Religion

"Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings… And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice." (Nelson Mandela)[1]

One reason, if not the reason why the story of humanity's first wrong choice, the original failure, is vehemently denounced is the brutality with which this event—a seemingly trivial "dietary" decision that turned out to be the most costly ever made by a human being—reminds us more powerfully than any other story how painful the consequences of our mistakes can be. We do...

When I read how a non-religious mother felt she needed to calm herself down at the thought that her child might begin to believe in God, I was surprised and almost offended.

Many doomsayers have “cried wolf” when it comes to the end of the world. Does that mean it’s not going to happen at all?

Carolynn Yakush inherited her taste for the good life from her Czech grandparents, and her interest in faith from her mother and the Christian schools she went to. For many years, the desire for money and a life of luxury overshadowed her spiritual and religious concerns. One day, almost without thinking about it, she entered a church again, and was amazed at the...

Are we at risk of turning Christianity into just another consumer product?

"From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us" (Acts 17:26-27).

I like to look back. When I am climbing a mountain, it is an excuse to rest. But I also do it for another reason—to see how far I have climbed.

“And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, you are slowly turning this control thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish one,” wrote C.S. Lewis—simply through the decisions you make. If the choices we face truly carry such eternal weight, how can a Christian ensure they are making the right ones?

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, Max Lucado wrote an article summarising the spiritual lessons we can learn from an event that the news described as a "once in a thousand year flood".

Europe is more divided than ever. What does that mean for our reading of biblical prophecy?

In talking to pastor Cristian Modan, the religion teacher and chaplain at Mihai Ionescu School in Bucharest, I wanted to find out how we should teach children to communicate with God.

You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God...

Of the hundreds of carols composed and sung at Christmas, one has managed not only to survive for more than two centuries, but also to spread its message of hope to all corners of the world.

What image comes to mind when you hear the word success? A blue-suited CEO? Internet billionaire Mark Zuckerberg? Perhaps Mother Teresa or Nelson Mandela? But if you’re like me, you probably didn’t think of a person living an unglamorous, day-to-day, ordinary life.