Religion

Herbert Thorson Blomstedt has performed in over three thousand concerts with the world's most renowned philharmonic orchestras. He has held several long-term positions as music director of legendary orchestras in Dresden, Leipzig, and San Francisco, and recorded hundreds of works, including the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Bruckner, and Nielsen. He has won two Grammy Awards and received state distinctions in Sweden and Germany....

We know that authentic forgiveness is Christian and desirable. And we also know it feels good to receive genuine forgiveness. But does God ask us to forgive under all circumstances? We often try to discover the answer to such uncomfortable questions about God by looking at those who say they know Him. And, sometimes, we have something to gain by doing so.

We have trouble understanding and accepting the image of a loving God, as we have grown too familiar with the type of love that offers itself only when it finds in a person the qualities that make them easy to love.

"Scripture" is a Latin word that means "writings", while "Bible" is a neutral Greek plural meaning "books" (from biblíon = book, document, scroll). Today, however, in all languages, the word "Bible" is understood as a feminine singular, meaning Holy Scripture.

The holidays are a time of generosity, when those forgotten by the world meet those who want to forget that sadness exists and, out of the coexistence of the two needs, something good is born.

When I'm tired I can't love! Many times I have lived this reality and even assessed it as the exact end of love.

Thousands of street names changed because they referred to Christian saints, Catholic priests forced to marry, Jesus Christ described as a revolutionary—these are some of the stupefying details of the French Revolution.

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?

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

Over the centuries, strong but artificial tensions have been created between the Gospel of Paul (proclaimed especially by Augustine and many Protestants) and the "legalism" of the biblical writers James, Peter, Jude, and so on, which Catholic and Orthodox theologians have usually defended. What is at stake in these tensions is the authority of God's commandments and thus the duty or obligation to...

It was the first time most Christians had heard of the Gnostics— communities of Christians who lived between the 2nd and 4th centuries and whose scriptures and spiritual beliefs bore little resemblance to what is now considered traditional Christianity.

In ancient Israel, the high priests wore a vest that had two stones on it called the Urim and Thummim. Whenever a question about God’s will was brought to the priest, he would ask God to give the answer. If the stone on the left glowed, it indicated divine approval. If the stone on the right glowed instead, it indicated God’s disapproval.

Nearly four millennia after the stone ratification of the law on weekly rest, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) reiterates the right of every person to rest and leisure.[1]

In writing this article, I asked a handful of people what the worst thing they had ever received for Christmas was. The answers I received were interesting, to say the least.

The relationship between religion and science is complicated, and occasional controversies over healing through prayer have not helped. The tragedy of stories in which refusing medical treatment in favour of prayer ends in death is often exploited in the press to portray religion as rudimentary and backward. That is why it is all the more interesting that a case study attesting to the...