county fair all afternoon conducting surveys to learn the spiritual needs of our community. Among the questions we polled: Do you attend a church? Why or why not? What attracts you to a church or turns you off? The replies varied on all but the last question: What do you think the county needs most?
COMMUNITY VOICE: Is your son the next mass shooter?
The school shootings just keep coming, as we should have guessed by now they would. Without the intervention of teacher Jason Seaman, Noblesville, Indiana, would no doubt have been the third mass shooting in a school in 2018, preceded by Santa Fe, Texas, that took 10 lives, and Parkland, Florida, that took 17 and wounded 17 more. May Seaman’s tribe increase.Malcolm Gladwell, who wrote on school shootings in the New Yorker in 2015, believes we should expect more.
Intel rolls out chip fix
Intel CEO Brian Krzanich announced Monday evening at CES 2018 in Las Vegas that his company would by the end of the week implement a software fix for widespread security problems in 90 percent of its processors made in the last five years. But some security experts argue nothing short of a recall can fix the vulnerabilities.
The Selah Center celebrating one year anniversary in Southside
The message alarmed Tom because his girlfriend, whom he had dated since middle school, usually felt free to text anything. But this time she would only agree to meet in person.With his subconscious screaming, you know what this is! but his frontal lobe in full denial mode, he made his way to their favorite spot in the stairwell at the high school.
COMMUNITY VOICE: The certainty of uncertainty: Encouragement for millennial friends
“I’m not happy with where my life is at the moment, and I’m not real sure what to do about it, but I’m working on it,” said my friend. I could feel his frustration, having been there and done that.Similar conversations with a number of 20-something friends who have run head-on into a string of disappointments have had me praying and thinking about how to encourage the millennials among us. I know what it’s like to see 30 coming up on the horizon with little in the way of success to show for it.
LETTER: Thankful for Ole Bob
Bob Hughes stood on the porch on a sunlit November Saturday morning, looking out over the gathering of about 50 people who had come to celebrate and choked up as he tried to finish the ceremony.The longtime director and sole (part-time) employee of Tri-River Habitat for Humanity was reading off the names and organizations that helped build Tri-River’s 15th home in 20 years. It wasn’t the names that brought the tears, just the gratitude.
COMMUNITY VOICE: The Orlando massacre
“Trapp in bathroom … he coming … I’m gonna die.”Those final texts from Eddie Justice to his mom moments before he was killed early Sunday morning will forever define the Orlando Massacre, the Islamic terrorist attack on the gay nightclub, Pulse.At least they will for me. My heart broke when I read them.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Dane
Contact Dane, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack