Religion

When we read the Gospels, we may be put off by the way Jesus Christ interprets the Hebrew Scriptures.

Fathers are an important part of their children’s lives. Good dads can provide stability, protection and love in a child’s life.

"Western societies have transformed Sundays into days where leisure activities have eclipsed the traditional Christian meaning of the day—to devote time to God", Pope Benedict XVI once said, reminding us that the day of rest is a celebration of God's creation of the world. Observing this day now, when there are worrying signs about the global climate, is a necessity, the Pope added.

How do we discover the intention of the biblical author—and how important is it in interpreting the Bible correctly?

I grew up on the border between two different universes, not geographically but spiritually. There, across that fine line, lived more than half of my extended family, with a different worldview.

Regardless of what is said about the predictive nature of the words traditionally attributed to Malraux—"The 21st century will be religious or it will not be"—the truth is that almost two decades of this century have passed, and we don't really know where we are going.

I had a ringing in my ears due to that unusual inner silence which I was paradoxically experiencing at the same time as a thought-storm that made me scream on the inside. 

A good survey of people's thoughts on the end times would not seek to find out whether people believe the world will end or not. Rather, it would seek to know what their thoughts are on when and how the end will come. Regardless of the source of their belief—religious or secular—most people have come to see the idea of the end of...

To be able to see our world and life through the experiences of someone of a different culture and background is rare. It is a gift—but it can also be a jolt to our sensibilities and assumptions. The world we thought we knew can look very different through someone else’s eyes. This is one reason storytelling can be such a powerful form of...

"Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings… And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice." (Nelson Mandela)[1]

I doubt there’s a person who hasn’t heard of the Boston Marathon bombing, which took the lives of three people. As runners entered the home straight, with the finish line in sight, first one then another explosion ripped through the happy, watching throng.

In the early decades of the 18th century, America was in the throes of an identity crisis. The new American lifestyle had earned New England the nickname of “the new English Sodom.”

It is said that God works through people. I am convinced that the people evoked in connection with my stellar moments—and I really would have liked to name them all—each contributed, in their own way, to my reunion with Divinity.

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.

One of today's dilemmas disputes, dialectically, the complex reality of the Bible and the secular way of looking at the "terror of history": Is God a source of morality superior to humanism, or not?