Religion

A sense of meaninglessness—a void, a wilderness, a lack of direction—affects such a large number of people today that it has come to define the dominant mood of the society we live in and contribute to.

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.

"To feel that you have meaning is to feel immortal," psychology professor and author Clay Routledge wrote in 2014. Is this the only kind of immortality we will ever have?

The field of science was flourishing, and amid its youngest and brightest, one student in particular consistently topped physics and chemistry courses, took its academic prizes and was courted with offers of scholarships by prestigious universities. His trajectory was toward the heights of the scientific world.

Conflict is everywhere: in our books, movies, TV shows. But every conflict is a mere shadow of the controversy that the entire world is embroiled in.

Even in this secular age, the world’s largest group of religious believers—a full third of Earth’s human population—worships Jesus of Nazareth as the eternal God who appeared in human flesh. Millions more—Muslims, Baha’i, Hindus, Buddhists and others—recognise His unique connection to the Divine, His wisdom and His compassion.

The idea of the end of the world refers to the end of the social order and humanity; the end of the planet as we know it. But according to the Bible, these will not all come at once.

On November 13, the Orthodox Church celebrates one of the most famous church fathers—John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, whose name is linked to the oldest and most widely used liturgy of the Eastern Church.

The New Testament would have looked quite different[1] without the influence of Athanasius the Great, bishop of Alexandria and church father of the Christian Church in the 4th century.

The mix of emotions a family goes through when expecting a baby is both wonderful and terrifying. When everything seems to be in order, the...

By the middle of the 17th century, German Protestantism had long ceased to be a burning torch. Accepted by the nobility and the populace, it had become an ecclesiastical, secular, and politicised institution like all the others. In the night of alienation, God brought from the ashes the light of a new dawn.

"If I were tortured, I would confess to anything. I would confess to being the Sultan of Turkey," says Goya in a film by Milos Forman. "No, you wouldn't!" Father Lorenzo contradicts him, but Goya insists: "I would confess anything to avoid torment."

A bicycle trip around the world led two young Americans to the mistaken conclusion that "people are good."

My brother and I were thrashing through the bush en-route to a peak overlooking Airlie Beach in far North Queensland. A short hike that was only meant to be 800 metres seemed to go on forever. We stopped every person returning from the lookout to enquire about how much longer it would take for us to get there. “Oh just another 10 minutes,”...

There are three main qualifications I have as an amateur Road to Bethlehem actor: I am tall, I am prepared to wear a funny hat in public and I have committed to making myself available to do it each year for a week in December over the past 10 years.