Analysis

Have you ever seen the early morning worship programs on television? The packed congregations, the huge church venues, the smooth-talking evangelist who delivers the perfect sermon . . . Church seems to be where the action is. That there are so many new mega-churches popping up all over the world suggests that a lot of people are desperate for spiritual guidance and fellowship....

Motivation is more than simply having the desire to wake up each morning with enthusiasm and a zest for life.

Far more terrifying than persecution, ideologies, and militant atheism put together may be the hidden force behind the seemingly innocuous statement: "You don't need God!"

Judging by the headlines in the press over the last weeks, the world seems ready to have a discussion about sin.

In Romania, they say that everyone is an expert in football and politics. But I believe it is more appropriate to say that everyone is an expert in food—or so they think. Except for a small minority, most of us have quite strong opinions about what we eat.

There are people who love animals; we see them often, offering scraps of food to stray dogs or pigeons in public squares and parks, gazing at them affectionately, touching them, speaking to them tenderly. Rarely, however, does any of that reserve of sympathy find its way into the silence, indifference, or reproach with which people respond to a request for help from someone...

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” said Nietzsche in one of his essays back in 1889. Easier said than done when you’re facing unemployment, illness, rejection, or a blank exam paper. We tend to see these as things we need to get rid of. This can’t possibly be the life we wanted.

In The Simpsons episode entitled “Homer the Heretic,” Homer Simpson has a conversation with God.

In 2004, we experienced firsthand one of the most devastating tsunamis of our century. It was early morning, on Boxing Day.

In recent weeks, Afghanistan has become a tender spot for the whole world. The Taliban's new and newly offensive rise to power is a novel situation for the international community, and every international player wants to know how to position itself in this new pattern of dynamic, bewildering forces.

I was born into an Adventist family. This meant feeling that pretty much everything I knew, including my religious tradition, was the sole truth.

"I was wrong. I'm sorry"—these words can have a magical effect on a struggling relationship. But if we fail to show empathy, the apology will sound fake or hurt the offended person even more.

How far is too far? Is there a point of no return?

An experimenter is like a hunter who, instead of waiting quietly for game, tries to make it rise, by beating up the locality where he assumes it is. – Francis Bacon, 17th-century English philosopher

At the age of 34, he moved the American people with a speech about his biggest dream. At 35, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. At the age of 39, his life ended suddenly, with Martin leaving his dream as a legacy to the next generations.