Theology

Aurelius Augustine (354-430) is known for the stirring Christian experience he described in his Confessions and for the seminal theological thought that has shaped theology to this day.

Whether we are cooking, repairing things, or solving life's problems, we are always learning from each other. However, when it comes to certain areas, including church life, the interchange of experiences is lacking. Communities often keep their ideas, and especially their mistakes, to themselves. Can we rediscover the deeply biblical nature of knowledge sharing?

"We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid." (Christopher Hitchens) 

Mary was an ordinary person, just like us. The Gospel does not suggest that she had any particular merit, yet her obedience played a pivotal role in a story that would change the world.

A magical Christmas, a magical evening, magical touch, magical love – people talk about magic when they experience special emotions that they cannot or would rather not explain. "Bring a little magic into your life". This is a saying that resonates extremely well with the expectations of an entire generation.

Ultra-rich Silicon Valley tech magnate Bryan Johnson has been regularly having transfusions of his own son’s blood plasma in an effort to live longer. The treatments are expensive and are essentially still being trialled.

"Between 1800 and 1820 more than 20,000 people emigrated from Württemberg to Russia...hastening to meet the coming Lord and to find on Ararat in the Caucasus the place of refuge at the end of the world. Johann Albrecht Bengel had calculated that Christ would come again and that the Thousand Years' empire would dawn on Sunday, 18 June 1836. The 'brotherly emigration harmonies'...

When you discover that the only thing you have left is faith in God, you fervently wish that your faith doesn't end up poisoning your soul.

How important is the second coming of Jesus Christ in traditional Christianity?

Please, not now! Don’t come right now! Please... I suddenly opened my eyes in the darkness of my bedroom and, all of a sudden, the heat wave building up during the nightmare met the coolness of the night reality. You haven’t come yet... Thank you, God!

When I was in my mid-twenties, I attended a university in Brisbane, Australia, two hours from where I lived. I had a friend in the city who I’d sometimes stay with to avoid having to travel back and forth on back-to-back uni days.

The concept of reward is one that encapsulates a world of joys, satisfactions, pleasant emotions, and accomplishments. It is usually correlated with what we do, what we say, who we are, and so on. We could say that it is an expression of our value in relation to the world. But any reward can be overshadowed by painful feelings when there is a...

This seemingly innocent question has probably caused more unrest in the last 2000 years than any other. It is, in fact, an echo of the concern of the ancient Jews to determine whether or not Israel was God's only people on earth. It also represents the echo of history that has witnessed wars born of the desire to legitimise a supreme deity.

One of today's dilemmas disputes, dialectically, the complex reality of the Bible and the secular way of looking at the "terror of history": Is God a source of morality superior to humanism, or not?

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.