The relativity of time
Time can exist in many forms—work time, free time, leisure time—and it has a lot of possessive adjectives: my time, your time, our time. The relativity of time can often lead to confusion because of the accompanying mixture of emotions, such as fear, joy, satisfaction, or expectation. It was this relativity of time that led me to need to define it in my...
Courage in the deluge
After a chance meeting of mutual friends, I was introduced to Tim and Sonia in a restaurant in central Toowoomba, Queensland, eight days before their home was washed away.
Hope from the pit
Fire falling from the sky. A massive tsunami. An abandoned city. Let’s be real—it’s probably Los Angeles or New York (although sometimes Sydney or Hong Kong makes a cameo). These are the images we most often associate with the end of the world. Whatever comes to mind for you, no doubt it has been shaped in large part by literature, art and, of...
A second chance: faith in the forgiveness that transforms us
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.
Putting money in its place
Money can do strange things to people. A few years back, a survey in England asked people to imagine first that the average income was £100,000, but they earned £125,000. Second, they were to imagine that the average income was £200,000, but their income was £175,000. They were then asked which they would prefer. The majority chose £125,000—they would rather have the possibility...
Incognito faith and the failures of political correctness
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.
The break between the Old and New Testament and the dilemma of the unchanging God
My first Bible was given to me by Pastor Damian Zamfir in the winter of 1972. Pastor Zamfir, the man who led my first steps on the path to Christ, invited me to visit him in the parish house of the Adventist church on Rodnei Street in Targoviste.
Gambling’s dark underbelly
Problem gambling in Australia and New Zealand is an issue seldom talked about, but we ignore it at our peril.
From rancour to forgiveness: How do Christians manage conflict?
A lack of conflict is not necessarily a sign of spiritual maturity, as some Christians might be tempted to believe. The way in which we manage conflict says a lot about how we understand the role of grace, forgiveness and reconciliation in a sinful world.
Stephen Hawking’s verdict (Leaving God out)
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.” This is Stephen Hawking’s statement that accompanied the book launch of “The Grand Design”.[1]
Gravitational waves and the inflation of certainty
On 17 March 2014, the science and technology blog of the prestigious newspaper The New Yorker announced, "A scientific breakthrough lets us see to the beginning of time". Lawrence M. Krauss, renowned physicist and author of "A Universe From Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing", commented in his article on the news that went around the world, heralding a landmark moment...
Memory training: The allies we have in the fight against forgetfulness
Memory training is often the only difference between people with impressive memorization skills and those with average memory, researchers suggest. However, the long-term results intersect with a healthy life and learning style.
The meaning of life in moments of uncertainty
We are leaving. Even if we were not supposed to, we chose to and it is happening. We are moving again. It is the eighth time in eleven years of marriage.
The missing filter
At a time when the abundance of information makes it imperative to talk about information hygiene, critical thinking should be the first missing filter we talk about.
Sugar and venom: pitfalls of the freedom to buy and sell sex
More than 19 years ago, the Netherlands experimented with legalising prostitution, an approach that many countries looked at with interest and curiosity. After all, after the failure of the "noble experiment" of American prohibition, people wanted to see the result of the opposite approach with regards to sex.


























