Analysis

Douglas Jacobs has a long pastoral and academic career, as well as many hobbies and interests. An accidental witness to an armed incident that changed his perspective on life and death, he shares his surprising experiences and lessons learned.

In everyday life, whether we like it or not, we rely on the information provided by experts or specialists. However, no authority deserves blind trust. When we take someone's word for granted simply because that person is an authority, we make the logical mistake called "appeal to authority."

It’s hard to read the description of Jesus’ life in the Gospels and not wonder what the many supernatural healings and other miracles performed by Him mean for us today.

When one wants to justify the harm one has done by saying that others have done the same or that this evil was only a reaction to the harm done by someone else, they commit the logical error of appealing to hypocrisy.

I generally don’t like going to funerals, but they come in many different forms and feels. Some seem sadder than others; some feel more hopeful. But often there’s an unexpected bittersweetness. We are all there because of something good—the life, love and relationship that we are there to remember and honour—that has come to a tragic end, always too soon.

Faith and sports are strange bedfellows, and with the FIFA World Cup just around the corner, it is perhaps the only time in the world that more prayers are offered up to any god, as nearly half the planet will tune in to watch the tournament. Like most committed sports fans, I will be one of those billions hanging on to every moment, making earnest,...

On November 13, the Orthodox Church celebrates one of the most famous church fathers—John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, whose name is linked to the oldest and most widely used liturgy of the Eastern Church.

It is hard to remain indifferent to a life story like that of Terri Roberts, the mother of a young man who, in a still-unexplained moment of madness, stormed into an all-girls Amish school and began shooting, killing five of the students before killing himself.

For many Christians, the belief that souls go to Heaven or Hell after death is a cultural legacy rather than a conclusion reached through personal analysis of the biblical text.

“And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, you are slowly turning this control thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish one,” wrote C.S. Lewis—simply through the decisions you make. If the choices we face truly carry such eternal weight, how can a Christian ensure they are making the right ones?

Elon Musk visited my hometown of Adelaide, South Australia, twice in 2017. As you’d expect, he was greeted by huge public and media interest. People were excited that our humble little city would receive attention from the man behind Paypal, Tesla and SpaceX.

A cold flash, like the strange, icy feeling after a burn, runs through his body with every breath. He feels his heart racing. It feels like it is counting down to the moment when it will explode—or, mercifully, to the moment when he will turn his pillow to the cooler side, and finally fall asleep.

"Once upon a time, there was a princess as beautiful and kind as a fairy. She was an only child and her parents loved her dearly and did everything for her. When she grew up, they gave her a magnificent wedding to the brave man she had chosen, a handsome and virtuous fellow. After a while, misfortune struck: not a day would pass...

Happiness is a song that we love but rarely sing anymore. It is that familiar children's song that we sang all day every day when we were little. We loved its tune, and it loved us back. We used to live within that melody; it was our default mood. Life was essentially good and it was good to live our life in this...

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...