Religion

Five hundred years ago, Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral. How are the motives that led to the Reformation viewed today?

October 13, 1247. In the Westminster Cathedral in London, the crowd was eagerly awaiting the revelation of a great mystery.

Was the death of Jesus the end of an extraordinary life, or just the beginning of eternal life for those who believe in Him?

Dr Carlton Byrd is the director and main speaker of Breath of Life, a television broadcast dedicated to the urban colored population in the U.S. and the Pastor of the Oakwood University Church.

For the chained man, there were now only two options: unreserved submission to the council or condemnation; recantation or death. Outside, the stake was already prepared.

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 fire and wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" (Genesis 22:7).

One of the surprises of the twentieth century when it comes to religious freedom was Dignitatis Humanae Persona, the first declaration of religious freedom officially promulgated by the Roman Catholic Church in 1965, at the end of the Second Vatican Council.

At the beginning of the 15th century, the threat of the Ottoman Empire to Eastern Europe was a painful certainty. The last Byzantines, aware of the ensuing disaster, called on Western aid, seeking political union with the Roman Catholic Church.

In ancient Israel, the high priests wore a vest that had two stones on it called the Urim and Thummim. Whenever a question about God’s will was brought to the priest, he would ask God to give the answer. If the stone on the left glowed, it indicated divine approval. If the stone on the right glowed instead, it indicated God’s disapproval.

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.

Most of our beliefs are easy to keep, as long as nothing puts them to the test. Like many others, Henry Gerecke discovered to what extent he truly believed in what he had preached for years when faced with a difficult choice.

“We need a bigger vision in prayer. We need God’s vision! Let’s keep praying and daring to ask for more—for God’s glory, that the gospel may go into all the world, into all nations, that Jesus may come!”

In centuries long buried in the mists of time, the Bible was a book for which people were willing to die—whether burned at the stake or thrown into prison. There was a time when Bibles were chained to monastery walls. Today, they are printed and distributed by the millions. Yet it seems fewer people are actually reading them.

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