Religion

As we know all too well, life can be hard. Even in the best of times, life can be hard. But now this, a pandemic? How are we to cope?

How can we protect ourselves against expecting too much of our friendships? Can we do something to prepare for the disappointment? And what does one do to deal with it?

Economic capitalism has a psychological twin, one that is not as bold and brash as its profit-obsessed counterpart, but if we look into the subtle details of our interior universe we find it hidden there.

Religion has often been maligned in both the press and popular culture. But could believing give you an edge in life?

Was the Pax Romana really a time of peace?

The diversity and divergence of religious beliefs clearly indicate that not all religious doctrines and perspectives can be true. Throughout history, there have been vastly different universal religions, each with multiple interpretations and denominations. We have religions, not just “religion.” However, if there is one true religion that respects truth, freedom, and intelligence, the myth of myths collapses.

Many families who feared that the new coronavirus would affect their health ended up dreading its effect on something seemingly even more difficult to protect: the well-being of their relationship.

The question of human suffering concerns atheists and believers alike. For the former, the search for an answer drives them to the heights of despair. For the latter, suffering inevitably poses a dilemma: why is there so much suffering in the world if the God who created it is loving and omnipotent?

One night while checking on his patients in a palliative care centre, the therapist risked asking a confusing question to a person whose universe had shrunk to the size of his sickbed: “What brought you joy today?” The answer was immediate: “Being alive.”

In 2015, charismatic evangelical Jeremiah Johnson, who worked as a pastor and church planter in Florida, USA, made a bold claim. He announced that a voice from God had told him in a dream that Donald Trump would become the President of the United States. When this prediction came to pass, Johnson gained nationwide fame.

Ask any cinematographer what gets them excited, and I guarantee there’s a fair chance they’ll answer with “lenses”. Having spent many years studying film and many more practising it, I can safely say that I now understand why this is—and it’s probably the first response you’d hear from me if you asked me the same question.

In grief, acceptance and rebellion intertwine, and meaning emerges from tears, faith, and the hope that death does not have the last word.

Jessica was 19 when she had to tell her parents, both practicing Christians, that she was pregnant. That moment generated a real earthquake in the young woman’s family who, together with her boyfriend at the time, had been strongly involved in the purity movement, an ideology that promotes sexual abstinence until marriage, for religious reasons.

Some statistics circulated by the international press have created an increasingly negative image of Christians and Christianity. How well-founded is this image, and how should those targeted by it deal with it?

When the Scottish reformer John Knox, Calvin’s disciple, wrote in 1560 in favour of the death penalty for heretics, he was attacking Sebastian Castellio in particular. John Knox did not know then that he was attacking the father of the idea of ​​religious freedom in Christianity.