Religion

Was the Pax Romana really a time of peace?

Soviet soldier Bakhretdin Khakimov was declared missing in action during the war in Afghanistan, which claimed the lives of 15,000 USSR soldiers and more than a million Afghans. Thirty-three years later, his family found out he was alive, living as a true Afghan among his former enemies.

"Religion is what is in my soul. No one can take away what is there. But in public we have to comply..."

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.

The term "Anglicanism" denotes the system of doctrine and practice of those Christians who are in communion with the archbishop of Canterbury. The beginnings of the Church of England are linked to the reign of Henry VIII and Edward VI, while the initial formulation of Anglican principles is linked to the reign of Elizabeth I, during whose reign a middle ground was politically...

In the turbulent times of the first crusades to reclaim Palestine and Jerusalem from the Muslims, a Jew was born in 1135 AD in Cordoba, the capital of Muslim Andalusia. His influence would leave a strong mark not only on Jewish thought but also on Christian and Islamic thought. His name was Moses Maimonides, or Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon. 

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.

The spontaneous generation of life on Earth is as likely as a whirlwind putting a Boeing 747 together using scattered spare parts in a junkyard.

Biblical interpretation is undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges for the Bible reader. What are the essential hermeneutical principles we need?

Please, not now! Don’t come right now! Please... I suddenly opened my eyes in the darkness of my bedroom and, all of a sudden, the heat wave building up during the nightmare met the coolness of the night reality. You haven’t come yet... Thank you, God!

The holidays are a time of generosity, when those forgotten by the world meet those who want to forget that sadness exists and, out of the coexistence of the two needs, something good is born.

For many Christians, the belief that souls go to Heaven or Hell after death is a cultural legacy rather than a conclusion reached through personal analysis of the biblical text.

"We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid." (Christopher Hitchens) 

When one pays attention to the finer details, any life story can be interesting. When you go into detail, any common or mediocre story that could have been summed up in only a few words, becomes a confession. I realise that my own story is no exception, although it has often seemed to me that I live a banal and predictable life.

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.