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The dialectical spirit of ecumenism gives rise, among other things, to a question whose full answer is still awaited: How is it that the critical spirit and rationalism of Enlightenment origin, combined with making the Bible available to ordinary people, has led to so many schisms?

An article in the New Yorker[1] explains why we tend to not change our convictions, not even when faced with contrary evidence. 

These days we all need to hear good news—that life will soon return to normal and that we will be able to return to the troubles of yesterday, which now seem small to us. In the meantime, our lifestyle has seen changes that we could not have imagined just a few weeks ago.

A seemingly endless stream of needy causes compete for our attention and money every day. Our emails, mailboxes and phones are bombarded by charities asking for generous donations to help.

In the opening scene of The Good Place, celestial being Michael (Ted Danson) explains that most world religions and philosophies get their respective understandings of the afterlife only about five per cent right.

During the holidays (but not only then), our budgets often go off the rails as we exhaust ourselves searching for gifts that will at least make a good impression, if not unlock the deep joy of the recipient’s heart. In this frenzy, however, we must not forget that we are teaching our children, consciously or unconsciously, valuable lessons about the meaning of giving.

Eskimos don't have the word "quarrel" in their vocabulary. They live in a particularly harsh climate, so no one wants to risk getting pneumonia (or dying) just to prove that they are right.

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?

The question, "Is the end of something better than its beginning?" nuances the statement of Solomon, who is considered in the Bible the wisest man who ever lived.

During my adolescence, a Swiss author, Erich von Daniken, made waves with his theories about extra-terrestrial influences on early mankind. His most important book was called Memories of the Future. Of course, his ideas have no support today, but the idiom remains: memories of the future. Something from the past says something about what is to come.

American President Joe Biden was obviously upset with Meta when, in mid 2021, he accused it of “killing people” for its seeming tolerance of so much Covid-19 misinformation. He backed down a little by clarifying that he wasn’t blaming Facebook itself, but the “bad information” they allowed on the site. Other have argued we live in a post-truth world. 

Whether we are cooking, repairing things, or solving life's problems, we are always learning from each other. However, when it comes to certain areas, including church life, the interchange of experiences is lacking. Communities often keep their ideas, and especially their mistakes, to themselves. Can we rediscover the deeply biblical nature of knowledge sharing?

In Dante Aligheri's Divine Comedy, written in the early 14th century, hell is described as a "city of woe" and a place of "eternal pain"—metaphors of endless suffering.

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. 

Discussions about the reasonable number of deaths in a pandemic, about whether or not the price for saving people is killing the economy and, ultimately, debates on a life’s value were brought to the fore by the COVID-19 pandemic.