Theology

Nothing can prepare us in advance for the suffering we will experience in this life. But even knowing this, we often remember with guilt the moments of blissful ignorance we had before suffering hit us.

Any religion’s popularity depends on the rewards it promises. While people are interested in the immediate benefits of this life, they are mostly interested in the future, the hope their religion brings, and how solid it is.

Last night I had one of those dreams. You know, the kind you wake up from and remember. Basically, there were a lot of things that were unusual, but people and places that were familiar—common themes for many who remember their dream content.

In The Legacy of John Calvin, David W. Hall divides leaders into two categories. Some predict the future, and others change it. Calvin, Hall said, is in the second category.

Andrew McChesney knew what he wanted—to be a famous journalist. He thought Moscow would be a good place to learn his craft and make a name for himself, which he did. But his years in Russia shaped his life in a much deeper way—it was there that he discovered God and found new meaning in life.

Have you ever seen the early morning worship programs on television? The packed congregations, the huge church venues, the smooth-talking evangelist who delivers the perfect sermon . . . Church seems to be where the action is. That there are so many new mega-churches popping up all over the world suggests that a lot of people are desperate for spiritual guidance and fellowship....

In the opening scene of The Good Place, celestial being Michael (Ted Danson) explains that most world religions and philosophies get their respective understandings of the afterlife only about five per cent right.

Economic capitalism has a psychological twin, one that is not as bold and brash as its profit-obsessed counterpart, but if we look into the subtle details of our interior universe we find it hidden there.

Christianity is either historical or not. It claims that “God acted decisively in history, revealing Himself in external, specific events attested in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.”[1] The most important of these events was the coming of Jesus as the Messiah, the saving Christ.

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).

The idea of hell takes up a dark corner in most of our minds, whether we think about it or not.

The metaphor of the church as a hospital is so popular in the neo-Protestant milieu that it seems to highlight the hypocrisy of those attending church services even more. That’s what I used to believe until one day when I witnessed the opposite with my very own eyes.

“We need a bigger vision in prayer. We need God’s vision! Let’s keep praying and daring to ask for more—for God’s glory, that the gospel may go into all the world, into all nations, that Jesus may come!”

In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures – Psalm 104:24

Should we be optimistic or pessimistic about our future? This is a question even specialists are concerned with, and it cannot be answered easily. It is difficult to predict what the future holds.