Religion

I still remember May 21, 2011, like it was yesterday. Thousands of kilometres away in Boulder, USA, an evangelist named Harold Camping, president of the popular ministry Family Radio, was in the news spotlight. He had predicted that on May 21, more than 200 million Christians all around the world would be raptured away to heaven and that five months later, the world would end.

Last week brought about the guilty verdict in the trial of George Floyd’s murderer, Derek Chauvin, causing the topic of justice to once again become a contentious issue for many people around the globe.

The Protestant Reformation was a tumultuous river, the flow of which began to become visible in 1517. A significant contribution to this eruption was made by its tributaries, the (pre-) Reformation movements: the Waldenses, Albigensians, Lollards, Hussites, etc.—true springs of the main Protestant current, which took over their force in its flow through history.

Does religion cause war? It’s a firm yes from British zoologist and vocal atheist Richard Dawkins, who sees a direct correlation between the two.

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.

That fateful day of June 1st, 1660, was not the first time Mary Dyer wound up at the gallows. The previous time, with her hands tied and her face covered by the handkerchief of her former pastor, Reverend John Wilson, she had escaped death by the skin of her teeth, after a death sentence that had already killed two of her dear friends...

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.

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.

What is the future? The question may seem trivial. But when you think about it, you understand better what St Augustine confessed: "What then is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I want to explain it to a questioner, I do not know".

It is convenient, but also superficial, to say that all religions lead to God. However, this attitude is pervasive, and usually lasts only until one has had a chance to see the difference the various religions make in people's lives.

"This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger" (Luke 2:12).

I have always imagined that well-being, bright prospects, good health and a clear purpose in life tend not to inspire questions about the meaning of life very often.

When I was four years old, my younger brother was born. My parents focused on my brother and spent less time with me. It was only 40 years later that I discovered how this had affected me.

The metaphor of the church as a hospital is so popular in the neo-Protestant milieu that it seems to highlight the hypocrisy of those attending church services even more. That’s what I used to believe until one day when I witnessed the opposite with my very own eyes.

I still remember it like it was yesterday: the brightness of the sun on my skin, the chill of the water, the crowds of cheering people. We had gathered that Saturday afternoon on the shores of Lake Jindabyne, a half-hour drive from Mount Kosciuszko, Australia’s tallest mountain.