Religion

When I read how a non-religious mother felt she needed to calm herself down at the thought that her child might begin to believe in God, I was surprised and almost offended.

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.

It could be a perfunctory ritual, passed down through generations; a mechanically recited poem. But equally, the mealtime prayer can be a genuine spiritual exercise.

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

Very few people have ever found rest in what they are and what they do. They are always seeking what they do not have and trying to become what they are not. These people talk about transformation, development and fulfilment but no matter their accomplishments or status, they are always thinking that they need to surpass their present state, that there is something...

"Christ is risen! These words capture the whole meaning of our existence, for we were not made for death but for life". This was the message that Pope Francis gave to the faithful gathered in St Peter's Square on Easter Sunday, just one day before his death. It was a message of hope, but also a summary that reflected familiar themes of his...

The word sacrifice is not really a pleasant word. When you hear it, you may think of weird archaic rituals involving blood and animals. You may think of giving up something you love or like to save money or to save your waistline. Sacrifice is not a word we use often, and it’s often used with negative associations. But in a strange twist, the action...

The Bible is not the product of an event or a circumstance, but of time, study and especially of the journey that humanity took on its way to its development. But could it be that all the time that has passed has also eroded its relevance? How much confidence can we still have in the Bible, in the 21st century?

I’m walking along a remote beach in Hermanus, South Africa. There’s not a single other footprint in the sand. I take off my shoes and let my feet sink deep into the warm, fine powder. Bliss. My friend, a local who drove me here, takes one look at my face and asks with undeniable pride, “What do you think?” But I can’t answer....

Some statistics circulated by the international press have created an increasingly negative image of Christians and Christianity. How well-founded is this image, and how should those targeted by it deal with it?

Five hundred years ago, Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral. How are the motives that led to the Reformation viewed today?

"On the 5th of March 1986, life left me! I was in the process of moving and that evening I felt terribly tired and cold..." (Ruth Frikart-Moor)

What guarantees do we have that the texts from which modern translations of the Bible were made reflect the original?

You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God...

The Bible is the best-selling book of all time. But while people are aware that the Bible exists, these days relatively few know much about it or have taken the time to actually read it.