Religion

Plato may have been one of the first to think this way, but in modern sociology it was Walter Lippmann who made history with the idea that people do not have access to reality in all its complexity, but operate on images of that reality that they construct for themselves.

Science and faith, as important tools in the knowledge process, are often perceived to be in a tense relationship with each other, because of the fundamentally different worldviews that characterize them. The implications for life’s big questions are obvious—and sufficient to rob someone of the comfort of indifference towards such high-stakes conclusions.

Jesus Christ is certainly the most fascinating and controversial person in human history, if we look at how He has been understood throughout the history of Christian thought. But how did Jesus understand Himself?

A bicycle trip around the world led two young Americans to the mistaken conclusion that "people are good."

In a world dominated by artificiality and instant gratification, we are becoming masters at controlling our circumstances and environment.

As a book editor who works in a Christian publishing house, I know prayer works from a sales perspective. Books on the topic of prayer are consistently among our best sellers. It seems that many of our customers and readers—mostly people of faith, but including people who are interested but uncertain about faith—are keen to be reassured that prayer works and to find...

A man is about as big as the things that make him angry – Winston Churchill

In 2004, we experienced firsthand one of the most devastating tsunamis of our century. It was early morning, on Boxing Day.

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.

What is “divine inspiration?” How does it happen?

Trust is the main currency of the age in which we live, and people seem to be changing the directions they invest in faster than in the past. How is our life of faith influenced by how we relate generally to trust?

I generally don’t like going to funerals, but they come in many different forms and feels. Some seem sadder than others; some feel more hopeful. But often there’s an unexpected bittersweetness. We are all there because of something good—the life, love and relationship that we are there to remember and honour—that has come to a tragic end, always too soon.

It could be a perfunctory ritual, passed down through generations; a mechanically recited poem. But equally, the mealtime prayer can be a genuine spiritual exercise.

Their third wedding anniversary was just around the corner, but doctors had given Magda, belatedly diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a malignant bone tumour, no chance of recovery. Yet her husband Daniel continued to believe that God still had the last word.

Right at the start of the political thriller, The Post, a scene portrays military analyst Daniel Ellsberg with an empty gaze and a soul burdened by the horrors of the Vietnam war he was forced to document for the United States Department of Defense.