Faith

All COVID-19 statistics lead to the same conclusion: the young ones, our children, are at the lowest risk of getting ill or dying from the virus. That’s comforting. But the pandemic does pose a certain danger to them.

Richard Dawkins is arguably the world’s best-known atheist. His 2006 book The God Delusion was a runaway success and widely influential. That’s why theologian Alister McGrath was surprised when a young man told him he became a Christian after reading The God Delusion.

When I was four years old, my younger brother was born. My parents focused on my brother and spent less time with me. It was only 40 years later that I discovered how this had affected me.

We have become so accustomed to authors and researchers being highly specialised in niche fields, that we are tempted to be skeptical of works they produce outside of their accepted field of expertise. It seems bizarre therefore that an author of children's literature could also be a professor at Oxford and Cambridge and an expert on the medieval era.

"To feel that you have meaning is to feel immortal," psychology professor and author Clay Routledge wrote in 2014. Is this the only kind of immortality we will ever have?

From my experience and the conversations I have had so far, I have found that there are two major categories of people who come to doubt the existence of God.

When I was 20, my spiritual life felt like an exam where I had been given a topic I hadn’t prepared for.

Jeddah is different, at least according to its city motto. This Saudi Arabian port city on the Red Sea is home to more than 4 million people and is a gateway to Mecca: the holiest city in Islam. Millions of pilgrims come through Jeddah to visit Mecca, some 65 kilometres to the east, and Medina, Islam’s second holiest city, 360km to the north.

Rediscovering the blessing that resides in the little things of life has been one of the challenges of every season I've lived through. This is the conclusion I always come to when I take a moment to reflect.

We know that authentic forgiveness is Christian and desirable. And we also know it feels good to receive genuine forgiveness. But does God ask us to forgive under all circumstances? We often try to discover the answer to such uncomfortable questions about God by looking at those who say they know Him. And, sometimes, we have something to gain by doing so.

As we know all too well, life can be hard. Even in the best of times, life can be hard. But now this, a pandemic? How are we to cope?

Faith is a commonly used concept, but it is rarely understood in its rich semantics and philosophical implications. Christian faith rises above being defined by lists of doctrines, beliefs, moral principles, commandments, and liturgical rituals in the communicator's mind for its nature and content to be faithfully represented.

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

I never expected my work to affect my mental health. At first, like most people just starting a new job, I was thrilled about my new class, the kids I would be teaching and the environment I wanted to create for these young minds. I had a real passion for children and couldn’t wait to be the best teacher I could be. I...

Many people know the Lord’s Prayer, having learned it from a parent or grandparent. But few know that it was given as a response to the disciples’ request for Jesus to teach them how to pray.