Religion

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?

The image of an apocalypse generated by a microscopic coronavirus has been sketched more than once by the press in the past few weeks.

Ultra-rich Silicon Valley tech magnate Bryan Johnson has been regularly having transfusions of his own son’s blood plasma in an effort to live longer. The treatments are expensive and are essentially still being trialled.

With packs and tents strapped to our backs, it took our little group of three several hours to reach the hidden valley. The lush, green rainforest was cool and damp and as we gingerly clambered over moss-covered boulders, we attempted to follow an almost non-existent track that wound its way parallel to the mountain stream.

I doubt there’s a person who hasn’t heard of the Boston Marathon bombing, which took the lives of three people. As runners entered the home straight, with the finish line in sight, first one then another explosion ripped through the happy, watching throng.

Dr Denise Dunzweiller, of Walla Walla University in the north-west of the United States, has emerged as a passionate advocate of inclusive education, a technical term for education systems in which children with disabilities are educated alongside other children in mainstream schools, rather than in special classes.

After Jesus was born—that is, in the era we call Anno Domini (AD)—the history of mankind was different from that of Christianity. As it is known, the latter was not the history of a triumphant march of Christianity towards its universalization and the unification of the human race. On the contrary, this history can rather be characterised as a manifestation of “the great...

I am visiting two sick people who share the same terminal illness. Their suffering is increased by the fact that they are brothers and that a mother’s broken heart lies at the core of it all. One of them is a businessman. The other, a servant of the altar. Their mother’s greatest frustration is that her wish to take some of the suffering...

We experience a feeling of urgency as a consequence of the fear of failure, or the fear of missing out (on people, opportunities, time, good things). Urgency is, therefore, a corollary of fear. Today’s Christianity, hailed by loud voices as near extinction, can easily fall into the trap of undue urgency to quickly regain what has been lost.

"Christ is risen! These words capture the whole meaning of our existence, for we were not made for death but for life". This was the message that Pope Francis gave to the faithful gathered in St Peter's Square on Easter Sunday, just one day before his death. It was a message of hope, but also a summary that reflected familiar themes of his...

The Carolingian Renaissance must be understood as a "reform and reconfiguration of all peoples under the reign of Charles, with a view to creating a Christian territory in its institutional structures, moral conduct, and personal convictions."

On June 23, 1863, in France, a book was published that would become the literary sensation of the century. Few could have foreseen the impact it would make. This was not a romance novel, thriller, or self-help guide; it was Vie de Jésus (The Life of Jesus) by Ernest Renan. In less than four months, over 60,000 copies were circulating—a record-breaking success in...

Sartre may have been right when he said Hell is other people. Yet, for some, their first step toward Heaven is meeting the God who shelters in someone else's soul.

A fulfilled life is built on the foundation of faith and the desire to imitate the character of God, in a world conceptualised around the truth.

Why did God choose to reveal Himself through a sacred text? Were there no other ways? Does God still inspire scriptures today?