Analysis

The dissonance between what church representatives say and what they do, the crises caused by sexual scandals, tolerating sin, not taking responsibility for mistakes and hiding them, and selling spiritual gifts for money, are just a few of the reasons why people say they’re disappointed in the Church.

"What is this life if, full of care, / We have no time to stand and stare." — from the poem "Leisure" by William H. Davies.

When Reader's Digest asked readers to share a time when someone took care of one of their needs, the stories poured in, proving that our world is still full of ambassadors of generosity.

Jesus's words could not have been foreign to the Jewish people of His day. In an eminently oral culture, narratives, stories, parables and metaphors occupied an important place.

Who was Jesus really? While His historical existence is no longer questioned, many people believe that He was at best an exceptional personality of His time, a reformer whom His disciples later transformed into a deity. Why is neo-atheism concerned with promoting such a Jesus, and why is He nothing more than a new form of doubt?

They say self-esteem is a vital ingredient for success in life. But what if everything we were taught about self-esteem is wrong?

Every few years, our Christmas lasts for a week. My husband’s family rents a large house and four generations gather from England, Germany, Denmark, Poland, Netherlands, Chile and Argentina. This year there will be more than 30 of us—including two new babies.

In Europe, one in twenty people suffer from depression, and one in four will experience depression during their lifetime. In the United States, major depressive disorder affects about five percent of the population.

I’m sure you’ve heard the statement: “I’m all about Jesus, but I’m not interested in church.” I’ve heard this many times and have even found myself saying it during certain periods of my life.

When former US President Donald Trump suggested at a press conference in Helsinki that the FBI could be wrong to accuse Russia of meddling in the US presidential elections, citing President Vladimir Putin's testimony as an argument, the media became fixated on the lamentable insult Trump threw at the secret services. 

For the first time in US history, the majority of Americans believe that even moderate alcohol consumption is detrimental to health. Just 54% of Americans say they still drink alcohol. This is the lowest percentage in nearly 20 years. However, it has taken a long time to reach these conclusions.

Many years ago, while I was still in high school, our Romanian language and literature teacher assigned us the task of writing a framed story, complete with characters and a plot of our choosing.

Concern for the planet's climate and its ecology has occupied the world's attention for many decades. In the 1980s, the ozone layer depletion caused by chlorofluorocarbons and similar gases was observed, and in 1987, the Montreal Protocol was finalised.

Holiday greetings are a nice custom, but they are also an opportunity to assess how much we care about each other, how much we have grown closer or, on the contrary, how much we have grown apart over the past year.

In chaos theory, there is something that scientists call the “butterfly effect”—a seemingly insignificant event triggers a series of other events that later acquire significant importance. The butterfly effect has been used outside the realm of science as a metaphor for small things that have a considerable impact. When it comes to kindness, few things could demonstrate the butterfly effect better than the...