Religion

Sometimes, I wonder what I would be like if I were more like Jesus. Above all, I wonder how He would act in my situation. I have to admit that these questions sometimes leave me feeling lost.

We have trouble understanding and accepting the image of a loving God, as we have grown too familiar with the type of love that offers itself only when it finds in a person the qualities that make them easy to love.

From my experience and the conversations I have had so far, I have found that there are two major categories of people who come to doubt the existence of God.

Dr Kendra Haloviak-Valentine, Professor of New Testament at La Sierra University in Redlands, California, comes from a family with a tradition of theology and research.

I was a pagan as a child. Not by choice, but as a consequence of lacking any access to the Word of God. In the 1980s Romania, catechizing an Orthodox child (whose parents were members of the Communist Party) was a highly unlikely event Pavlik Morozov’s myth, the hero-child that denounced his own father, generated caution.

On May 19th, 1780, a strange phenomenon turned a sunny morning into an unexpected night. The event, known as the Dark Day, was seen as a sign of divine judgment by contemporaries and as a means of ridiculing apocalyptic expectations by sceptics.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus asked us to remember the Lord's supper. What made it so special?

On April 26th 1986, reactor 4 at Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded. The effects were catastrophic­­—it was the worst nuclear disaster in history. The explosion let out the equivalent of 500 Hiroshima bombs-worth of radiation, and the area around Chernobyl—including the town of Pripyat—is now uninhabited. It will be unsafe to live there for the next 20,000 years.

Its nomination for six Academy Awards and winning in two categories [1] confirmed the feeling of the public that they were dealing with a very good movie, in every way.

My body felt like it was on fire, as if someone had pierced my skin with thousands of burning needles, and I could barely breathe. Fear had crept into my life some time ago, following me like a shadow that drained my soul and stole my precious moments of peace.

The idea of hell takes up a dark corner in most of our minds, whether we think about it or not.

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.

Why did God choose to reveal Himself through a sacred text? Were there no other ways? Does God still inspire scriptures today?

Immersed in contemplation, I eagerly remove the gnarled, wet roots. As my thoughts drew closer to the tenuous yet vigorous spring beneath them, a word intersected my search like an intense beam of light. Harmony. I felt as if the tips of my thoughts had reached the source of the experience I was trying to decipher—happiness.

Suppose I leave the window open then leave home. A stack of banknotes can be seen on the table through the open window. An individual walking down the street notices the opportunity, thinks for a while, but decides to move on. Why would a man who has the opportunity to steal decide not to?