Life

• And Was He God With Us?: A meditation for Christmas

  And was he God With Us the second the Spirit shadowed the virgin?

• John's Gospel: Christmas on a cosmic scale

  It's all too easy over the Christmas season to swap the important stuff for the big, shiny festive stuff and end up disappointed.

• Doing good in secret: How George W Bush sponsored a child through Compassion International

  An extraordinary story has emerged of former US president George W Bush's anonymous sponsorship of a Filippino child through Christian agency Compassion.

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  Diets heavy in junk food increase risk of depression, study finds

  Eating too much fast food, processed meat and cakes is putting people at increased risk of depression, according to a new study.

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  Over a quarter of Brits and Americans would like to see a female or gender-neutral Santa

  With the 'gender neutral' trend shaking up everything from personal identities to clothes and toys, it should come as no surprise that over a quarter of people also want it to shake up the tradition of a male Santa Claus.

• Silent Night: the story of the carol that paused a war

  Two popular stories contribute to its appeal: one concerning the circumstances of its composition in Oberndorf, near Salzburg in Austria, and the other its role in the Christmas Truce of 1914 when the opposing forces walked out of their trenches to greet their enemies and share food and drink.

• Where is the Cross in Revelation?

  Any discussion of 'the cross' in the Book of Revelation initially looks like a substantial challenge: it is barely mentioned at all overtly.

• Both/and discipleship: Why Christians need to embrace complexity

  Our culture has a decidedly fraught relationship with complexity.

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  Using cannabis alters genetic structure of sperm

  Cannabis is changing sperm but scientists are not completely sure how this will impacts users' children

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  Respect, gratitude and honesty are the top three life lessons parents want to teach their children

  The top three life lessons parents want to teach their children are to 'be respectful', 'be thankful for what you have' and be honest, new research has found.

• Living Advent Calendar is a hit with Hertfordshire village

  The village of Redbourn in Hertfordshire has taken the idea of marking each day of Advent by opening a new door to a new level.

• When Christmas is just plain hard: 5 ways to help you cope

  Christmas is often more messy and broken than merry and bright.

• The power of hope: Christmas and the death of fear

  One of the reasons many of us are avid movie watchers is that Hollywood blockbusters often give us hope.

• The extraordinary prayer life of Thomas Cochrane, missionary to China

  Towards the end of his life, missionary Thomas Cochrane declared: 'All my prayers have been answered.'

• No room at the inn? Why Jesus was really laid in a manger

  Imagine a girl about to give birth, turning up at a hotel. Who wouldn't give up their room for her?