Religion

What does it take to be the best? Most people will tell you it’s a combination of hard work and talent. Ask Australian high jumper Nicola McDermott, however, and you’ll quickly realise it’s a mental thing. It’s absolute belief that you can achieve whatever you set your mind to.

Whether you're a practising believer, a casual believer or, conversely, an atheist, you cannot help but be taken aback by the fact that one of the earliest images of God we have in Scripture is an unexpected one for those times: the image of God writing (Exodus 31:18).

In centuries long buried in the mists of time, the Bible was a book for which people were willing to die—whether burned at the stake or thrown into prison. There was a time when Bibles were chained to monastery walls. Today, they are printed and distributed by the millions. Yet it seems fewer people are actually reading them.

The unverified stories of children dying, due to severe emotional and sensorial deprivation, despite being fed and medically cared for, spread the theory that one can die because of lack of love, although being well taken care of. However, if we look more closely at the historical and personal human experience, we find that it is not necessarily the lack of love that...

"If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them" (James 4:17).

One of today's dilemmas disputes, dialectically, the complex reality of the Bible and the secular way of looking at the "terror of history": Is God a source of morality superior to humanism, or not?

Kent Hansen kindly agreed to talk to us about the most painful episode of his life, the loss of his wife. Beyond the sadness, it is a discussion rich in emotion and lessons for us all. 

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.

"This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger" (Luke 2:12).

Regardless of the form they take, crises give rise to legitimate questions about God's providence: Where is God when we suffer? Has He forgotten us? Is He punishing us? Does He still have things under control?

"We cry out to the dry bones, 'Come alive! Come to life!' / We cry out to the dead hearts: 'Rise up! Come to life! Let us see an army rise from the ashes'". The song from which I extracted these verses is so rich in literary devices that, probably, if we randomly chose a person and had them listen to it, they...

The Bible, a prophetic book par excellence, is often misinterpreted. Its prophecies can seem fatalistic, or fear-mongering. But, when understood correctly, Biblical prophecy more than unravels the future—it also provides us with a clearer perspective on the present.

Jesus of Nazareth feels, thinks, desires, and acts identically with the eternal Logos, but under the conditions, with the possibilities, and within the limitations of the earthly life that He has fully assumed, with all humility and responsibility.

Norma Nashed has been running the Restore a Child organisation for more than two decades, helping 4,000 children in ten African countries.

Herbert Thorson Blomstedt has performed in over three thousand concerts with the world's most renowned philharmonic orchestras. He has held several long-term positions as music director of legendary orchestras in Dresden, Leipzig, and San Francisco, and recorded hundreds of works, including the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Bruckner, and Nielsen. He has won two Grammy Awards and received state distinctions in Sweden and Germany....