Religion

Any sacrifice is hard to understand from the outside. But it's even harder to understand how sacrifice can be a choice that brings joy to the person making it. The easiest people to include in this category are, of course, mothers. For them, the sacrifices never seem too many or too hard. Even more amazing are those mothers who raise other people's unwanted...

Few things can pierce a parent’s heart as painfully as their children’s decision to walk away from God. Pain, guilt, shame and the feeling of failure are the crushing burdens which parents of prodigal sons carry, while still wavering between hope and discouragement.

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".

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, Max Lucado wrote an article summarising the spiritual lessons we can learn from an event that the news described as a "once in a thousand year flood".

Jesus's words could not have been foreign to the Jewish people of His day. In an eminently oral culture, narratives, stories, parables and metaphors occupied an important place.

In Europe, one in twenty people suffer from depression, and one in four will experience depression during their lifetime. In the United States, major depressive disorder affects about five percent of the population.

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.

“They pour out arrogant words; all the evildoers are full of boasting” (Psalm 94:4).

The idea that religion is harmful to the process of human development has no scientific support, but religious conviction has been associated with a number of tragic experiences within families.

It is right for you to look for what you are looking for, but it is not where you are looking for. In the land of death, you seek a happy life: it is not there. How can life be happy somewhere where there is no life? (St. Augustine, Confessions)

Jessica was 19 when she had to tell her parents, both practicing Christians, that she was pregnant. That moment generated a real earthquake in the young woman’s family who, together with her boyfriend at the time, had been strongly involved in the purity movement, an ideology that promotes sexual abstinence until marriage, for religious reasons.

Are we at risk of turning Christianity into just another consumer product?

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).

I grew up in a small town called Utsunomiya, three hours away from Tokyo. When I was a child, I was certain that there was a God and that He loved me. Then I grew up and began to wonder, “If there is a good God, why is there so much suffering in the world? Why do innocent children die? Why is the...

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.