Religion

I notice people, and passionately collect their stories. My favourite stories include those small cracks that allow one to peek inside another soul, those moments when their voice is almost imperceptibly altered, the eyes light up for a reason I do not know, and their gestures are unexpected.

In late 2015, famed neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who was running for the Republican presidential nomination, became the target of scrutiny and innuendo from some in the media, who used the moment to turn his religious identity on its head. Ben Carson is a Seventh-day Adventist, and people wanted to know how Adventism influences his thinking. Carson lost the election race, but won a...

“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.”

His name is Bert B. Beach. Until his retirement in July 1995, he was director of the Public Affairs and Religious Liberty Department (PARL) of the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

Suppose I leave the window open then leave home. A stack of banknotes can be seen on the table through the open window. An individual walking down the street notices the opportunity, thinks for a while, but decides to move on. Why would a man who has the opportunity to steal decide not to?

Motto: "Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision." (Winston Churchill)

The question in the title is a protest which expresses a fair amount of suspicion towards God. It is a barely concealed condemnation of God and His actions, the strange rebellion of a world that sees itself as morally superior to God. People forget Scripture's words in the book of Job: Beware lest wrath entice you into scoffing (Job 36:18, RSV).

Plato may have been one of the first to think this way, but in modern sociology it was Walter Lippmann who made history with the idea that people do not have access to reality in all its complexity, but operate on images of that reality that they construct for themselves.

Right at the start of the political thriller, The Post, a scene portrays military analyst Daniel Ellsberg with an empty gaze and a soul burdened by the horrors of the Vietnam war he was forced to document for the United States Department of Defense.

Carolynn Yakush inherited her taste for the good life from her Czech grandparents, and her interest in faith from her mother and the Christian schools she went to. For many years, the desire for money and a life of luxury overshadowed her spiritual and religious concerns. One day, almost without thinking about it, she entered a church again, and was amazed at the...

Concern for the planet's climate and its ecology has occupied the world's attention for many decades. In the 1980s, the ozone layer depletion caused by chlorofluorocarbons and similar gases was observed, and in 1987, the Montreal Protocol was finalised.

Decade after decade, Darold and Barbara Bigger have built their lives with honor, discipline, and devotion.

We have trouble understanding and accepting the image of a loving God, as we have grown too familiar with the type of love that offers itself only when it finds in a person the qualities that make them easy to love.

After 25 years in the ministry, during which he never once considered leaving, Pastor Tim Kuperus admits that the last three years have been difficult enough for him to consider a different path.