Theology

The greatest tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer. – F. B. Meyer

Slapped, spat in the face, insulted, falsely accused, lashed, ridiculed with a crown of thorns, passed from judge to judge and booed by the crowd, the Son of God chose the most unusual form of defence. Silence.

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.

Motto: "Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision." (Winston Churchill)

The world of the homeless is the darker side of our world. It is inhabited by vagrants, drug addicts, and the powerless. This world has its own rules, customs, pleasures, and pains, but lacks meaning and peace. And those who enter this world struggle to leave it.

My daughter recently posted on our family website a photo of our niece celebrating while holding a beautiful fresh rose, tall and slim, just like her. I looked at the photo for a long time then wrote under it: "Two vines." I pondered some more then wrote, "One of these vines knows why it is here on Earth, but I wonder if the...

“Soul” is a very special term. Due to lack of space, I shall not approach it here philosophically or scientifically, but exclusively in the context of biblical theology, narrowing it even further, to a linguistic point of view.

Jessica was 19 when she had to tell her parents, both practicing Christians, that she was pregnant. That moment generated a real earthquake in the young woman’s family who, together with her boyfriend at the time, had been strongly involved in the purity movement, an ideology that promotes sexual abstinence until marriage, for religious reasons.

According to attachment theory, originally formulated by John Bowlby and later refined by Mary Ainsworth, adults’ relational patterns are formed according to the model of the close relationship they formed in early childhood with their primary caregiver, who is usually the mother.

When the fear of war overwhelms our thoughts, let us not forget that we are not alone, that God will end our suffering and give us a new and everlasting life.

How can we protect ourselves against expecting too much of our friendships? Can we do something to prepare for the disappointment? And what does one do to deal with it?

In cell number 8 of the prison in Pyongyang, a few frozen and emaciated prisoners had to endure an additional torture: the pungent smell and wild screams of an untamed creature.

We have become so accustomed to authors and researchers being highly specialised in niche fields, that we are tempted to be skeptical of works they produce outside of their accepted field of expertise. It seems bizarre therefore that an author of children's literature could also be a professor at Oxford and Cambridge and an expert on the medieval era.

Traditional communities are like rivers, while modern societies are like oceans, said Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. Consider that a river—deeper or shallower, faster or slower—always has a direction, as traditional societies usually direct the lives of their members. The ocean is a different story.

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.