Theology

Concern for the planet's climate and its ecology has occupied the world's attention for many decades. In the 1980s, the ozone layer depletion caused by chlorofluorocarbons and similar gases was observed, and in 1987, the Montreal Protocol was finalised.

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...

I was a pagan as a child. Not by choice, but as a consequence of lacking any access to the Word of God. In the 1980s Romania, catechizing an Orthodox child (whose parents were members of the Communist Party) was a highly unlikely event Pavlik Morozov’s myth, the hero-child that denounced his own father, generated caution.

In the heart of the Garden of Eden, where everything seems perfect, there is an ancient struggle between freedom and restriction—a struggle we have all experienced.

The story of Jesus's first coming to earth is remarkable, not only because it was foretold thousands of years in advance, but also because the prophesied details of His passion and death were exactly fulfilled.

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".

I was there, I saw him. He was coming towards me mechanically, impassively, coldly. He suddenly stopped in front of me and waited for me to speak. For a moment, I froze. He was tall, thin, his face oval and his eyes blue, slightly sunken under his eyelids. I had met such people before, but there was something special about him.

"To feel that you have meaning is to feel immortal," psychology professor and author Clay Routledge wrote in 2014. Is this the only kind of immortality we will ever have?

How did I begin to believe in You?

Courage is not the opposite of fear, nor of caution. True courage is what you do right in the midst of fear.

In those times when grief accompanies us and we find ourselves alone in the middle of the night, does God shed tears with us?

I had a ringing in my ears due to that unusual inner silence which I was paradoxically experiencing at the same time as a thought-storm that made me scream on the inside. 

When I read “The Pitesti Phenomenon”, in my teens, I was bewildered by how cruel human nature can be. It was also then that I realized that being forced to renounce yourself, to bury your values and defining beliefs to become the reflection of a rotten system, to become inhuman is worse than being physically tortured.

In a conversation with Dr. Shelly-Ann Bowen, we discussed her research on what determines whether someone will be active or passive in the face of catastrophic events—fires, floods, or a cancer diagnosis. Social injustice, a lack of self-awareness, and even an immature understanding of faith paralyse action. But there are ways to make positive changes.

I have always been fascinated by God. And yet, I believe I could have known Him far better—much more deeply—if only I had better understood what He sought to teach me each day, including through my neighbour.