Religion

Imagine the conversation between God and Adam after Adam had sinned, seen himself naked for the first time (in more ways than one) and hidden from God. To the piercing question, "Why did you hide?" Adam replied, "Because I was naked". Reading between the lines, we detect the subtext: "I hid myself, for one cannot come naked before God."

Along with the rising death toll due to coronavirus complications, a usually latent aspect of our fear becomes harder to ignore. Despite the fact that it is the only certainty we all share, realising that our own end is a reality we might need to confront sooner than we had thought leaves many of us fervently searching for consolation.

The troubled centuries that followed the Great Schism of 1054 and the corresponding climate inside the Christian church gradually gave way to profound shifts in the thinking and spirituality of Europeans.

The question of human suffering concerns atheists and believers alike. For the former, the search for an answer drives them to the heights of despair. For the latter, suffering inevitably poses a dilemma: why is there so much suffering in the world if the God who created it is loving and omnipotent?

Seventh-day Adventists consider the issue of religious freedom to be essential to their mission. “Separation of church and state offers the best safeguard for religious liberty and is in harmony with Jesus’ statement in Matthew 22:21: ‘Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s’.”

“Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you” (Isaiah 46:4).

Following a poll, the Gallup Organization revealed good news and bad news. The good news is that 94% of the population believes that it is very important to forgive. The bad news is that 85% admit that, in their own power, they are not ready to forgive.

During the COVID-19 lockdown last year, I lived with some messy people. I’d moved into a house that I shared with a wonderful couple of brothers. They were almost everything you could ask for in a set of housemates. Friendly, funny, respectful of your privacy . . . genuinely great people in almost every respect.

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

In our desperate search for miraculous answers or confirmations, we often forget that the most profound miracles are hidden in the seemingly mundane details of our lives.

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.

Have you ever done something you immediately regret? Perhaps you’ve let your emotions get the better of you, lost control and said something particularly harsh to a friend in the heat of a moment—you wish you could take the words back the moment they left your lips.

More than a collection of information, beyond its role as a guide, the Bible is where we have a redemptive encounter with the One who holds the keys to eternal life.

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.

Much of the Bible was written by prophets, so it is full of prophetic revelation. Most of these revelations are about mysteries of the past and present that we would not otherwise have access to.