Religion

Motivation is more than simply having the desire to wake up each morning with enthusiasm and a zest for life.

A fulfilled life is built on the foundation of faith and the desire to imitate the character of God, in a world conceptualised around the truth.

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 first eight days of the Council of Clermont were difficult. Although the participants were apparently discussing the reform of the clergy, or the excommunication of King Philip for adultery, the real focus of attention was the announced speech of "general interest" by Pope Urban II. Little did the prelates and important Frankish nobles present know that they were about to witness one...

There is a lot of talk today about the fact that things are not what they seem. It is not easy to distinguish between conspiratorially motivated speculation, and the real hidden things of our world—but most of the time the sources make the difference.

The stakes are high when it comes to identifying the one to whom we should pray, and we can discover who by answering an apparently simple question: Can we expect prayers to be heard no matter who we address them to?

How do the Christian Scriptures differ from non-Christian sacred writings (the Quran, Vedas, Dharmas, Book of Mormon, etc.)?

With packs and tents strapped to our backs, it took our little group of three several hours to reach the hidden valley. The lush, green rainforest was cool and damp and as we gingerly clambered over moss-covered boulders, we attempted to follow an almost non-existent track that wound its way parallel to the mountain stream.

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

Martin Luther believed that he knew exactly what God expected of him, and in the tireless endeavour to please God, he came to the point of hating Him.

On April 26th 1986, reactor 4 at Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded. The effects were catastrophic­­—it was the worst nuclear disaster in history. The explosion let out the equivalent of 500 Hiroshima bombs-worth of radiation, and the area around Chernobyl—including the town of Pripyat—is now uninhabited. It will be unsafe to live there for the next 20,000 years.

You really don't realize what your thoughts about God are until you have nothing left but the conviction expressed in the book of the prophet Jeremiah: My Father, my friend from my youth (Jeremiah 3:4).

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?

God reveals Himself through the Bible, the person of Jesus Christ, nature, and our conscience. Prayer is not revelatory. If it is neither revelatory for humans nor for God, what is prayer then?

Dr Kendra Haloviak-Valentine, Professor of New Testament at La Sierra University in Redlands, California, comes from a family with a tradition of theology and research.