Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 60113 The phrase “spiritual but not religious” has become one of the defining self-descriptions of contemporary Western culture. Surveys consistently show growing numbers of people, particularly younger adults, who identify this way. They believe in something, they feel connected to something larger than themselves, they may pray or meditate, but they reject organised religion,…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 60111 Chronic illness presents one of the most sustained tests of faith a believer can face. Unlike an acute crisis that resolves one way or another, chronic conditions persist — day after day, month after month, sometimes for decades. The sufferer is not facing a moment of trial but a way of life, and…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 60112 When someone we love suffers, the instinct to help is immediate and strong — but so is the sense of helplessness. What do you say to the person whose child has died, whose diagnosis is terminal, whose marriage has collapsed, whose life has been shattered by tragedy? The temptation is either to say…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 60110 Few questions in pastoral ministry provoke more anguish than this one. A believer prays earnestly for healing, trusts God sincerely, and yet the healing does not come. The result is often confusion, guilt, or a quiet crisis of faith. The question deserves a careful, honest, and compassionate answer, because the stakes are not…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 60016 The claim that Christians and Muslims worship the same God is one of the most commonly repeated statements in interfaith dialogue. It sounds generous, inclusive, and peaceable. It is also, on careful examination, theologically incoherent. The question is not whether Christians and Muslims both claim to worship one God. They do. The question…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 60013 Hinduism is the world’s third-largest religion, with over one billion adherents, the vast majority in India and Nepal. It is also one of the oldest, with roots stretching back thousands of years. For many Western Christians, Hinduism is the most unfamiliar of the major world religions, because its assumptions about reality, the nature…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 60011 Judaism is one of the oldest religious traditions in the world and the religion from which Christianity historically emerged. Understanding what Judaism actually believes and practises is important for Christians, not because all religions are equally valid, but because the Old Testament is a Jewish book, Jesus was Jewish, and the relationship between…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 60012 Islam is the world’s second-largest religion, with nearly two billion adherents. It is also the religion that most frequently presents itself as compatible with, or even the fulfilment of, biblical faith. For this reason, Christians need to understand what Islam actually teaches, where it genuinely overlaps with Christianity, and where it fundamentally diverges….
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 60037 One of the strangest features of the contemporary West is the way relativism — the insistence that there are no absolute truths, especially in matters of morality — has produced not the tolerance it promised but a new and remarkably aggressive form of intolerance. The culture that declared “there is no absolute truth”…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 60028 This question moves from the theological framework of Q60027 to the practical: should individual Christians be actively involved in the political process? Should they vote, campaign, stand for office, lobby, and seek to influence public policy? The answer is yes, with significant qualifications that protect the integrity of the gospel and the witness…