Religion

How should addictions be understood? Addiction is usually regarded as a failure of the will, or as a sickness. Lately, the tendency is for the younger, educated generation to embrace the second answer. The idea that addiction is a failure of the will, a sin, from a Christian perspective, is seen as outdated.

Who was Jesus really? While His historical existence is no longer questioned, many people believe that He was at best an exceptional personality of His time, a reformer whom His disciples later transformed into a deity. Why is neo-atheism concerned with promoting such a Jesus, and why is He nothing more than a new form of doubt?

This coronavirus crisis has, for me, some perplexing parallels with a well-known incident narrated in the Gospel of Matthew (14:22-33). The disciples are confined in a little boat in the middle of a terrible storm, almost as we are confined at home today by the emergency laws of our countries.

In the turbulent times of the first crusades to reclaim Palestine and Jerusalem from the Muslims, a Jew was born in 1135 AD in Cordoba, the capital of Muslim Andalusia. His influence would leave a strong mark not only on Jewish thought but also on Christian and Islamic thought. His name was Moses Maimonides, or Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon. 

For me, 2022 was the year of waiting—a word that managed to define our lives, thoughts and actions to an unexpected degree.

For the average punter, rugby league had its beginnings in a school at Rugby, England, when one William Webb Ellis, “with fine disregard for the rules of football as played in his time at Rugby school, first took the ball in his arms and ran with it, thus originating the distinctive feature of the rugby game.”

Bridges seem to be the emblem of existential stress for Romanians. In the face of a difficult situation, even Romanian folk wisdom recommends: "Make a pact with the devil until you have crossed the bridge."

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again” (John 3:3).

"I'm driven with a mission from God." God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq.' And I did..."

On the continent jaded by an irrelevant religion, a new denomination appeared, in addition to the Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anglican Protestants—the Arminians.

To be able to see our world and life through the experiences of someone of a different culture and background is rare. It is a gift—but it can also be a jolt to our sensibilities and assumptions. The world we thought we knew can look very different through someone else’s eyes. This is one reason storytelling can be such a powerful form of...

“I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite" (Isaiah 57:15).

Trust in God gives clarity to our thinking, so God asks us not to be obsessed with justice, but to be concerned with and delighted by grace.

In the early decades of the 18th century, America was in the throes of an identity crisis. The new American lifestyle had earned New England the nickname of “the new English Sodom.”

“There are no other two churches in the world today that are so similar yet, at the same time, so opposite as the Eastern, or Greek, and the Western, or Roman Church” (Philip Schaff).