Six-year-old Noah Ponzer was one of twenty-six people killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre. As the grandfather of a five-year-old, I cannot begin to imagine the pain his parents and other families have endured in the years since.

However, conspiracy theories began spreading online almost immediately after the shooting, with some speculating that the tragedy was staged to generate support for gun-control laws. Grieving families became targets. Some were accused of being actors paid to play a role. 

Noah’s father, Lenny Ponzer, has tried to stop people from spreading such lies and from harassing him and other grieving families. He received death threats as a result. 

In June, Mr. Ponzer won a defamation case against editors of a book that claimed no one died in the Newtown, Connecticut, tragedy and that his son’s death certificate was a fake. This week, a jury awarded him $450,000 in damages from one of the book’s editors. 

Why has the youth suicide rate increased 56 percent? 

We’ve been discussing this week the power of ideas—whether they are positive or evil—to change the world. John F. Kennedy was right: “A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.” 

However, to change the world, we must sometimes retreat from the world. 

Work predated the Fall and is part of God’s design for us (Genesis 2:15). But overwork is a symptom of a culture that measures us by what we do, how much we do, and how fast we do it. 

As with any time we step out of our Creator’s plan for us, the costs outweigh the benefits. 

A new study indicates that people who regularly work more than ten hours a day for at least fifty days a year are at a 29 percent greater risk of stroke. The risk rises to 45 percent for…

Note from Dr. Jim Denison: I am grateful to my son, Ryan Denison, for writing The Daily Article this week while I am traveling. Ryan is a graduate of Baylor University and Truett Seminary and is completing his doctoral dissertation in church history at BH Carroll Theological Institute. He serves as Senior Fellow for Theology with our ministry and writes often in my absence. I am certain you will find his insights to be both biblical and practical.

Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, are no strangers to the media. As part of the royal family, Harry and his brother have been lightning rods for global attention since their birth. That attention only increased after their mother, Princess Diana, died in a car accident while trying to get away from the paparazzi. 

As an actress prior to becoming a princess, Meghan Markle was also no stranger to being the center of attention, whether it was wanted or not. As a recent interview with British television channel ITV demonstrates, however, experience with being trapped in the public eye does not make it any easier to bear. 

The couple recently took a ten-day trip to Africa to work with several charities and check up on much of the work that Harry’s mother began prior to her tragic death. They spoke excitedly about all the progress being made and the joy they felt in getting the chance to be part of it, but there were also candid moments of grief when the conversation veered toward their strained relationship with the media. The most poignant was Meghan’s reply to anchor Tom Bradby’s question regarding how she was holding up after recently giving birth to the couple’s first child. 

The Duchess replied, “Thank you for asking because not many people have asked if I’m OK, but it’s a very real thing to be going through behind the…

NOTE: I want to thank my son, Ryan Denison, for writing The Daily Article while my wife and I were traveling last week. I am also grateful to the many readers who posted wonderful comments in response to his articles. It is a great privilege to share this ministry with my family and with each of you.

President Trump made an announcement Sunday morning that has dominated global headlines: “Last night, the United States brought the world’s No. 1 terrorist leader to justice. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead. He was the founder and leader of ISIS, the most ruthless and violent terror organization anywhere in the world.” 

The president explained how al-Baghdadi was killed: “U.S. Special Operations forces executed a dangerous and daring nighttime raid in northwestern Syria and accomplished their mission in grand style.” He added: “The thug who tried so hard to intimidate others spent his last moments in utter fear, in total panic and dread.” 

Now al-Baghdadi is dead, and the world is a safer place. 

Who was Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi? 

Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Samarra was born and grew up in Samarra, part of the Sunni region of Iraq north of Baghdad. He received undergraduate, Masters, and PhD degrees from the Islamic University in Baghdad. He then changed his last name to al-Baghdadi and took for his first name Abu Bakr, the prophet Muhammad’s father-in-law and successor. He claimed to be a direct descendant of Muhammad. 

While a member of al Qaeda in Iraq, he was imprisoned by American forces. Observers believe he was radicalized in prison. After the group’s leader was killed in a US air strike in 2010, al-Baghdadi was elected to succeed him. He broke from al Qaeda in early 2014 and seized land later that year upon which he announced the formation of a “caliphate.” 

This was an enormously important step. After Muhammad died in AD 632, his successors (“caliphs” in Arabic) governed from a region they called the…