Religion

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.

On the morning of the 15 November 2016, I awoke in a hospital bed, with no memory of how I got there. My favourite pyjamas had been torn from my body, and I lay in a hospital gown, a piercing pain in my head, impaling my brain. I was barely able to think and incapable of speech. I was scared, though this was...

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

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.

I still remember it like it was yesterday: the brightness of the sun on my skin, the chill of the water, the crowds of cheering people. We had gathered that Saturday afternoon on the shores of Lake Jindabyne, a half-hour drive from Mount Kosciuszko, Australia’s tallest mountain.

“God's viewpoint is sometimes different from ours—so different that we could not even guess at it unless He had given us a Book which tells us such things.”[1](Corrie ten Boom)

"Western societies have transformed Sundays into days where leisure activities have eclipsed the traditional Christian meaning of the day—to devote time to God", Pope Benedict XVI once said, reminding us that the day of rest is a celebration of God's creation of the world. Observing this day now, when there are worrying signs about the global climate, is a necessity, the Pope added.

All COVID-19 statistics lead to the same conclusion: the young ones, our children, are at the lowest risk of getting ill or dying from the virus. That’s comforting. But the pandemic does pose a certain danger to them.

Ask any cinematographer what gets them excited, and I guarantee there’s a fair chance they’ll answer with “lenses”. Having spent many years studying film and many more practising it, I can safely say that I now understand why this is—and it’s probably the first response you’d hear from me if you asked me the same question.

When the Scottish reformer John Knox, Calvin’s disciple, wrote in 1560 in favour of the death penalty for heretics, he was attacking Sebastian Castellio in particular. John Knox did not know then that he was attacking the father of the idea of ​​religious freedom in Christianity.

No other court in the world can judge a person as effectively as their own conscience. Before and immediately after a wrong has been committed, the "merciless" trial begins.

The Anabaptist creed emphasised the premise that Bible truth was accessible even to secular readers and listeners, who had a rudimentary education.

I still remember the shock I felt when I first watched "The Gospel According to Matthew," starring Bruce Marchiano. It was not the first film about the life of Jesus that I had seen, but it was entirely different from anything I had known before.

“Jerusalem crucified the Lord, Rome beheaded and crucified his chief apostles and plunged the whole Roman church into a baptism of blood. Rome became, for good and for evil, the Jerusalem of Christendom, and the Vatican hill the Golgotha of the West. The cross was substituted for the sword as the symbol of conquest and power” [1].

"And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it" (John 14:13–14).