The Second Coming: Escape or Energiser?
"Lianne struggled with the idea of God," Don DeLillo’s narrator says of one of the characters in his novel, Falling Man. "She was taught to believe that religion makes people compliant. This is the purpose of religion, to return people to a childlike state… . We want to transcend, to pass beyond the limits of safe understanding— and what better way to do...
God’s silence
Renee James was 18 when she decided to stop praying. If God was going to be silent, she thought, she would be silent too. She had been praying for years for the healing of her brothers, Sean and Niall, one suffering from autism and the other from Down syndrome. Yet there had been no answer.
Good reasons to read the whole Bible
As intimidating as the Bible may sometimes be, especially because of its size and its sometimes difficult passages, many who have read it from cover to cover say that it has changed their lives for the better—the spiritual resources the whole Bible can provide are not found elsewhere.
ABBA 40 years on: A return with conflicting feelings
After 40 years, ABBA has made a return to the music scene with an album primed to awaken or indulge the nostalgia of generations who lamented the breakup of the Swedish group in 1982. The album comes with a virtual concert in which the group performs all their new songs, with a twist: with the help of digital technology, the singers will appear...
The hopeless generation
I talked to Pastor Nicu Butoi about the role that religion could play in treating depression and hopelessness, at the end of a series of evangelistic presentations he gave to a full-house before the pandemic.
I am what you have taught me to be
The perspectives we acquire as children about ourselves as individuals, about the world, and even about God, become beliefs that filter and guide the choices we make as adults. Some of these beliefs are helpful. Others are not. In fact, many of the obstacles we encounter in adult life are caused by these filters.
Like a city whose walls are broken through
Anger is like an avalanche which, once started, runs its course to the very end. It is strong and manipulates us easily, turning us into ticking time bombs. This is why we need to know how to manage it and how to keep our temper in any situation.
How to build valid arguments
Arguments must be convincing and, in order to convince, they must be valid—the minimum requirement of persuasion.
A tsunami put under a microscope
In 2004, we experienced firsthand one of the most devastating tsunamis of our century. It was early morning, on Boxing Day.
In the footsteps of the historical Jesus: benefits and perils
Christianity is either historical or not. It claims that “God acted decisively in history, revealing Himself in external, specific events attested in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.”[1] The most important of these events was the coming of Jesus as the Messiah, the saving Christ.
The neighbour and the farthest
Could it be that, beyond economic, political or geostrategic difficulties, there are obstacles to the ideal of the common good that are inherent in human nature? And if something specific to human nature stood in the way of achieving this ideal, would it not lead to failure, regardless of overcoming all other difficulties?
The truth about Halloween
Pumpkin heads, skeletons and excessive sweet treats: let’s face it, whether you love or loathe Halloween, it’s a supremely weird holiday. I’ll admit to personally being annoyed at the increasing number of kids dressed in superhero and Disney outfits knocking at my door in recent years—but I’ll also likewise admit to giving in to their cute faces and outstretched buckets. It turns out...
The most misunderstood of loves
To understand the love of God, we are encouraged to look at the Cross. The unnatural position of the Son, nailed to a non-existent guilt, raises a storm of questions in the other children of God. The most disturbing of them, I think, would be: What kind of love is this?
An ancient story with a different ending
The stories of gods and their vengeance permeated the ancient world—but one culture changed the story to introduce a better way to relate to the divine.
Pocket apocalypse: The end of the world in the press
The image of an apocalypse generated by a microscopic coronavirus has been sketched more than once by the press in the past few weeks.


























