Religion

I sat slouched on the edge of my bed, blue light illuminating my face in the dark. It was the tenth time I’d checked my phone in the space of five minutes. I grimaced. Was something wrong with me?

The idea that religion is harmful to the process of human development has no scientific support, but religious conviction has been associated with a number of tragic experiences within families.

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.

This coronavirus crisis has, for me, some perplexing parallels with a well-known incident narrated in the Gospel of Matthew (14:22-33). The disciples are confined in a little boat in the middle of a terrible storm, almost as we are confined at home today by the emergency laws of our countries.

Some Christians venerate the Virgin Mary, multiplying her attributes and exaggerating her qualities to the point of deification. Other Christians go to the opposite extreme and trivialise Mary's personality and contribution, barely recognising her basic qualities.

The documentary The Resurrection Tomb is based on James Tabor and Simcha Jacobovici’s book The Jesus Discovery[1] and resumes a controversial topic, also published in 2007, when a similar film was released.

Ever since Thomas the Unbeliever, Christians have wanted to see with their own eyes what those who have been with Jesus at key moments of His mission saw.

On August 28, 2011, when the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial was opened to the public in Washington D.C., 48 years had passed since the famous “I have a dream” speech by the young African-American Baptist pastor.

To understand the love of God, we are encouraged to look at the Cross. The unnatural position of the Son, nailed to a non-existent guilt, raises a storm of questions in the other children of God. The most disturbing of them, I think, would be: What kind of love is this?

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

We experience a feeling of urgency as a consequence of the fear of failure, or the fear of missing out (on people, opportunities, time, good things). Urgency is, therefore, a corollary of fear. Today’s Christianity, hailed by loud voices as near extinction, can easily fall into the trap of undue urgency to quickly regain what has been lost.

Aurelius Augustine (354-430) is known for the stirring Christian experience he described in his Confessions and for the seminal theological thought that has shaped theology to this day.

In the early decades of the 18th century, America was in the throes of an identity crisis. The new American lifestyle had earned New England the nickname of “the new English Sodom.”

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

If there is a crossroads where both the path of faith and the path of doubt or unbelief begin, it is prayer.