Religion

Ever since Thomas the Unbeliever, Christians have wanted to see with their own eyes what those who have been with Jesus at key moments of His mission saw.

The end of the last century created the perfect context for postmodernism to exercise its veto over all the ethical dilemmas of the day. As a result, today, as in vitro fertilisation, abortion, euthanasia or homosexual marriage enter the legislative agendas of more and more countries, we see political correctness taking precedence over religious morality.

The end of the world has been an enduring human preoccupation and, paradoxically, has existed since the dawn of civilisation.

Jeddah is different, at least according to its city motto. This Saudi Arabian port city on the Red Sea is home to more than 4 million people and is a gateway to Mecca: the holiest city in Islam. Millions of pilgrims come through Jeddah to visit Mecca, some 65 kilometres to the east, and Medina, Islam’s second holiest city, 360km to the north.

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.

"Lianne struggled with the idea of God," Don DeLillo’s narrator says of one of the characters in his novel, Falling Man. "She was taught to believe that religion makes people compliant. This is the purpose of religion, to return people to a childlike state… . We want to transcend, to pass beyond the limits of safe understanding— and what better way to do...

Seventh-day Adventists have the deep conviction that Jesus Christ will soon return, and the desire to keep His commandments as they were originally written in the Decalogue.

We carry sad stories with us, and the meaning of these stories often eludes us. What if we discovered that these stories provide unique opportunities to change lives? Cori Salchert discovered, through family tragedy, the resolve and desire to take care of children with terminal illnesses.

More than three decades have passed since the horrific genocide in Rwanda. Amid the outburst of murderous rage, there were people—both Africans and foreigners—who stood in the way of the hatred and bloodshed.

Life is a stage that we enter without a script, although we are constantly influenced by forces of varying visibility: social, educational, religious, economic, and political.

Fairy tales begin with the words "Once upon a time", which automatically send us into a timeless world of fantasy, imagination, and daydreaming.

"If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them" (James 4:17).

Immersed in contemplation, I eagerly remove the gnarled, wet roots. As my thoughts drew closer to the tenuous yet vigorous spring beneath them, a word intersected my search like an intense beam of light. Harmony. I felt as if the tips of my thoughts had reached the source of the experience I was trying to decipher—happiness.

Mary was an ordinary person, just like us. The Gospel does not suggest that she had any particular merit, yet her obedience played a pivotal role in a story that would change the world.

A sense of meaninglessness—a void, a wilderness, a lack of direction—affects such a large number of people today that it has come to define the dominant mood of the society we live in and contribute to.