Theology

By the year 2022, I had not lost anyone close to me, but I had the feeling, as never before, that death was approaching with unexpected speed. The war that was taking place to the east of Romania, and the news that we were in second place in the world in terms of the number of deaths per thousand inhabitants, made me think...

Some people who have avoided death in a plane crash by missing a flight, whether through being delayed or being denied boarding, say with great conviction: "God was with me." But for those who seek comprehensive explanations for such things, the obvious question is: why was God with them and not with those who perished?

The great challenge facing the world’s leaders right now is identifying an optimal response to a disease bearing several characteristics that make it difficult to combat.

I talked to Pastor Nicu Butoi about the role that religion could play in treating depression and hopelessness, at the end of a series of evangelistic presentations he gave to a full-house before the pandemic.

Up until the Enlightenment, the idea that the miracles recorded in the pages of the Bible happened as the biblical writers described them was widely accepted. With the rationalism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, an alternative theory emerged: that miracles were not possible in naturalistic metaphysics.

How can one explain that laws attributed to revelation are found in the legislation of other ancient peoples? How can the similarities between biblical thought and ancient culture be explained? How is the biblical God compared to the gods of other peoples?

John the Baptist's call—"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near"—succeeded in bringing Jews "from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan" to the desert where the prophet preached, to confess their sins and be baptised. Two thousand years later, the exhortation to "repent" is buried under a mountain of pejorative associations.

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?

There’s something lying on a massive table. It’s a huge picture. You move closer and see that the design is made up of individual pieces, like a jigsaw puzzle. But the pattern is unusual. It’s not an image you recognise, such as a Swiss mountain or a bouquet of tulips. As you focus on the details, you notice the pattern is constantly moving...

You really don't realize what your thoughts about God are until you have nothing left but the conviction expressed in the book of the prophet Jeremiah: My Father, my friend from my youth (Jeremiah 3:4).

When we read the Gospels, we may be put off by the way Jesus Christ interprets the Hebrew Scriptures.

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

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.

The mention of the city of Rio de Janeiro evokes images of the traditional carnival or the vast, exotic beaches such as Ipanema and Leblon. But most often we think of the huge monumental statue representing Christ the Redeemer (Cristo Redentor) with wide, open arms, looking down towards humanity from the top of Mount Corcovado (700m).

Nearly four millennia after the stone ratification of the law on weekly rest, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) reiterates the right of every person to rest and leisure.[1]