Religion

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.

Putting Christmas on the myth-busting agenda is both an uncomfortable and challenging task—gratuitous sacrilege and pure paganism for those who believe that questioning Christmas is a sign of atheistic or conspiratorial leanings; honest, necessary Christian analysis for those interested in eliminating forgeries and freeing themselves from prejudice.

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.

On the night when heaven descended among mortals, it was not the high priests or scholars who were the first to see God, but some lowly shepherds.

I once served on a jury and, to my surprise, was voted foreman. The accused was charged with manslaughter, a serious crime with quite a harsh penalty; while driving an aged-care minivan filled with pensioners, he’d hit and killed a pedestrian. The defendant was a facility volunteer who had been taking a group of pensioners shopping. His vehicle collided with the deceased in...

The dialectical spirit of ecumenism gives rise, among other things, to a question whose full answer is still awaited: How is it that the critical spirit and rationalism of Enlightenment origin, combined with making the Bible available to ordinary people, has led to so many schisms?

This coronavirus crisis has, for me, some perplexing parallels with a well-known incident narrated in the Gospel of Matthew (14:22-33). The disciples are confined in a little boat in the middle of a terrible storm, almost as we are confined at home today by the emergency laws of our countries.

Christopher Hitchens was not merely an atheist but, as he described himself, a militant antitheist. It was in his home, at his invitation, that the group known as “The Four Horsemen of New Atheism” first convened. Born in 1949 in postwar England, Hitchens was shaped by the politics and intellectual currents of the 1960s.

I sat slouched on the edge of my bed, blue light illuminating my face in the dark. It was the tenth time I’d checked my phone in the space of five minutes. I grimaced. Was something wrong with me?

Any large-scale phenomenon, such as a pandemic, activates our instinct to preserve our state of being—especially when we feel like we are losing it.

Nothing else on earth judges a person as ruthlessly as their own conscience, and truthfully, nothing else should. The painful process happens before and after the harm has been done.

I have always been fascinated by God. And yet, I believe I could have known Him far better—much more deeply—if only I had better understood what He sought to teach me each day, including through my neighbour.

The stakes are high when it comes to identifying the one to whom we should pray, and we can discover who by answering an apparently simple question: Can we expect prayers to be heard no matter who we address them to?

Mary was an ordinary person, just like us. The Gospel does not suggest that she had any particular merit, yet her obedience played a pivotal role in a story that would change the world.

With Jesus, it was always different. For most of my life, I could only see God the Father through a legalistic filter. But with Jesus, it was always different.