Religion

“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)

Any large-scale phenomenon, such as a pandemic, activates our instinct to preserve our state of being—especially when we feel like we are losing it.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. – John 14:27

If God exists, why would I matter to Him?

It’s the time of the year when, for many of us, excesses don’t seem to matter too much—fruit mince pies, chcolate truffles and more cake than the number of baubles on your Christmas tree!

Measuring more than nine metres tall, the pale granite carving of Dr King that is the centrepiece of the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial, just to the east of the National Mall in downtown Washington DC, makes it easy to forget that he was a relatively short man. His iconic likeness towers over visitors as his words carved into the stone walls around...

In our Christian experience, we strive for perfection, but we honestly admit we are a universe away from it. Our inability to live up to God’s standards can lead us to feel we can no longer benefit from divine forgiveness, at least not until we prove strong enough not to give into the sins we are battling.

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.

Who do you need to forgive?

In talking to pastor Cristian Modan, the religion teacher and chaplain at Mihai Ionescu School in Bucharest, I wanted to find out how we should teach children to communicate with God.

Douglas Jacobs has a long pastoral and academic career, as well as many hobbies and interests. An accidental witness to an armed incident that changed his perspective on life and death, he shares his surprising experiences and lessons learned.

“The Christ of Nicea is obviously a far cry from the historical Jesus of Nazareth, an itinerant apocalyptic preacher in the backwaters of rural Galilee, who offended the authorities and was unceremoniously crucified for crimes against the state. Whatever he may have been in real life, Jesus had now become fully God.”

When I read “The Pitesti Phenomenon”, in my teens, I was bewildered by how cruel human nature can be. It was also then that I realized that being forced to renounce yourself, to bury your values and defining beliefs to become the reflection of a rotten system, to become inhuman is worse than being physically tortured.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Europe was hit hard by several disasters, the proportions of which are difficult to imagine today.

It’s not hard to misinterpret the Bible. I’ve done it, most people I know have done it and if you’ve read it enough, I’d bet you’ve done it too. It isn’t surprising then, that throughout history many have misinterpreted the Bible, especially when it comes to complex ideas like the end of the world and Jesus’ second coming.