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.

I doubt there’s a person who hasn’t heard of the Boston Marathon bombing, which took the lives of three people. As runners entered the home straight, with the finish line in sight, first one then another explosion ripped through the happy, watching throng.

They say that "all roads lead to Rome". This famous saying originated in ancient times with the extensive network of roads built by the Romans to facilitate communication and travel throughout their empire.

The dissonance between what church representatives say and what they do, the crises caused by sexual scandals, tolerating sin, not taking responsibility for mistakes and hiding them, and selling spiritual gifts for money, are just a few of the reasons why people say they’re disappointed in the Church.

I remember years ago driving to my hometown of Robertson in the Southern Highlands of NSW, Australia. It was a wet, foggy evening, and as I was nearing the crest of a hill on the outskirts of the village, I noticed a small, grey form rapidly approaching. Out of nowhere, a voice told me: “Veer to the right, now!” Startled, I did as...

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

As the crisis caused by the new coronavirus deepened and spread, it was to be expected that the phenomenon would be framed in apocalyptic terms. It is something that tends to occur in such contexts.

Dr Carlton Byrd is the director and main speaker of Breath of Life, a television broadcast dedicated to the urban colored population in the U.S. and the Pastor of the Oakwood University Church.

Imagine the conversation between God and Adam after Adam had sinned, seen himself naked for the first time (in more ways than one) and hidden from God. To the piercing question, "Why did you hide?" Adam replied, "Because I was naked". Reading between the lines, we detect the subtext: "I hid myself, for one cannot come naked before God."

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.

Following several surveys (1988, 1991, 2009), the Gallup organisation revealed both good news and bad news. The good news is that 94 percent of people believe forgiveness is very important. The bad news is that 85 percent admit they are not ready to do it on their own.

In the maximalist search for evidence that can justify our belief and, at the same time, help us defend our reputation, something is lost: the very concept of faith.

On the 22nd of November 1963, global attention was captured by the tragic assassination of American President J.F. Kennedy. On the same day, the death of one of the most influential Christians of the 20th century, the British writer and apologist C.S.Lewis, went almost unnoticed.

"Lianne struggled with the idea of God," Don DeLillo’s narrator says of one of the characters in his novel, Falling Man. "She was taught to believe that religion makes people compliant. This is the purpose of religion, to return people to a childlike state… . We want to transcend, to pass beyond the limits of safe understanding— and what better way to do...

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.