Religion

Influenced by the Calvinist Presbyterian John Witherspoon, James Madison, an Anglican, collaborated with Virginia's persecuted Baptists to establish the concept of religious freedom and freedom of conscience that changed America and the world forever.

If I could turn back time and return to my friend’s living room that day, when she was telling me with tears in her eyes that she wished she could believe, that she tries but is not able, I would probably find more appropriate words than I did then.

Even though we have been in a much better place for 700 years now, we know that the passing of time has not eliminated the instinct of persecution from human nature.

“The newest religious sect has started in Los Angeles. Meetings are held in a tumble-down shack on Azusa Street...and the devotees of the weird doctrine... work themselves into a state of mad excitement...They claim to have the ‘gift of tongues’ and to be able to understand the babel”.

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.

Mary was an ordinary person, just like us. The Gospel does not suggest that she had any particular merit, yet her obedience played a pivotal role in a story that would change the world.

Any sacrifice is hard to understand from the outside. But it's even harder to understand how sacrifice can be a choice that brings joy to the person making it. The easiest people to include in this category are, of course, mothers. For them, the sacrifices never seem too many or too hard. Even more amazing are those mothers who raise other people's unwanted...

I was born into an Adventist family. This meant feeling that pretty much everything I knew, including my religious tradition, was the sole truth.

When we read the Gospels, we may be put off by the way Jesus Christ interprets the Hebrew Scriptures.

At the age of 27, for the first time in my life, I worried that time was passing too fast. For the next few years, the speed with which most of my friends were getting married was the next source of concern.

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!

In Milan, in 313, Constantine participated in his sister’s wedding to Licinius, where he also signed the Edict of Milan. This decree, which officially recognised and legalised Christianity, marked the symbolic end of Diocletian’s era of persecution while defining Constantin’s religious policies.

"We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid." (Christopher Hitchens) 

I’m going to be honest with you. I find prayer really hard. If I had to give reasons for all my tears over the past few years, most of them have come during conversations with God.

Was the death of Jesus the end of an extraordinary life, or just the beginning of eternal life for those who believe in Him?