Theology

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

The smell of burning food filled my tiny kitchen. “What's that smell?” I asked a friend who was sharing my house for the week. Every young man knows the smell, familiar from an early age—your first acquaintance comes from burnt toast and camping trips where, after burning everything you tried to cook, you end up eating your baked beans straight from the can.

Although they are constantly improving their preparedness for crises and disasters, modern societies find themselves powerless in the face of a growing threat: transnational crises.

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.

Jim Ayer was, for most of his life, a slave to his own dreams—a fisherman of thrills and addictions. From when he was a child, he attached a ball and chain to each ankle, closed himself up in his own world, and threw away the key.

"Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upwards" (Job 5:7).

Judging by the headlines in the press over the last weeks, the world seems ready to have a discussion about sin.

I was born and raised in a Seventh-day Adventist Christian family, so Jesus was a familiar presence in our home. Although it took me...

If science were a religion, how violent would it be compared with Christianity?

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.

There are predictions made in the Bible. Have all the predictions of the past been fulfilled? If not, what does the failure of some of them to be fulfilled say about the credibility of the Bible?

At the end of a journey tracing how the belief and hope in the Second Coming of Jesus have manifested themselves in the two-thousand-year history of Christianity, the final part of The Second Coming Files presents the remaining elements that link that history to the present day: the Millerite movement and Adventism.

British physicist and author Paul Davies predicts a future in which the need for spiritual guidance will be stronger than ever, but, at the same time, believes that “any religion that refuses to embrace scientific discovery is unlikely to survive to the 22nd century”.

God is never the one to leave. He is the one who is abandoned. Even when Scripture describes Him as turning His face away, we understand that this is in fact the reluctant and painful recognition of man's decision to go beyond the point of no return in his relationship with God.

The way we pray in public reveals what our secret prayers are truly like. Beyond mere words, it is our attitude and motivation that give meaning and substance to prayer.