Analysis

“You’re going to hell!” The words dripped with a violence, barely contained. “Repent of your wickedness,” a voice called again from the middle of a mob holding placards. I didn’t appreciate these words being directed at my wife and me.

John the Baptist's call—"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near"—succeeded in bringing Jews "from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan" to the desert where the prophet preached, to confess their sins and be baptised. Two thousand years later, the exhortation to "repent" is buried under a mountain of pejorative associations.

For the chained man, there were now only two options: unreserved submission to the council or condemnation; recantation or death. Outside, the stake was already prepared.

Psychologists call it "learned helplessness". People just call it "it is what it is". Both terms describe the same phenomenon: the exhaustion that comes from trying to maintain the belief that their efforts matter.

This coronavirus crisis has, for me, some perplexing parallels with a well-known incident narrated in the Gospel of Matthew (14:22-33). The disciples are confined in a little boat in the middle of a terrible storm, almost as we are confined at home today by the emergency laws of our countries.

The fight against the new coronavirus is accompanied by several parallel fights, including the fight against fear, which can turn into panic—one of the most dangerous social phenomena.

If you were asked to describe who you are, what would you highlight first?

In the late 1980s, Donald Trump was asked how much money it would take to make him happy. His answer? “Ten per cent more.” 

Norma Nashed has been running the Restore a Child organisation for more than two decades, helping 4,000 children in ten African countries.

Of all the evidence that younger generations are living in the shadow of insecurity, depression is the most compelling. Anxiety, which accompanies the daily lives of a record number of young people, paints a picture of a generation that experiences an almost constant lack of control.

Benjamin Solomon Carson is the famous American neurosurgeon who, in 1987, became the first to successfully separate twins conjoined at the head.

Years of prosperity swallowed up in a few months of recession—that's how you could sum up the global economic crisis that began in 2007. At its core, the worst recession since the interwar period turned out to be a mirror into which none of us want to look.

“The words of the mouth are deep waters, but the fountain of wisdom is a rushing stream” (Proverbs 18:4).

Very few people have ever found rest in what they are and what they do. They are always seeking what they do not have and trying to become what they are not. These people talk about transformation, development and fulfilment but no matter their accomplishments or status, they are always thinking that they need to surpass their present state, that there is something...

I still remember May 21, 2011, like it was yesterday. Thousands of kilometres away in Boulder, USA, an evangelist named Harold Camping, president of the popular ministry Family Radio, was in the news spotlight. He had predicted that on May 21, more than 200 million Christians all around the world would be raptured away to heaven and that five months later, the world would end.