Religion

Five hundred years ago, Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral. How are the motives that led to the Reformation viewed today?

Some people regret the big choices they’ve made in life; others regret that life has not given them a choice.

On June 23, 1863, in France, a book was published that would become the literary sensation of the century. Few could have foreseen the impact it would make. This was not a romance novel, thriller, or self-help guide; it was Vie de Jésus (The Life of Jesus) by Ernest Renan. In less than four months, over 60,000 copies were circulating—a record-breaking success in...

Louis Zamperini experienced the bizarre smell of death so many times that he came to the verge of losing his mind. However, he survived, and by choosing to forgive the unforgivable, he was able to breathe life into an entire world.

God gave Christians a message to spread. The whole Bible talks about creation, about the fall of the world into sin, but also about the existence of a Saviour, in the person of Jesus Christ.

Trying to describe a dying church like the one he was called to serve, Pastor Chris Lewis uses the image of a car "turned over, in a ditch, covered by weeds and beer cans, with a rusted out engine, and a couple of bodies in the trunk."

The Anabaptist creed emphasised the premise that Bible truth was accessible even to secular readers and listeners, who had a rudimentary education.

In the US, the shocking news of Charles Manson's death marked the end of a disturbing chapter in history.

In the famous realist novel A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe blends the factual with the imaginary, describing the social context just before the great plague struck London in 1665. Among the reactions described, two straddle the line between religion and conspiracy.

On the night when heaven descended among mortals, it was not the high priests or scholars who were the first to see God, but some lowly shepherds.

The book of Revelation, in chapters 13 and 17, does refer to a world order, but it could hardly be called “new”. It is more of a return to an old historical order, but this time with unprecedented, worldwide success.

To nothing else is the name of God so often linked in our human discourse as to suffering and deliverance. This locus is a huge and complicated intersection of our existence.

Forgiveness is the central idea in Christianity that sets it apart from other religions.

It seems that one of the requirements for any sustainable worldview, philosophy or faith is that it should have some account of origins. Perhaps we could think about it simply as a necessary element of a good story. It is certainly one of the recurring tropes of superhero sequels or sci-fi epics that at some point we will come to better understand a...

Any sacrifice is hard to understand from the outside. But it's even harder to understand how sacrifice can be a choice that brings joy to the person making it. The easiest people to include in this category are, of course, mothers. For them, the sacrifices never seem too many or too hard. Even more amazing are those mothers who raise other people's unwanted...