An obsession with perfection: how can you rewrite your mindset?

Do you focus on results, or rather on the challenge itself and the development process involved in completing a task? How you answer this question reveals a mindset that has significant implications for all areas of our lives.

“Mere Christianity” | Book review

"In the Trinity Term of 1929, I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England," testified C.S. Lewis in his book, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life. Today’s article, however, is about another book from the same author, Mere Christianity.

“The Cost of Discipleship” | Book review

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), author of The Cost of Discipleship and one of the remarkable figures of twentieth-century Christianity, served as a Lutheran pastor and theologian in Tübingen, Berlin, and New York, in a dark period of human history. He vehemently opposed the Nazi Party's attempt to subjugate the church to the political and ideological approach of the time. He felt the political and...

The Flight from God | Book review

The Flight from God describes the experience of distancing oneself from God. When we are under the impression that we are running away and that we reach a space where God is absent, we discover that God is already there, inviting us to believe.

Book review: Juice

In my humble but literary-educated opinion, Tim Winton is Australia’s finest living novelist. Since winning publication of his first novel in a competition for young writers in 1981, he has had 10 more novels published, as well as collections of stories, plays, books for younger readers and a handful of non-fiction works. Winton has won Australia’s top literary prize—the Miles Franklin Award—on four...

A game of life

“Circumstances do not matter when you have a dream.” This seems to be the central message of the stories of those who have succeeded despite unimaginable obstacles. But can dreams still be born in the midst of the struggle for survival, in depravity, and misery? And even if they are born, do they have a chance of survival?

“Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead?” | Book review

The obvious opposition to one of the most widespread Christian teachings is likely to provoke strong reactions, which is what happened with the book Immortality of the Soul or the Resurrection of the dead?,[1] by the renowned Lutheran theologian Oscar Cullmann (1902-1999).

“God, Gödel, and Grace” by Clifford Goldstein | You have reasons to believe

There have always been people who relish a debate—though all too often, even when the subject hardly matters, the whole exercise amounts to little more than intellectual gymnastics in a thimble and scholarly squabbles over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Dante’s imaginary translation of the torments of Hell

At the age of nine, the young Dante Alighieri fell hopelessly in love with Beatrice Portinari, a young woman of about the same age, whose image would haunt him for the rest of his life and inspire one of the most famous female characters in universal literature.

Books: from windows on the world to mirrors reflecting our inner selves

I’ll never be able to separate the memories of childhood from that of books. They intertwine like colours in fabrics, in a jumble of real and fantastical, bitter and sweet, joy and guilt.

“Boundaries: When to say yes, how to say no to take control of your life” | Book review

As Christians, we learn that we must offer love and devote ourselves to the needs of those around us. However, in life, there are times when we feel overwhelmed by what others ask of us. We feel that some people take advantage of us—our kindness, our time, or our availability. We would like to refuse certain people or tasks that are assigned to...

Teenagers and religion

In A History of Young People in the West, Giovanni Levi and Jean-Claude Schmitt posit that, in the West, adolescence is first and foremost a social-cultural construction, and therefore a cultural product. They considered it at most subsidiarily as a stage in the physiological process of growing up.

“Dear God” 

Life is not just a very cool gift. It is something that a person receives on loan from God. That's the conclusion of Oscar, the child hero of "Oscar and the Lady in Pink," a novel written by Franco-Belgian playwright, short story writer, and novelist Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt.

The quest for perfection among today’s parents

Anyone who thinks they know exactly how to raise a child will usually change their perspective after becoming a parent. Beyond the joy of welcoming a new family member, they are confronted with the "despair and helplessness" of navigating the complex and unfamiliar world in which they now find themselves, writes psychotherapist Isabelle Filliozat.

“Steps to Christ” | Book review

Ellen G. White (1827-1915) is considered the most translated American author, with books bearing her name being translated into more than 160 languages. Ellen was a woman of outstanding spiritual gifts, tireless in her mission to put into writing what she understood from God. Amazingly, her most translated book is one of the most succinct—Steps to Christ.