Religion

Hendel Butoy was born in Brazil and raised in southern California. He studied at the California Institute of the Arts, and was then offered a position as an animator at Walt Disney in 1979.

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.

The sermons. My mother’s stories. The little sand table and Sabbath School for children. Adults’ conversations about religion. All the information I absorbed in childhood helped me sketch an image of Jesus with one major flaw: it was rendered in far too many shades of grey.

Every time I look through the lens of a microscope, I am struck by the realisation that beyond what the naked eye can see lies a universe far deeper and richer.

During medieval times, eating eggs was forbidden during Lent (the 40 days before Easter). Any eggs laid were saved and decorated to celebrate on Easter Sunday. Apparently, everyone enjoyed tucking into their eggs, too.

"Is it not too sadly true that we can recollect anything but Christ, and forget nothing so easy as Him whom we ought to remember?"—Charles Spurgeon

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.

From the ship’s hold, 102 passengers poured eagerly onto the deck, pale after 65 days of confinement, longing to see the sky and dry land again. Their arrival in the New World might have gone entirely unnoticed had these immigrants not marked history with a first act that would come to define modern democracy.

“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 The Legacy of John Calvin, David W. Hall divides leaders into two categories. Some predict the future, and others change it. Calvin, Hall said, is in the second category.

Following several surveys (1988, 1991, 2009), the Gallup organisation revealed both good news and bad news. The good news is that 94 percent of people believe forgiveness is very important. The bad news is that 85 percent admit they are not ready to do it on their own.

One day, Jesus’s disciples—who followed Him about, observing His every word and action—asked Him to teach them how to pray.

At the appointed time in the plan of salvation, Christ was sent to us: "When the set time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law..." (Galatians 4:4).

They’re singing carols. Putting up fairy lights and mistletoe and fake snowflakes. The stores are full of Crosby, tinsel and Bublé. Yes, Santa’s on his way and, somehow, the list of what’s in his enormous red sack of gifts has appeared on my credit card statement. I know: I’ve checked it—twice!

The “poor of Christ”, the “poor of Lyon” or, simply, the “brothers” never called themselves “Waldenses” until they joined the Reformation. The derisive appellative was given to them by their persecutors, after the name of the man who consolidated the doctrine of the community.