god edition 2024latest news & developments
Gathering in harmony: Young women of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in South Africa’s Sedibeng Youth Choir get together for church practice.

Finding home in clap and tap music

Clap and tap music offers a welcoming sanctuary for individuals navigating the complexities of faith and spirituality

  • Eyaaz
3 min read
Not playing: The late British actor Terrence Hardiman played Mephistophilis in Doctor Faustus in 1968. (Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The devil gets the best lines

The battle between Satan and the forces of good has preoccupied writers for aeons

  • Eyaaz
8 min read
Beliefs: Matters such as Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people and the role of women in society are among the issues that will decide where Muslim voters place their crosses in May’s elections. Photo David Turnley/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images

Who will Muslims vote for?

Few parties align with my beliefs as a follower of Islam and a South African, writes Ozayr Patel

  • Umamah Bakharia
6 min read
Neverending fight: Albert Camus, author of La Peste, uses a plague to explore humanity and belief in God in fighting a catastrophe. Another layer of meaning may be the plague is a symbol of Nazi Germany’s occupation of France in World War II. Photo: Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images

‘Salvation is too big a word for me’

Drew Forrest examines the battle between dogmatic faith and practical humanism in French master Albert Camus’ finest novel, ‘The Plague’

  • Eyaaz
6 min read
Shot to hell: An unknown artist, c 1840, depicts hell in the painting Purgatory as a place of eternal torture. Photo: Heritage Art/Heritage Images/Getty Images

God edition: Why I reject the hellfire doctrine

Does a God of love really torment people’s souls for all eternity in a place of flames?

  • Umamah Bakharia
6 min read
Sign of the times: Political leaders sometimes inspire fanatical devotion. Former president Jacob Zuma at the St John Apostolic Church in Johannesburg is flanked by Reverend John Molefe Moloi and Archbishop Daniel Mathe. (Lucky Morajane/Gallo Images)

The fallacy of politicians as saviours

They are as weak and flawed as the rest of us, so why do so many look to them for salvation, asks Des Erasmus

  • Des Erasmus
6 min read
Secret memory: The Senegalese writer and France’s Prix Goncourt winner Mohamed Mbougar Sarr (above) wrote a book inspired by the life of the late prize-winning Malian novelist Yambo Ouologuem, who was most likely falsely accused of plagiarism.(Photo by Eric Fougere/Corbis via Getty Images)

The paper that sees and speaks

The search for an elusive West African writer accused of plagiarism comes full circle

  • Eyaaz
8 min read
Disputed: The Ram Mandir was consecrated in January. The Hindu temple is built on a site believed to be the birthplace of Lord Rama. In 1992, Hindu nationalists demolished the Babri Mosque on the same site, the site of another temple in the 16th century. Photo: Ritesh Shukla/Getty Images

God edition: Hindu nationalism clangs temple bells

We should question the politics using the Hindu religion and we must reject it if it is wrong

  • Umamah Bakharia
4 min read
‘Spare no one’: Israel has declared a war of attrition, of annihilation, in Gaza, and its leaders have invoked not only the Book of Samuel but also the Crusades. Civilians, even children, are killed in the war that includes starvation as a weapon. Photo: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images

God edition: Where is God in the Gaza war?

The Israeli invasion is also a battle between religion and law with no certain outcome

  • Emsie Ferreira
8 min read

God edition: Faith, fear and the economy

Economies can be shaped by religion – and vice versa – and the dynamic between faith, politics and economics in Gaza shows what happens to our humanity in the process, writes Sarah Smit

  • Umamah Bakharia
7 min read
Mosaic of values: Life in urban Iran – as experienced in Khaju Bridge (top and left) and Naqsh-e Jahan Square (above) – is in bright contrast to the strongman politics of the Iranian government. Photos: Mujahid Safodien/Middle East African News Agency

The City of God – and contradiction

Tehran is the archetype of a place that is governed by the divine but defined by mortals

  • Umamah Bakharia
7 min read
(Graphic: John McCann/M&G)

God edition: Conversations with the new divine

‘In the beginning there was the Word of God. Now the Word is AI, writes Scott Peter Smith

  • Scott Peter Smith
6 min read
A solar panel is installed on the roof of a mud hut in Qhaka, a village near Port St Johns. Photo by Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images

God edition: The energy transition isn’t just

The shift to clean energy must consider poorest of the poor and the natural environment

  • Sheree Bega
6 min read
Redemption: A daily childhood diet of fire and brimstone from his grandfather (above) drove the author away from the church and towards the football stadium. Photo: Alex Bowie/Getty Images

The Gospel according to St Geordie

I’m feeling the Easter Sunday redemption vibes and, with greater anticipation, a return to league football by the Arsenal Football Club

  • Eyaaz
4 min read
Inspirational goddesses: The Muses Urania and Calliope painted by 17th-century French artist Simon Vouet. Photo: Heritage Art/Getty Images

Is creative inspiration divine?

The South African author Fiona Snyckers muses about what makes writers and poets tick

  • Eyaaz
5 min read
Faith-baiting: Flowers are laid to respect the victims of the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, for which Isis has claimed responsibility. Photo: Contributor/Getty Images

Let’s make a worthy God in our own image

If we make God in our image, let it not be the genocidal maniac worthy only of contempt but rather a God of kindness, worthy of our worship

  • Douglas White
4 min read
Two by two: A 17th-century print shows Noah, his family, the animals and birds enter the ark. Did Adam and Eve’s serpent (or its descendants) slither on too? Photo: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

God edition: Religion’s hard to believe in, I swear

But the full range of words linked to religion and godly figures have vastly improved our ability to express surprise, anger, shock and even hatred

  • Umamah Bakharia
7 min read
Suffering: Iman al-Masri, a displaced Palestinian, gave birth to quadruplets in a shelter at a school in the Gaza Strip on 25 December. Photo: Majdi Fathi/Getty Images

The vulnerable experience of childbirth during war

When Hamas attacked Israel from the Gaza Strip on 7 October, I was nine months pregnant … what if I had been there?

  • Umamah Bakharia
4 min read
Dancing in the dark: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band perform in Massachusetts in the US in August during their world tour. Photo: Lisa Dragani/Getty Images

God with a battered Telecaster

In his music and concerts, Bruce makes us feel seen, cared for and loved – just like a deity should

  • Eyaaz
7 min read
Haves and have-nots: The skyline of Sandton, home to the richest square mile in Africa, forms the backdrop to Alexandra township in Johannesburg. Photo: Waldo Swiegers/Getty Images

Is God good to everyone?

If He is, then when will people like me get to experience his abundant goodness and mercy?

  • Eyaaz
6 min read