Religion

British physicist and author Paul Davies predicts a future in which the need for spiritual guidance will be stronger than ever, but, at the same time, believes that “any religion that refuses to embrace scientific discovery is unlikely to survive to the 22nd century”.

While the historic churches remained at least disinterested in millenarianism, the Apocalypse, and the Parousia—that is to say, when they were not hostile to them—Protestant pluralism allowed for both reluctance[1] and increasingly significant preoccupations with the research and publication of the themes regarding the end of the world.

When prayers go unanswered, faith can turn to disbelief and hope to scepticism. On the other hand, God can intervene at unexpected moments, providing unexpected answers, as happened in Zechariah's life.

The sermons. My mother’s stories. The little sand table and Sabbath School for children. Adults’ conversations about religion. All the information I absorbed in childhood helped me sketch an image of Jesus with one major flaw: it was rendered in far too many shades of grey.

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).

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

"Between 1800 and 1820 more than 20,000 people emigrated from Württemberg to Russia...hastening to meet the coming Lord and to find on Ararat in the Caucasus the place of refuge at the end of the world. Johann Albrecht Bengel had calculated that Christ would come again and that the Thousand Years' empire would dawn on Sunday, 18 June 1836. The 'brotherly emigration harmonies'...

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.

Most of our beliefs are easy to keep, as long as nothing puts them to the test. Like many others, Henry Gerecke discovered to what extent he truly believed in what he had preached for years when faced with a difficult choice.

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.

The scenario in which God is a judge and His creatures are subject to His judgment culminates, in the Bible, with a happy ending for all lovers of righteousness. But what would be the end of a situation in which God is the accused in a trial instituted by His creatures? Whose ending would be happy?

Some moments in life fade quickly, like ephemeral portraits in the memory's archive. Others, though we have never witnessed them, haunt us and force us to reconsider our perception of life, time, and our shadow self.

One of the Bible’s most refined literary and artistic works is the Gospel of John. In recent readings, it increasingly emerges as a gospel of decisive, personal encounters between the Lord Jesus and various individuals.

If we accept that there are realities beyond our direct perception, then faith in God becomes a hypothesis worthy of serious consideration, rather than an absurdity.

The Baptist Church has made significant contributions to religious life by embracing the principle of separation of church and state and the principle of religious freedom.