Religion

The New Testament would have looked quite different[1] without the influence of Athanasius the Great, bishop of Alexandria and church father of the Christian Church in the 4th century.

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.

A major crisis pushes us to re-evaluate the way we see and do things in the fields of health, finance, and social interaction. But how does this crisis affect our religious practices—especially the most common of these, prayer?

God gave Christians a message to spread. The whole Bible talks about creation, about the fall of the world into sin, but also about the existence of a Saviour, in the person of Jesus Christ.

These days we all need to hear good news—that life will soon return to normal and that we will be able to return to the troubles of yesterday, which now seem small to us. In the meantime, our lifestyle has seen changes that we could not have imagined just a few weeks ago.

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.

Benjamin Solomon Carson is the famous American neurosurgeon who, in 1987, became the first to successfully separate twins conjoined at the head.

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?

The Bible, a prophetic book par excellence, is often misinterpreted. Its prophecies can seem fatalistic, or fear-mongering. But, when understood correctly, Biblical prophecy more than unravels the future—it also provides us with a clearer perspective on the present.

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?

With news that the far-right Freedom Party (PVV) has won the election in the Netherlands, once again there is talk of an exit from the European Union on the horizon—this time being called “Nexit”.

In the first part of this series, we familiarised ourselves with the classical Protestant perception of the concept and prophetic figure of the Antichrist, and evaluated the classical identification of the Antichrist with the papacy. Further analysis becomes even more intriguing with a close reading of the major biblical prophecies about the Antichrist.

To nothing else is the name of God so often linked in our human discourse as to suffering and deliverance. This locus is a huge and complicated intersection of our existence.

Christianity is either historical or not. It claims that “God acted decisively in history, revealing Himself in external, specific events attested in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.”[1] The most important of these events was the coming of Jesus as the Messiah, the saving Christ.

For many years, Dr Jonathan Ward was a military chaplain. When I talked to Dr Ward about his long career, we touched upon some sensitive topics: Does the presence of a Christian chaplain in the military mean God’s approval of military operations? How does a military chaplain serve in the context of a conflict?