Religion

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

This article addresses the two often conflicting aspects of the parousia: its imminence and its delay.

Given that no one could become a scholar without formal training, it is truly remarkable that Jesus, who was not formally educated, was nevertheless recognized as a “Rabbi” (Mark 12:14 cf. John 3:2).[1]

When the Scottish reformer John Knox, Calvin’s disciple, wrote in 1560 in favour of the death penalty for heretics, he was attacking Sebastian Castellio in particular. John Knox did not know then that he was attacking the father of the idea of ​​religious freedom in Christianity.

In Dante Aligheri's Divine Comedy, written in the early 14th century, hell is described as a "city of woe" and a place of "eternal pain"—metaphors of endless suffering.

The scenario in which God is a judge and His creatures are subject to His judgment culminates, in the Bible, with a happy ending for all lovers of righteousness. But what would be the end of a situation in which God is the accused in a trial instituted by His creatures? Whose ending would be happy?

The first eight days of the Council of Clermont were difficult. Although the participants were apparently discussing the reform of the clergy, or the excommunication of King Philip for adultery, the real focus of attention was the announced speech of "general interest" by Pope Urban II. Little did the prelates and important Frankish nobles present know that they were about to witness one...

“The newest religious sect has started in Los Angeles. Meetings are held in a tumble-down shack on Azusa Street...and the devotees of the weird doctrine... work themselves into a state of mad excitement...They claim to have the ‘gift of tongues’ and to be able to understand the babel”.

The Baptist Church has made significant contributions to religious life by embracing the principle of separation of church and state and the principle of religious freedom.

On April 26th 1986, reactor 4 at Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded. The effects were catastrophic­­—it was the worst nuclear disaster in history. The explosion let out the equivalent of 500 Hiroshima bombs-worth of radiation, and the area around Chernobyl—including the town of Pripyat—is now uninhabited. It will be unsafe to live there for the next 20,000 years.

Jim Elliot was 25 years old when he headed to Ecuador as a result of the answer he sought from God regarding his future.

Louis Braille said: "God was pleased to hold before my eyes the dazzling splendours of eternal hope. After that, doesn't it seem that nothing could keep me bound to the earth?"

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.

Please, not now! Don’t come right now! Please... I suddenly opened my eyes in the darkness of my bedroom and, all of a sudden, the heat wave building up during the nightmare met the coolness of the night reality. You haven’t come yet... Thank you, God!

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.