Religion

When one pays attention to the finer details, any life story can be interesting. When you go into detail, any common or mediocre story that could have been summed up in only a few words, becomes a confession. I realise that my own story is no exception, although it has often seemed to me that I live a banal and predictable life.

Jessica was 19 when she had to tell her parents, both practicing Christians, that she was pregnant. That moment generated a real earthquake in the young woman’s family who, together with her boyfriend at the time, had been strongly involved in the purity movement, an ideology that promotes sexual abstinence until marriage, for religious reasons.

Jesus' principles can still shape a sincere discourse even though many centuries have passed since the moment they were displayed in His life.

An old Romanian proverb states that craft is like a golden bracelet. But the way we relate to this type of jewellery seems to suggest that these golden bracelets are more like some socially acceptable handcuffs, which we fooled ourselves into wearing with pride.

Should we be optimistic or pessimistic about our future? This is a question even specialists are concerned with, and it cannot be answered easily. It is difficult to predict what the future holds.

This seemingly innocent question has probably caused more unrest in the last 2000 years than any other. It is, in fact, an echo of the concern of the ancient Jews to determine whether or not Israel was God's only people on earth. It also represents the echo of history that has witnessed wars born of the desire to legitimise a supreme deity.

I don’t remember much about the moment. I remember its warmth, and the way it glowed with purpose and spirit. But the stage is blurry. The song which pulsed out from it is uncertain. I know it came from a good friend of mine, one whose spot-lit glory provoked in me no jealousy, no feeling of being left out.

Although we experience more positive than negative elements in life, we are still more intensely and more quickly affected by the unpleasant ones. How can we protect our joy of living despite the problems that beset us?

Are we at risk of turning Christianity into just another consumer product?

More than a century ago, when the social sciences were just beginning to study the relationship between religion and health, elite scholars such as sociologist Émile Durkheim, Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche repudiated religion consonantly, claiming that it had a toxic effect on individuals. 

For Christian parents, there is no greater concern than to provide their children with a Christian education. The first public demonstration of this concern is the blessing of children at young ages, in various ways: the baptism of children in traditional churches, or a simple prayer of blessing in Protestant churches. Dedicating their children to God, one way or another, gives parents a...

When the fear of war overwhelms our thoughts, let us not forget that we are not alone, that God will end our suffering and give us a new and everlasting life.

There are days, maybe even years, that go by without us seriously questioning the meaning of our lives or whether anything we have left behind has made anybody's life better. We are afraid of an answer because it might require us to change. For John Wood, the answer came out of nowhere, in a school in the wilds of Nepal.

Centuries ago, the German theologian and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz used the term “theodicy”1 for the first time—“God’s justification”. By theodicy, Leibniz meant the ultimate reality of justification, once and for all, of God and all of His ways before the whole universe.

Little Welsh girl Mary Jones anxiously walked the 40 kilometres. She couldn't wait to buy a Bible in her language, as she had been saving for it for more than six years. But when she reached the shop of Mr Charles, her pastor and teacher, she found with despair that all the Bibles were either sold or already spoken for.