December 30, 2023
‘Happy New Year’ may sound trite with daily reports of violence and injustice in Ukraine and Gaza filling our screens. Yet happiness is a fruit of gratitude, not circumstances. This year I have often been encouraged by our YWAM Ukraine sisters and brothers who continue to express gratefulness for God’s blessings even while under constant […]
December 22, 2023
Christmas must be a very frustrating annual experience for those who would like to see all memory of the Christ story eradicated. For in a Europe that has widely turned its back on the story that, far more than any other, has shaped its culture and civilisation, Christmas remains a paradox. It refuses to fade […]
December 16, 2023
How we long for Christmas cheer and comfort as the northern winter solstice approaches, and the nights get darker and longer! For the news also seems to get gloomier and more depressing. This week has been a roller coaster of emotions. No peace is in sight in Palestine, the birthplace of Jesus, as the Hamas […]
December 9, 2023
‘Christmas celebrations are cancelled in Bethlehem this year. What should have been a season of joy and hope this year is a season of death and fear. ‘ Five hundred hushed participants at the European Parliament Prayer Breakfast in Brussels last Wednesday listened intently as Palestinian Christian leader, Dr Jack Sara, told of the sense […]
December 2, 2023
Advent was never part of the unadorned worship of my evangelical Baptist upbringing which eschewed religious ritual and liturgy. Yet it has been an essential season in the calendar of much of the Church, enriching worship throughout the centuries. Nobody quite knows how or when Advent became part of that calendar. While the dating of […]
November 25, 2023
The good thing about democracy is that everybody gets a vote. The problem with democracy is that the far-sighted and the short-sighted get equal votes. On Thursday morning we woke up in Holland to the shocking news that the national elections had been won overwhelmingly by the blond extreme-right populist politician, Geert Wilders. Many of […]
November 17, 2023
Russia’s efforts to destroy Ukraine’s distinct identity and absorb it into Putin’s vision of Russky mir includes an all-out assault on the culture, the language, the historical records and artistic expressions of Ukrainian national identity. Missile attacks deliberately target galleries, libraries, museums and churches. Some seven hundred churches have been partially or totally destroyed so […]
November 11, 2023
(Apologies for this delayed posting due to technical issues with the website) As our plane winged its way towards Malta, the EU’s southernmost member-state, fond memories of past sojourns stirred a mounting sense of anticipation. Six years have passed since Romkje and I last visited Malta for the 2017 State of Europe Forum. We are […]
November 4, 2023
The story of Martin Luther hammering his 95 theses on the Wittenberg Door – as I referred to last week – is an unconstructive myth. It promotes a wrong picture of the monk as a rebel and is unhelpful for the cause of reconciliation and unity between Protestants & Catholics. This was the thoughtful response by […]
October 28, 2023
So the clocks go back an hour in Europe this weekend. Halloween parties start this weekend and will spill over through the coming week. On Halloween itself, this Tuesday, the last day of October, Protestants will commemorate Martin Luther’s dramatic start to the Reformation. The next day, faithful Catholics will light candles and pray for […]
October 21, 2023
Legendary kiwi singer Steve Apirana is in Amsterdam this weekend to participate in a canal boat tour focusing on the spiritual history of the city. This event commemorates the 400-year anniversary of the Noorderkerk, a Protestant Reformed church built soon after the city embraced the Reformation and began to explode in wealth, population and urban […]
October 14, 2023
The horrific outburst of violence between the Hamas and Israel this week is a challenge to all followers of Jesus not to resort to knee-jerk responses: on the one hand, of blind support for everything Israel does and, on the other, blanket condemnation and fear of all Muslims in general. Much of the world rightly […]
