Religion

As a believer—for present purposes, defined simply as one who believes—I have often wondered what and how I would believe differently had I been born into a family and culture with different beliefs. Obviously, I believe what I believe because I believe it to include truth, but would I have believed in this same truth if I had not been raised and taught...

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.

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

"If I were tortured, I would confess to anything. I would confess to being the Sultan of Turkey," says Goya in a film by Milos Forman. "No, you wouldn't!" Father Lorenzo contradicts him, but Goya insists: "I would confess anything to avoid torment."

A man is about as big as the things that make him angry – Winston Churchill

Even though we have been in a much better place for 700 years now, we know that the passing of time has not eliminated the instinct of persecution from human nature.

I once served on a jury and, to my surprise, was voted foreman. The accused was charged with manslaughter, a serious crime with quite a harsh penalty; while driving an aged-care minivan filled with pensioners, he’d hit and killed a pedestrian. The defendant was a facility volunteer who had been taking a group of pensioners shopping. His vehicle collided with the deceased in...

An ordinary wooden chair is a metaphor that’s often used to talk about the key dynamics of faith. But it’s worth exploring further. Perhaps we could describe this as a process of developing the theory of a chair.

The Unitarian Movement was defined as a significant minority movement under the influence of Humanism. The name “Unitarians” comes from the belief in one divine Person, a belief also common to Judaism and Islam, as opposed to the doctrine of the Trinity.

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.

When we are isolated with our family, problems that are sometimes easy to ignore become more acute, and the need to receive and offer forgiveness to those around us becomes increasingly evident.

When war kills not one but three of your children, what is there left besides hatred?

The stories of gods and their vengeance permeated the ancient world—but one culture changed the story to introduce a better way to relate to the divine.

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...

Every human being, without exception, is a potential suicide. If we look at suicide as a process of self-judgment, condemnation, and execution, every human being walks down this path, at least some of the way.