March 30, 2015
We were caught off guard as we stepped inside the St Denis Cathedral in northern Paris yesterday. After spending the weekend in dialogue with missionary couples working among secular, unchurched Parisians, we expected to encounter the stereotype of Christianity today, a huge empty cathedral with perhaps a few old women praying before the altar. To […]
March 23, 2015
The street girls called her the angel of Berlin. But now they’ll miss Patricia Green walking the shady streets where the girls ply their trade, with her smile and a basket of give-aways. Last week, she lost her battle against cancer and passed away in her home country of New Zealand, where tomorrow a memorial […]
March 16, 2015
Wherever the Irish are in this world, they’ll be painting the town green tomorrow, St Patrick’s Day–if they haven’t already started. Even in the Netherlands, green will dominate the Grote Markt in the centre of The Hague, where there’ll be Irish dancing, music and Guinness beer flowing. Celebrations have already begun in London, where 900,000(!) […]
March 9, 2015
Facts and figures were not the essence of education; norms and values were. That was the core belief of the inspiring fourteenth-century educational pioneer, Johan Cele, whom my wife and I revisited on an evening walk through a 600-year old district of the city of Zwolle last week. With about a hundred others, we made […]
March 2, 2015
Europe, the nursery of world Christianity, has itself become a most challenging and strategic mission field. Late last century, Lesslie Newbigin signalled this development when he compared the difference between the pre-Christian pagan and the post-Christian pagan to that between a virgin and a divorcee. What hope is there then for the continent that has […]
February 23, 2015
A documentary exploring the ‘ambient emptiness of post-modern society’, rated in the top ten films of the Montreal Film Festival, will be premiered next week in Brussels and Paris. Three young film-makers from Quebec set out to incite a society-wide conversation about the foundations of social values. The result is L’Heureux Naufrage (The fortunate shipwreck), […]
February 16, 2015
Marriage Week is over and Valentine’s Day too. But now the homework begins. For improving our marriage relationships and family relationships is a daily task that never ends. That’s quite a challenge in the context of the major changes taking place in the family domain over recent generations. We hear constantly about declining marriage rates, […]
February 9, 2015
While visiting a sculpture park in New Zealand some time ago, my wife and I came across a giant clothes peg standing well over two metres high. Yet the one word on the name board made us see this common household object in a totally new perspective. For this oversized yet familiar, everyday gadget was […]
February 2, 2015
Following the killings of four Jews in a kosher market in Paris last month, commemorations held last week of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp by Soviet troops carried special poignancy. As a handful of aging camp survivors revisited the scene of one of the greatest crimes in history–where […]
January 26, 2015
Sir Fred Catherwood was a unique figure in the British and European evangelical world. Vice-president of the European Parliament as communism was collapsing from 1989 to 1992, and later president of the Evangelical Alliance in the UK, he dared to suggest that only a return to Christian faith could hold the European Union together. When […]
January 19, 2015
Questions bombard us from all sides. Where and when will the next Islamist terror attack be? What will Putin do next? What effect will the Greek elections have on the European economy? Can democracy survive the intolerance of the ‘tolerance’ parties? Where is Europe headed? What message of hope do we have to bring to […]
January 12, 2015
Let me exercise the freedom of expression everyone on the streets says they are defending: Je n’suis pas Charlie! After the mass demonstrations in Paris and other cities across Europe and beyond, I’m left unsettled and confused. What statement exactly were our leaders and the crowds trying to make? Of course the terrorist attack was […]
