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It could be a perfunctory ritual, passed down through generations; a mechanically recited poem. But equally, the mealtime prayer can be a genuine spiritual exercise.

Professor Bailey V. Gillespie, from La Sierra University's Department of Theology and Christian Character in California, impressed me with both the diversity of his interests and his prestigious achievements, particularly in the field of young people's religious experience.

This question is asked by critics who want to point out the social, cultural and contextual nature of the Christian religion, and its relativism, presenting it as a product of society rather than of revelation.

According to the international standard ISO 8601, Sunday is the seventh day of the week. However, many countries, including the US, Canada, and Japan, consider Sunday as the first day. Where does this contradiction come from and why does it matter if Sunday is the first or the seventh day of the week?

"You cannot recognise the wisdom of a wise man whom you have not tested" (Papyrus Insinger, XII, 15).

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, Max Lucado wrote an article summarising the spiritual lessons we can learn from an event that the news described as a "once in a thousand year flood".

I was a pagan as a child. Not by choice, but as a consequence of lacking any access to the Word of God. In the 1980s Romania, catechizing an Orthodox child (whose parents were members of the Communist Party) was a highly unlikely event Pavlik Morozov’s myth, the hero-child that denounced his own father, generated caution.

I’ll never be able to separate the memories of childhood from that of books. They intertwine like colours in fabrics, in a jumble of real and fantastical, bitter and sweet, joy and guilt.

Our number of friends tends to decrease as we get older, but this trend, which has many negative effects, can be actively combated even when old age has already set in.

It is as surprising as it is real: negative characters like Dexter Morgan, from the eponymous Dexter, and Walter White, from Breaking Bad, have been cropping up in popular culture more and more often lately. Since when, how, and why have anti-heroes gained so much popularity?

Many doomsayers have “cried wolf” when it comes to the end of the world. Does that mean it’s not going to happen at all?

There’s something lying on a massive table. It’s a huge picture. You move closer and see that the design is made up of individual pieces, like a jigsaw puzzle. But the pattern is unusual. It isn’t an immediately recognisable image, such as a Swiss mountain or a bouquet of tulips.

The moment we distort a person’s intention, statement, gesture or action for our own personal gain we are using, consciously or unconsciously, the straw man argument − a frequent fallacy.

When we consider that a conclusion is founded only if a lot of people consider it true, we fall into the trap of the argumentum ad populum or the appeal to popularity.

FTM here. My LO has been EBF since birth. Now she’s eight months. My MIL thinks she should be on purees, but I want to try BLW.”