Religion

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.

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?

Dr Kendra Haloviak-Valentine, Professor of New Testament at La Sierra University in Redlands, California, comes from a family with a tradition of theology and research.

"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."

On May 19th, 1780, a strange phenomenon turned a sunny morning into an unexpected night. The event, known as the Dark Day, was seen as a sign of divine judgment by contemporaries and as a means of ridiculing apocalyptic expectations by sceptics.

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.

I still remember it like it was yesterday: the brightness of the sun on my skin, the chill of the water, the crowds of cheering people. We had gathered that Saturday afternoon on the shores of Lake Jindabyne, a half-hour drive from Mount Kosciuszko, Australia’s tallest mountain.

We’d been married only a few weeks when we discovered that growing our spirituality as a couple was going to be much more complicated than the instructions on the packet suggested.

This question is asked by critics who want to point out the social, cultural and contextual nature of the Christian religion, and its relativism, presenting it as a product of society rather than of revelation.

"When I was little, I felt that God was with me, but now I feel so lonely! I wonder if God really was with me back then".

“Imagine there’s no heaven ...” sang John Lennon. “… and no religion too.” The implication is that the world would be a better place without religion. Wrong. Christianity has changed the world in dramatic and positive ways.

In writing this article, I asked a handful of people what the worst thing they had ever received for Christmas was. The answers I received were interesting, to say the least.

In 2015, charismatic evangelical Jeremiah Johnson, who worked as a pastor and church planter in Florida, USA, made a bold claim. He announced that a voice from God had told him in a dream that Donald Trump would become the President of the United States. When this prediction came to pass, Johnson gained nationwide fame.

How important is the second coming of Jesus Christ in traditional Christianity?

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.