Religion

In a society with a pragmatic mindset, any kind of belief is subject only to practical judgments. Effectiveness, usefulness, and utility are the basic criteria by which actions, deeds or beliefs are valued.

In biblical times, those holding trials between people were called judges (Exodus 18: 21-26), just as they are today. Some more prominent judges, in the centuries between Joshua’s death and the establishment of the kingdom of Israel, were noble leaders who led various Jewish tribes in battle against invaders. In this capacity, they were liberators of their people. Any just judge is a...

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.

"Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you" (Isaiah 46:4).

I’m going to be honest with you. I find prayer really hard. If I had to give reasons for all my tears over the past few years, most of them have come during conversations with God.

“Faith has always gone to space. Artemis II shows how much it has changed” (Jack Jenkins, Religious News Service, April 7, 2026).

Since she stepped onto the stage in the 1987 Australia Day concert with Ricky May at Melbourne’s Palais Theatre as a 15-year-old, Silvie Paladino has established herself as one of Australia’s most versatile and talented entertainers.

“You’re going to hell!” The words dripped with a violence, barely contained. “Repent of your wickedness,” a voice called again from the middle of a mob holding placards. I didn’t appreciate these words being directed at my wife and me.

Was the Pax Romana really a time of peace?

The idea of hell takes up a dark corner in most of our minds, whether we think about it or not.

Renee James was 18 when she decided to stop praying. If God was going to be silent, she thought, she would be silent too. She had been praying for years for the healing of her brothers, Sean and Niall, one suffering from autism and the other from Down syndrome. Yet there had been no answer.

Nothing can prepare us in advance for the suffering we will experience in this life. But even knowing this, we often remember with guilt the moments of blissful ignorance we had before suffering hit us.

Pliny the Elder wrote, in Naturalis Historia, a well-known adage: "Among [mortals] the only certainty there is is that nothing is certain."[1] Few know that Pliny made this statement in a chapter on the gods.

An ordinary wooden chair is a metaphor that’s often used to talk about the key dynamics of faith. But it’s worth exploring further. Perhaps we could describe this as a process of developing the theory of a chair.

“And Who Is My Neighbour?” asked a Jewish teacher of the Law when Jesus Christ told him that eternal life entails observing two commandments: to love God and to love one’s neighbour.