Theology

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.

Right at the start of the political thriller, The Post, a scene portrays military analyst Daniel Ellsberg with an empty gaze and a soul burdened by the horrors of the Vietnam war he was forced to document for the United States Department of Defense.

You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God...

Some expectations dissolve into routine or turn into despair, while others invigorate life. The former are measured in deeds and desires, while the latter are measured in faithfulness and beliefs.

Was the death of Jesus the end of an extraordinary life, or just the beginning of eternal life for those who believe in Him?

As soon as the tourists leave the land of the silent agony of Gethsemane, their lives return to normal, and the garden where the Son of God sobbed in indescribable pain, misunderstood and unsupported even by His closest disciples, sinks back into oblivion.

On the days of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, there were at least ten other events that would have disrupted and animated any editorial meeting. Within a very short space of time, unique events with historical implications took place, in different dimensions and in different areas.

I grew up on the border between two different universes, not geographically but spiritually. There, across that fine line, lived more than half of my extended family, with a different worldview.

To know God is an aspiration inherent in the rational being who recognises His existence.

When you discover that the only thing you have left is faith in God, you fervently wish that your faith doesn't end up poisoning your soul.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, Max Lucado wrote an article summarising the spiritual lessons we can learn from an event that the news described as a "once in a thousand year flood".

In the frenzy that grips most Christians at this time of year, the coverage of Easter celebrations in the press is a good indication of how people prepare for Easter.

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

Fines, military ordinances, police and army patrolling the streets – this is the reality we have suddenly found ourselves living in. It is a tightening reality, a rigid corset-like structure of rules.

“If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them” (James 4:17). Yet Jesus asks, “Do you want to get well?” This question highlights that good cannot be done just any way or against a person’s will. Jesus shows that human will must be respected before God’s power can address sickness.