Religion

In his desire to secure an heir to the throne, Henry VIII set off a domino effect that would ultimately change the face of America and the world.

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.

Centuries ago, the German theologian and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz used the term “theodicy”1 for the first time—“God’s justification”. By theodicy, Leibniz meant the ultimate reality of justification, once and for all, of God and all of His ways before the whole universe.

The image of an apocalypse generated by a microscopic coronavirus has been sketched more than once by the press in the past few weeks.

During my adolescence, a Swiss author, Erich von Daniken, made waves with his theories about extra-terrestrial influences on early mankind. His most important book was called Memories of the Future. Of course, his ideas have no support today, but the idiom remains: memories of the future. Something from the past says something about what is to come.

I have always imagined that well-being, bright prospects, good health and a clear purpose in life tend not to inspire questions about the meaning of life very often.

“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength,” says Corrie ten Boom, thus underlining a truth all Christians burdened by worry should remember.

Pietism was a movement of spiritual revival that took place between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries mainly in Germany and Bohemia.

Christmas involves a financial and, at the same time, an emotional expense. Even in times of crisis, the spending season lasts longer than the holiday itself.

Why couldn’t God simply have forgiven sinners? Precisely because sinners cannot be forgiven until they completely understand sin, with all its far reaching consequences, or before the wages of sin are paid.

Few things can pierce a parent’s heart as painfully as their children’s decision to walk away from God. Pain, guilt, shame and the feeling of failure are the crushing burdens which parents of prodigal sons carry, while still wavering between hope and discouragement.

"I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life." This is how one of the most famous leaders of the American Revolution and an influential political writer of the late 18th century-Thomas Paine (1737-1809)-begins his testimony of faith. A few lines later in the same book, The Age of Reason, after vehemently rejecting the creed of...

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?

In the first part of this series, we familiarised ourselves with the classical Protestant perception of the concept and prophetic figure of the Antichrist, and evaluated the classical identification of the Antichrist with the papacy. Further analysis becomes even more intriguing with a close reading of the major biblical prophecies about the Antichrist.

Work has been part of God's plan for mankind since creation, but so has rest. Setting wise boundaries between work and rest is not only a successful strategy for maintaining our productivity, it also reflects on the health of our relationship with God and our fellow people.