Religion

I never expected my work to affect my mental health. At first, like most people just starting a new job, I was thrilled about my new class, the kids I would be teaching and the environment I wanted to create for these young minds. I had a real passion for children and couldn’t wait to be the best teacher I could be. I...

I grew up on the border between two different universes, not geographically but spiritually. There, across that fine line, lived more than half of my extended family, with a different worldview.

What would you do if someone denigrated you in public? You could deny the information, but there is no guarantee that you will be able to rehabilitate your image. If you leave things as they are, there is a risk that silence will be interpreted as guilt. If you go to court, the process might take a long time and it may not...

The phrase “Believe and do not investigate” has over the centuries become a sharp weapon deliberately wielded by critics of Christianity to wound and discredit the supporters of this religion, accusing them of narrow-mindedness and bigotry.

Virtually every civilization has been characterised by religious beliefs about the end of all things, not least about the timing and the conditions that precede the end, and signs of its imminence. There are many differences between these beliefs across civilisations, but many similarities too.

When I was four years old, my younger brother was born. My parents focused on my brother and spent less time with me. It was only 40 years later that I discovered how this had affected me.

I still remember May 21, 2011, like it was yesterday. Thousands of kilometres away in Boulder, USA, an evangelist named Harold Camping, president of the popular ministry Family Radio, was in the news spotlight. He had predicted that on May 21, more than 200 million Christians all around the world would be raptured away to heaven and that five months later, the world would end.

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

“And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

Nothing else on earth judges a person as ruthlessly as their own conscience, and truthfully, nothing else should. The painful process happens before and after the harm has been done.

How can one explain that laws attributed to revelation are found in the legislation of other ancient peoples? How can the similarities between biblical thought and ancient culture be explained? How is the biblical God compared to the gods of other peoples?

Much of the Bible was written by prophets, so it is full of prophetic revelation. Most of these revelations are about mysteries of the past and present that we would not otherwise have access to.

Faith is a commonly used concept, but it is rarely understood in its rich semantics and philosophical implications. Christian faith rises above being defined by lists of doctrines, beliefs, moral principles, commandments, and liturgical rituals in the communicator's mind for its nature and content to be faithfully represented.

There are days, maybe even years, that go by without us seriously questioning the meaning of our lives or whether anything we have left behind has made anybody's life better. We are afraid of an answer because it might require us to change. For John Wood, the answer came out of nowhere, in a school in the wilds of Nepal.

Recently, my wife and I got hooked on a TV show. We’d wait in anticipation for the latest episode each week. The show was Old people’s home for 4-year-olds. The basic premise? Take a class of cheeky, energetic, curious four-year-olds (some of who lacked a filter) and have them spend a significant amount of time with the elderly residents of an aged-care facility.