On a wilderness road a powerful man is knocked to the ground in a blinding flash of light and after a dramatic change of heart he begins to live for the very thing he had formerly treated with disdain. Does this sound familiar?

A generation of readers who enjoyed the historical novels of Walter Utt, the beloved Pacific Union College history professor who died in 1985, may be surprised at the appearance of No Peace for a Soldier, published recently by Pacific Press.

In 1998 there were only a handful of studies researching the subject of forgiveness. By 2005 that number had climbed to 950. The Power of Forgiveness, the latest documentary from Martin Doblmeier, traces the growing scientific interest in forgiveness during these years, ironically reflecting my own journey in those same years as I developed my own expertise on the subject, not so much from studying it at Seminary, preaching it as a pastor, or being such a generous giver of it as much as from making life decisions that made me desperately aware of how much I longed to receive it.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, written by Kevin Miller and Ben Stein, begins with intense footage of the building of the Berlin Wall. As the introductory credits roll, the confusion and shock at the wall’s construction is made very real as several young boys kick around a ball. As the ball is kicked into the air it flies up and over the wall, apparently lost forever.