Religion

Love stories have the ability to captivate us with the details of an undying beauty, to overshadow the uncertainties about their permanence, to introduce through the front door the hope that one day we will live such a story, which will bear the signature of eternity.

Jeddah is different, at least according to its city motto. This Saudi Arabian port city on the Red Sea is home to more than 4 million people and is a gateway to Mecca: the holiest city in Islam. Millions of pilgrims come through Jeddah to visit Mecca, some 65 kilometres to the east, and Medina, Islam’s second holiest city, 360km to the north.

"Answer according to who you are, not who you would like to be,” the website tells me. The banner above this statement announces a quiz that will help me discover my spiritual gifts. All the personality tests I’ve completed in the past usually just remind me of some of my deeper characteristics. This test, however, is all about how I can apply who...

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again” (John 3:3).

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.

Life is a stage that we enter without a script, although we are constantly influenced by forces of varying visibility: social, educational, religious, economic, and political.

In February 2008, English theologian NT Wright made headlines—at least on the website of Time magazine, among others—with comments associated with the launch of his book, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.

In January 2014, in what catholic.org called a historic gesture, Pope Francis sent a message of unity, recorded on a mobile phone, to charismatic and Pentecostal leaders attending a conference organised by Kenneth Copeland Ministries.

I talked to Pastor Nicu Butoi about the role that religion could play in treating depression and hopelessness, at the end of a series of evangelistic presentations he gave to a full-house before the pandemic.

I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. – Matthew 3:11

“I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite" (Isaiah 57:15).

“God's viewpoint is sometimes different from ours—so different that we could not even guess at it unless He had given us a Book which tells us such things.”[1](Corrie ten Boom)

Does religion cause war? It’s a firm yes from British zoologist and vocal atheist Richard Dawkins, who sees a direct correlation between the two.

The story of Jesus's first coming to earth is remarkable, not only because it was foretold thousands of years in advance, but also because the prophesied details of His passion and death were exactly fulfilled.

The greatest tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer. – F. B. Meyer