Opinion

IN THE movie, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, the gypsy sings her prayer: “God help the outcast, hungry from birth. Show them the mercy they don’t find on earth. God help my people win them to you still. God help the outcast when nobody will … Please help my people, the poor and down trod. I thought we always (are) children of God.” […]

IN MY office hangs a poster of the painting Dalit Madonna by Jyoti Sahi, an artist and practical theologian from South India. The Eastern orthodox tradition calls Mary Theotokos, or “Godbearer”, because she quite literally bore God’s presence into the world. A friend of mine tells me that God specialises in calling upon unlikely suspects […]

A FEW years ago, my family and I visited Ground Zero in New York City. There was a long line of visitors. While gazing at the rocks and concrete where the World Trade Center once stood, something caught my attention. I saw, at a corner, the remains of a steel structure. It was in the […]

THE Church is a faith community governed by the love of Christ. It seeks to help people experience God and build quality relationships with each other. As secularisation increases, paradoxically, there is also an increase in religiosity in the world. Is the Church positioned to address real human needs, promote true spiritually and build authentic […]

MANY Christians are familiar with the hymn “Come Thou Fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace”. The second stanza begins: Here I raise my Ebenezer Hither by thy help I’m come. There is a revised version found in Anglican Church of Canada’s hymnal Common Praise. It goes like this: Here I make faith’s […]

IN HIS letter to the Corinthians, Paul paints a picture of spiritual healing at the end of life. This is an important concept because end of life care is becoming an increasingly important concern in our society as modern medical interventions paradoxically prolong the process of dying as doctors fight the battle against death. This […]

Aim for our goals BELIEVE it or not, there is a global pandemic fever. It is called the “World Cup Fever”. Today if you do not know anything about the World Cup, like who is in the semi-finals, people might think you are from another planet. I realise that the World Cup is a great conversation […]

THE strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not just please themselves. Yet how often has the Christian community done the exact opposite and insisted that the weak become strong if they wanted to be accepted? Again, the church needs to be reminded that we are a community of needy pilgrims, […]

One newbie player’s experience in the virtual world HOW do you react when you see someone sitting for hours at a computer, busy playing a game, or when you pass by a gaming centre and see rows of teenagers playing digital games, oblivious of their surroundings? Or do you think that it may be better […]

IN DECEMBER 1945, Muhammad Ali and his brothers of the al-Samman clan accidentally discovered a collection of ancient documents at Jabal al-Tarif, a spot near Nag Hammadi, a village in northern Egypt. They found a storage jar containing 12 leather-bound books (codices) and eight leaves removed from the thirteenth book. With the family of Muhammad […]

A FAMOUS minister was scheduled to preach at a small church out in the country. When that Sunday came, every seat in the sanctuary was filled, and a crowd was standing outside. As the church was a small one, it didn’t have a PA system. So just before the preacher was about to begin his […]

FLEMMING ROSE just doesn’t get it. Flemming Rose is the Culture Editor of the Danish Jyllands-Posten newspaper that printed 12 cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad on Sept 30, 2005. As I write this, Rose has crazy plans to even things up by printing caricatures of Jesus. That will calm people down for sure, especially as […]