Religion

When I was in my mid-twenties, I attended a university in Brisbane, Australia, two hours from where I lived. I had a friend in the city who I’d sometimes stay with to avoid having to travel back and forth on back-to-back uni days.

At the end of every year, a covert censorship obscures the true meaning of the event that split history in two: the birth of Jesus. Under the festive guise of Christmas, the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ has been culturally transformed into a holiday of good cheer. The religious motif has been preserved, but the spiritual meaning has largely been lost.

I have always imagined that well-being, bright prospects, good health and a clear purpose in life tend not to inspire questions about the meaning of life very often.

In November 2014, Smithsonian Magazine included Ellen White, the co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, in the top 100 most significant American personalities of all time.

I had a ringing in my ears due to that unusual inner silence which I was paradoxically experiencing at the same time as a thought-storm that made me scream on the inside. 

For La Tanya Butler, childhood memories are imbued with the injustices that Black people regularly endured at the hands of white people at a time when discrimination was enshrined in law.

How do we discover the intention of the biblical author—and how important is it in interpreting the Bible correctly?

On the evening of His passion, Jesus promised His disciples, ""Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I...

When you discover that the only thing you have left is faith in God, you fervently wish that your faith doesn't end up poisoning your soul.

In the heart of the Garden of Eden, where everything seems perfect, there is an ancient struggle between freedom and restriction—a struggle we have all experienced.

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.

In writing this article, I asked a handful of people what the worst thing they had ever received for Christmas was. The answers I received were interesting, to say the least.

Nothing can prepare us in advance for the suffering we will experience in this life. But even knowing this, we often remember with guilt the moments of blissful ignorance we had before suffering hit us.

For the crowds gathered around the casket containing the relics of Saint Paraskeva, everything is just dream and faith. Amazingly much faith. There is also something else. There is the hope of a miracle, a miracle that will cure diseases, cover debts, and make life happy.

A movement so alive and distinct from the imperial cults, as Christianity was, could not fail to attract the attention of temple servants, intellectuals, and officials.