Religion

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.

Traditional communities are like rivers, while modern societies are like oceans, said Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. Consider that a river—deeper or shallower, faster or slower—always has a direction, as traditional societies usually direct the lives of their members. The ocean is a different story.

Growing up on the sunny east coast of Australia meant summers at the beach. I was no surfer dude but the crash of waves and unmistakable squeak of hot sand was often a soundtrack in my adolescence. It’s easy to romanticise the white sand beaches and crystal blue hues of Australia’s coastal waters but now, particularly as a parent, I am aware of the danger...

“I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me” (Habakkuk 2:1).

The name of Jesus brings to mind the gift of the incarnate Godhead—their supernatural acts, astonishing wisdom, incomparable goodness, unmitigated innocence, supreme sacrifice, offered salvation, and our only certain hope.

To know God is an aspiration inherent in the rational being who recognises His existence.

Sometimes we are so absorbed in our beautiful Christmas traditions that we don't even realize that our love for them makes them ugly.

When the fear of war overwhelms our thoughts, let us not forget that we are not alone, that God will end our suffering and give us a new and everlasting life.

Centuries ago, the German theologian and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz used the term “theodicy”1 for the first time—“God’s justification”. By theodicy, Leibniz meant the ultimate reality of justification, once and for all, of God and all of His ways before the whole universe.

I have always liked to participate in public worship and to practice some of the spiritual disciplines. I did not experience a stormy conversion. God revealed himself to me, instead, like “a gentle whisper” (1 Kings 19:12).

"On the 5th of March 1986, life left me! I was in the process of moving and that evening I felt terribly tired and cold..." (Ruth Frikart-Moor)

Herbert Thorson Blomstedt has performed in over three thousand concerts with the world's most renowned philharmonic orchestras. He has held several long-term positions as music director of legendary orchestras in Dresden, Leipzig, and San Francisco, and recorded hundreds of works, including the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Bruckner, and Nielsen. He has won two Grammy Awards and received state distinctions in Sweden and Germany....

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.”

The Bible is not the product of an event or a circumstance, but of time, study and especially of the journey that humanity took on its way to its development. But could it be that all the time that has passed has also eroded its relevance? How much confidence can we still have in the Bible, in the 21st century?

We often say God is good, especially when, after threatening to go dangerously off track, life resumes its regular course. But what is left to say when all that remains of our dearest dreams is a handful of shards that can no longer be glued together?