Theology

When I was four years old, my younger brother was born. My parents focused on my brother and spent less time with me. It was only 40 years later that I discovered how this had affected me.

"Where is God?" is the question that arises in the face of inexplicable tragedy. When even a high-ranking clergyman is plagued by this question, the natural response is to conclude that something does not add up.

God is never the one to leave. He is the one who is abandoned. Even when Scripture describes Him as turning His face away, we understand that this is in fact the reluctant and painful recognition of man's decision to go beyond the point of no return in his relationship with God.

What do you imagine heaven will be like? American science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov famously said, “For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.” Although I love Jesus, I think I am a bit afraid of getting bored there too. There’s a prevailing picture of heaven as being some sort of suspended animation, which may play into this.

“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength,” says Corrie ten Boom, thus underlining a truth all Christians burdened by worry should remember.

In Dante Aligheri's Divine Comedy, written in the early 14th century, hell is described as a "city of woe" and a place of "eternal pain"—metaphors of endless suffering.

What guarantees do we have that the texts from which modern translations of the Bible were made reflect the original?

I sat slouched on the edge of my bed, blue light illuminating my face in the dark. It was the tenth time I’d checked my phone in the space of five minutes. I grimaced. Was something wrong with me?

The tempest in our teacup, the controversy over religious education, has stirred up anger and debate not only about the fairness of filling in a form, but also about the role and purpose of religion in children's lives.

The book of Exodus is the second book in the Bible. It follows God’s servant Moses leading the Israelites out of slavery and through the desert towards the hoped-for Promised Land. Along the way, they stop at Mt Sinai. Moses goes up the mountain and receives from God ten commandments carved on a stone tablet. This is one of the most famous sections...

It is estimated that over 100 million Bibles are printed annually, which means over 11 000 per hour, or about 3 every second. These numbers show the huge impact the Bible has on people’s lives.

The Bible is the best-selling book of all time. But while people are aware that the Bible exists, these days relatively few know much about it or have taken the time to actually read it.

The great challenge facing the world’s leaders right now is identifying an optimal response to a disease bearing several characteristics that make it difficult to combat.

In the turbulent times of the first crusades to reclaim Palestine and Jerusalem from the Muslims, a Jew was born in 1135 AD in Cordoba, the capital of Muslim Andalusia. His influence would leave a strong mark not only on Jewish thought but also on Christian and Islamic thought. His name was Moses Maimonides, or Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon. 

From my experience and the conversations I have had so far, I have found that there are two major categories of people who come to doubt the existence of God.