Rest through faith—a form of countercultural resistance
"Hi, Alina! I hope you had a productive weekend" was the opening line of an email that, to me, encapsulated a whole misguided philosophy of life.
When faith falters, and couples drift apart
Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. – Rainer Maria Rilke
The doctor who healed hatred
When war kills not one but three of your children, what is there left besides hatred?
The greatness of an ordinary life
From an early age, we are bombarded with messages telling us to stand out, to make something of ourselves, to do something great with our lives. Many times the voices are religious in nature: God has great plans for us, He will do truly remarkable things with our lives.
The incomplete revelation
Are there subjects that even Holy Scripture does not fully explain? If so, why does God allow this?
Christ in them
I notice people, and passionately collect their stories. My favourite stories include those small cracks that allow one to peek inside another soul, those moments when their voice is almost imperceptibly altered, the eyes light up for a reason I do not know, and their gestures are unexpected.
Evolution: Impossible
Dr. John Ashton of Newcastle, Australia, is a compelling example of a serious research scientist who bases his beliefs regarding the origins of the universe and life on the Bible.
The Second Coming: Escape or Energiser?
"Lianne struggled with the idea of God," Don DeLillo’s narrator says of one of the characters in his novel, Falling Man. "She was taught to believe that religion makes people compliant. This is the purpose of religion, to return people to a childlike state… . We want to transcend, to pass beyond the limits of safe understanding— and what better way to do...
How can I become authentic?
"Suppose I go to the Israelites…and they ask me, ‘What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them? God said to Moses, 'I AM who I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you'" (Exodus 3:13-14).
COVID-19: Crisis prayer
A major crisis pushes us to re-evaluate the way we see and do things in the fields of health, finance, and social interaction. But how does this crisis affect our religious practices—especially the most common of these, prayer?
A year of waiting
For me, 2022 was the year of waiting—a word that managed to define our lives, thoughts and actions to an unexpected degree.
What does Philadelphia look like and where can we find it?
“Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (John 20:17).
“He wrote our story”—but not in the way they had hoped
Their third wedding anniversary was just around the corner, but doctors had given Magda, belatedly diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a malignant bone tumour, no chance of recovery. Yet her husband Daniel continued to believe that God still had the last word.
Two steps back, but three steps forward
On the morning of the 15 November 2016, I awoke in a hospital bed, with no memory of how I got there. My favourite pyjamas had been torn from my body, and I lay in a hospital gown, a piercing pain in my head, impaling my brain. I was barely able to think and incapable of speech. I was scared, though this was...
Stubborn faith
On a number of occasions during his writing life, Nobel Prize winner and author Elie Wiesel tried to re-tell the story of a profound experience he’d had as a young boy in the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. He wrote a play, a novel, and even a cantata to try to re-create his memory of this event, each of which remained unpublished. Finally,...