Analysis

In some African communities, during the harsh dry season when food becomes scarce and mothers can no longer feed all their children, a tragic custom persists: some children are left in open-air enclosures to die of starvation.

Religious people believe in the positive results of their faith in God. There is a common expectation that faithful people will lead good, healthy lives, while bad people will experience trouble, illness and punishments. The reality, however, is much more complex and often contradicts such expectations. How useful is religious faith when it comes to health, or the healing of the sick?

After the authorities in different countries announced a relaxation of the restrictions, people started to impatiently waiting for that, maybe even with plans to recover last bits of a confiscated spring.

Sister trio Clara, Emily and Sharon always dreamed of different things they could do together when they grew up. They never thought they would be where they are now as travelling artists with a thriving business and a 17,000 (and growing) following.

Critical thinking is not a cure-all, but it proves very useful in dealing with, clarifying, and solving some decision-making problems, as well as the thought and belief disputes which occupy our minds.

Two recent stories in Australian media shocked me to my core. Two 12-year-olds in different states took their own lives after being bullied at school. 

Sometimes I think I was born with a magnifying glass in my hand, one through which I critically scrutinize everything I do and say and which relentlessly magnifies every imperfection.

The rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan is the result of a history marked by local political ambitions, regional rivalry, and conflicting geopolitical aspirations, in which the religious element cannot be ignored. Who are the Taliban? What motivates them? Who helps them? What did they do when they ruled over Afghanistan, and what could they do now that they are back in power?

In a psalm that is worth reading on our coldest mornings and in our darkest nights, King David asked some rhetorical questions—“Whom shall I fear? Of whom shall I be afraid?”— questions which our contemporaries would not dare to answer.

Written in Latin by a 26-year-old Frenchman in less than a year, it is a book of 516 pages. Published in Switzerland and dedicated to the French king from whom he was fleeing, it is the most important theological work of the Reformation.

I thought to myself: Is there an alarm or is it an end of day signal?

What do a foul-mouthed, drug-abusing Canadian, a stately Frenchman from Bourg-en-Bresse and an American businesswoman whose prison nickname was “M Diddy”, all have in common?

The image of an apocalypse generated by a microscopic coronavirus has been sketched more than once by the press in the past few weeks.

It was terrifying. They kept trying to comfort me by telling me they had the best surgeons. But they also said that I needed a new liver and that my body might reject it. – Christopher Herrera

Raising a child is not easy at all. Raising someone else’s child is even harder. But raising six children who are not your own, giving up your life, sounds crazy to most of us.