Religion

Why Western thought—and your own beliefs—owe a debt to one German monk.

By the middle of the 17th century, German Protestantism had long ceased to be a burning torch. Accepted by the nobility and the populace, it had become an ecclesiastical, secular, and politicised institution like all the others. In the night of alienation, God brought from the ashes the light of a new dawn.

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.

At the end of a journey tracing how the belief and hope in the Second Coming of Jesus have manifested themselves in the two-thousand-year history of Christianity, the final part of The Second Coming Files presents the remaining elements that link that history to the present day: the Millerite movement and Adventism.

"[Jesus] told them another parable: 'The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.' He told them still another parable: 'The...

Written in Latin by a 26-year-old Frenchman in less than a year, it is a book of 516 pages. Published in Switzerland and dedicated to the French king from whom he was fleeing, it is the most important theological work of the Reformation.

Slapped, spat in the face, insulted, falsely accused, lashed, ridiculed with a crown of thorns, passed from judge to judge and booed by the crowd, the Son of God chose the most unusual form of defence. Silence.

Little Welsh girl Mary Jones anxiously walked the 40 kilometres. She couldn't wait to buy a Bible in her language, as she had been saving for it for more than six years. But when she reached the shop of Mr Charles, her pastor and teacher, she found with despair that all the Bibles were either sold or already spoken for.

It seems that one of the requirements for any sustainable worldview, philosophy or faith is that it should have some account of origins. Perhaps we could think about it simply as a necessary element of a good story. It is certainly one of the recurring tropes of superhero sequels or sci-fi epics that at some point we will come to better understand a...

To what extent is ecumenism included in God's concerns? Does God's agenda include this objective?

His philosophy and theology dominated human thought for over a thousand years. Until Thomas Aquinas emerged in the 13th century, Augustine was undoubtedly the most important thinker of the medieval period.

Nearly four millennia after the stone ratification of the law on weekly rest, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) reiterates the right of every person to rest and leisure.[1]

“God's viewpoint is sometimes different from ours—so different that we could not even guess at it unless He had given us a Book which tells us such things.”[1](Corrie ten Boom)

Have you ever felt like there was nothing to your story? Like your life wasn’t anything worth sharing? Or like it would set you further apart from others?

No one has ever seen God, but the One who knew Him before He was born on this earth taught us all to address Him in prayer.