Theology

While the historic churches remained at least disinterested in millenarianism, the Apocalypse, and the Parousia—that is to say, when they were not hostile to them—Protestant pluralism allowed for both reluctance[1] and increasingly significant preoccupations with the research and publication of the themes regarding the end of the world.

In a society with a pragmatic mindset, any kind of belief is subject only to practical judgments. Effectiveness, usefulness, and utility are the basic criteria by which actions, deeds or beliefs are valued.

The Holy Scriptures call Jesus “the Lord”, that is, the Master. This was a respectful title used by slaves towards their masters in Antiquity. This is how subordinates addressed their superiors: children and their fathers; siblings, and their older siblings—or even a younger sibling who holds a high position.

Living one day according to God's plan is a good idea to start with. But learning to live in such a way every day is something else.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Europe was hit hard by several disasters, the proportions of which are difficult to imagine today.

Renee James was 18 when she decided to stop praying. If God was going to be silent, she thought, she would be silent too. She had been praying for years for the healing of her brothers, Sean and Niall, one suffering from autism and the other from Down syndrome. Yet there had been no answer.

The smell of burning food filled my tiny kitchen. “What's that smell?” I asked a friend who was sharing my house for the week. Every young man knows the smell, familiar from an early age—your first acquaintance comes from burnt toast and camping trips where, after burning everything you tried to cook, you end up eating your baked beans straight from the can.

When we read the Gospels, we may be put off by the way Jesus Christ interprets the Hebrew Scriptures.

Recently, my wife and I got hooked on a TV show. We’d wait in anticipation for the latest episode each week. The show was Old people’s home for 4-year-olds. The basic premise? Take a class of cheeky, energetic, curious four-year-olds (some of who lacked a filter) and have them spend a significant amount of time with the elderly residents of an aged-care facility.

I like to look back. When I am climbing a mountain, it is an excuse to rest. But I also do it for another reason—to see how far I have climbed.

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.

As strange as this question may seem, it is also difficult and has consequences that are not at all negligible. Even if it is not always phrased like this, or perhaps not even spoken out loud, this question arises in every home.

Up until the Enlightenment, the idea that the miracles recorded in the pages of the Bible happened as the biblical writers described them was widely accepted. With the rationalism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, an alternative theory emerged: that miracles were not possible in naturalistic metaphysics.

As a prophetic book par excellence, the Bible is often misinterpreted, its prophecies taking on fatalistic overtones or frightening attributes. Properly understood, the prophecies of the Bible do more than predict the future. They can also give the reader a clearer perspective on the present.

Some people regret the big choices they’ve made in life; others regret that life has not given them a choice.