I’m American. That’s what my passport and accent will tell you, anyway. By looking at me, you would guess I’m from somewhere in Asia. By listening to my husband and children speak, you’d think we’re German. And by reading my writing, you’d say I’m British. For as long as I could remember, I had struggled with my identity. Even from an early age, I didn’t know who ― or what ― I was. When I was 4, a few months after arriving in America and a few weeks before starting kindergarten, I went from being Ae-Yun to Amy. This was because my parents, on the advice of some Chinese friends, decided that ..read more

As an actor who often speaks out about his Christian faith, Chris Pratt isn’t convinced that Hollywood is anti-religious. “I think that there’s this narrative that exists out there that Hollywood is anti-Christian or anti-religious, but it’s just not the case,” the “Jurassic World” star told The Associated Press this week. On the contrary, Pratt said, Hollywood’s culture encourages people to embrace whatever is authentic to them. “They are kind of not anti-anything. They are kind of pro whatever is authentic to you. And I like that,” the actor said. “Because it’s authentic for me to be pro ..read more

A woman has yet to be elected to the highest office in the United States, but 3,000 years ago in ancient Egypt it wasn’t unusual for women to rule—and some became all powerful, like Cleopatra and Nefertiti. Yet as Kara Cooney explains in her new book, When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt, those women were ultimately only placeholders for the next male to take the pharaoh’s throne. When National Geographic caught up with Cooney by phone in Los Angeles, she explained why Hatshepsut was so perfect; how Cleopatra grew up in a family that makes the Sopranos seem like lambs; and what the ..read more

Watching Jonah Hill’s new film, “Mid90s,” which came out Friday, I couldn’t shake how familiar the whole thing felt. There was something about the taco spot, the eggshell-colored alleyway behind the skate shop, the ginormous public school the kids sneak into, the fights and big hair and bland streets. Even the sup fools and fuck shits, the way the phrases don’t so much roll off the actors’ tongues as rattle out of their throats on the creaking Spitfire Bighead wheels of their u’s and o’s and i’s — even the vowels felt like home. The movie, a “coming-of-age” “animal-kingdom” film about skatebo ..read more

You probably formed an opinion about “A Star Is Born” long before the movie came out. Maybe you were smitten by the remake’s trailer, in which Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga duet in a most epic fashion. Maybe you watched Gaga glide into the Venice Film Festival on a damn yacht or heard the rumor this film would make you feel again. But be warned, how you felt walking into the theater says nothing about how you’ll feel leaving it. Despite its relatively straightforward plot ― a tortured male rock star meets an unknown but massively talented female singer, setting off a sequence of events that l ..read more

We live in an age of narcissism. It is the era of self-actualization, the relentless race to perfect the self. Time magazine reported in 2013 that “Narcissistic personality disorder is nearly three times as high for people in their twenties as for the generation that’s now 65 or older. . . . 58% more college students scored higher on a narcissism scale in 2009 than in 1982.” As the West has become more narcissistic, so have the people in our churches. We see it on social media. We hear it over coffee. We see it when young people break away from living and breathing social groups to snap a se ..read more

Word on the street was that Greg started a cult. The rumor began with someone I thought was a friend. A big name on the university football team, a go-to on the field — a hater behind my back. When I heard what he was saying, my first response was frustration. If the natural response is fight or flight, I found myself gravitating toward the former. But God was gracious, and soon I calmed down. The emotion that took its place next, however, caught me off guard: regret. Had I said something too extreme? Had I been a little too vocal? Should I have lingered a little more at their parties and ..read more

Every summer the same thing happens to my inbox. I open it to find a steady stream of emails from concerned parents, youth pastors, and older siblings, asking me to check in on so and so when they get to campus in August. They all want the same thing: to see their beloved 18-year-old get involved with our ministry on campus and grow in their faith. The problem is that more times than not, this isn’t exactly what the beloved 18-year-olds want for themselves. What do they want? That’s the question I’ve asked myself for the last eight years doing campus ministry. The question itself embodies ev ..read more

DETROIT (AP) — U.S. securities regulators countered Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s contempt-of-court defense Monday night, writing in court papers that he brazenly disregarded a federal judge’s order and that one of his arguments “borders on the ridiculous.”Lawyers for the Securities and Exchange Commission, in a response to Musk, wrote that when the contempt motion was filed in February, Musk had not had a single tweet approved by a company lawyer, violating a requirement of a court-approved settlement order.The October securities fraud settlement stemmed from tweets by Musk in August about having the ..read more

I’m American. That’s what my passport and accent will tell you, anyway. By looking at me, you would guess I’m from somewhere in Asia. By listening to my husband and children speak, you’d think we’re German. And by reading my writing, you’d say I’m British.For as long as I could remember, I had struggled with my identity. Even from an early age, I didn’t know who ― or what ― I was. When I was 4, a few months after arriving in America and a few weeks before starting kindergarten, I went from being Ae-Yun to Amy. This was because my parents, on the advice of some Chinese friends, decided that my ..read more