Religion

On May 19th, 1780, a strange phenomenon turned a sunny morning into an unexpected night. The event, known as the Dark Day, was seen as a sign of divine judgment by contemporaries and as a means of ridiculing apocalyptic expectations by sceptics.

The relationship between religion and science is complicated, and occasional controversies over healing through prayer have not helped. The tragedy of stories in which refusing medical treatment in favour of prayer ends in death is often exploited in the press to portray religion as rudimentary and backward. That is why it is all the more interesting that a case study attesting to the...

Without ever looking for doubt I often welcomed it with interest and gratitude. I did not run away from it, nor did I treat it with indifference. I rather sought to tone it down.

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.

By the year 2022, I had not lost anyone close to me, but I had the feeling, as never before, that death was approaching with unexpected speed. The war that was taking place to the east of Romania, and the news that we were in second place in the world in terms of the number of deaths per thousand inhabitants, made me think...

I still remember the shock I felt when I first watched "The Gospel According to Matthew," starring Bruce Marchiano. It was not the first film about the life of Jesus that I had seen, but it was entirely different from anything I had known before.

I still remember it like it was yesterday: the brightness of the sun on my skin, the chill of the water, the crowds of cheering people. We had gathered that Saturday afternoon on the shores of Lake Jindabyne, a half-hour drive from Mount Kosciuszko, Australia’s tallest mountain.

In the first two articles of this series, we examined the biblical theology of the Sabbath in relation to the divine act of creation, the history and theology of the people of Israel and early Christianity. This third and final article in the series will examine the Sabbath from the perspective of legalism, under which some commentators have placed seventh-day observance.

As a prophetic book par excellence, the Bible is often misinterpreted, its prophecies taking on fatalistic overtones or frightening attributes. Properly understood, the prophecies of the Bible do more than predict the future. They can also give the reader a clearer perspective on the present.

Far more terrifying than persecution, ideologies, and militant atheism put together may be the hidden force behind the seemingly innocuous statement: "You don't need God!"

What guarantees do we have that the texts from which modern translations of the Bible were made reflect the original?

The troubled centuries that followed the Great Schism of 1054 and the corresponding climate inside the Christian church gradually gave way to profound shifts in the thinking and spirituality of Europeans.

How a small group of faithful Christians instigated the end of Soviet-controlled East Germany.

To what extent is ecumenism included in God's concerns? Does God's agenda include this objective?

Revenge is a trap the wise do not fall into, goes the diplomatic saying. Still, wanting to give someone a taste of their own medicine is a common desire.