Social

Mainstream culture has tried to airbrush guilt out of everyday life. It’s the ultimate social faux pas, it seems, to make someone feel guilty—How dare you judge me! Or maybe it’s the penultimate faux pas, because what’s even worse than making someone feel guilty inside is to shame them in front of others.

Romantic love is easily hurt and somewhat pretentious, especially when faced with direct honesty. Friendship is more solid.

Over 30 years ago, Bruce Farrer, a teacher at Bert Fox Community High School in Saskatchewan, set his Year 9 students a special assignment and made them a promise. Many years later, his former students were in for an extraordinary surprise when their teacher kept his promise to the letter.

Recently, I went trekking in Nepal. Sometimes upon returning from a trip, I feel the pressure to return with exciting stories—the near-death experiences and anecdotes that leave people wide-eyed and laughing.

Fundamentalist movements, extremist and sectarian religious beliefs, manipulations of the mass of believers, conspiracy theories within religious sects, and other such threats, emphasise the need for critical thinking.

The relationship between a parent and their child is one of the most significant in their lives, with its primary role being education.

In the book Love Beyond Reason, John Ortberg presents familiar and hidden nuances of a love that emerges revealingly from chapter to chapter, using lived out stories and biblical episodes, as well as familiar illustrations from literature.

Let’s begin by extrapolating Paul’s assertion: “...but test them all; hold on to what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

For some people, suffering is temporary. For others, life itself can be a long series of painful blows. However, experience shows that recovery is possible even when people seem to be at the end of their tether.

My nana was my favourite person in the world. From as young as three, Mum would drop me off at church, help me put my backpack on and I’d waddle in to meet Nana. During worship, we’d cuddle through the songs. She was an amazing singer; I was tone-deaf. She’d whisper to me, “You have an amazing voice . . . you’re not...

You wouldn’t think so, but whether or not children do chores is one predictor of their future happiness and success. 

Is it possible, as single parents, to instil in our children a love for God and for the church?

The prelude to a divorce often comprises highly destructive behaviours, which can prevent a couple from keeping their enthusiastic promise of staying together "for better or for worse until death do us part," says American psychologist Dr John Gottman.

The Oxford Online Dictionary describes theology as “the study of the nature of God and religious belief”. That’s a helpful understanding, but let’s begin with some seriously bad theology as practised by the Russian mystic and faith healer Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin. 

I request from my colleagues at the ST.N editorial office at least three sources for news and at least two books for the analysis topics: one for and one against. Ideally, the reading of the first two books will give rise to the desire to look for at least two more, so that the differences are clearer. After that, there will be a...