March 26, 2022
A column in de Volkskrant, a leftish Dutch newspaper, grabbed my attention this week: ‘Europe must rearm itself, especially morally.’ For the first time in two generations, the term ‘rearmament’ is reappearing in the headlines. The shock-effect of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been to recalibrate everything over the past month, including galvanising German […]
March 19, 2022
This year’s performances of Johan Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion by choirs and orchestras across Europe have an extra dimension of pathos as Ukraine suffers under unprovoked aggression. Considered one of the greatest musical works ever composed, the sacred oratorio depicts the false accusations, lies and unjustified suffering inflicted on Jesus, ending in his crucifixion […]
March 12, 2022
With Churchillian defiance and against all odds, Vladimir Zelensky and the Ukrainian people are defending their families, fatherland and freedom on land, sea and in the air. This is their darkest yet finest hour. Despite the ruthless destruction of the children’s hospital in Mariopol and other tragic atrocities against civilian targets, the Ukrainians refuse to […]
March 5, 2022
Andrey Zubov is a brave and honest man. As one of Russia’s leading historians and political scientists, he dared to speak out against the annexation of the Crimea in 2014, comparing Putin’s invasion with Hitler’s Austrian anschluss. He was temporarily sacked from his professorial chair at the Moscow State Institute of Interational Relations (MGIMO). Last […]
February 26, 2022
Mr Putin’s messianic pretensions as saviour of Russian civilisation have deep religious and historical roots. Yet our western secular world tends to filter out religion and pre-Enlightenment history as irrelevant. Hence our surprise at the Hitleresque attack this week, reminiscent of the Nazi occupation of Sudetenland in 1938, or the blitzkrieg on Rotterdam in May […]
February 19, 2022
Bans on conversion therapy are being passed feverishly in countries around the world following a United Nations directive against the ‘inherently degrading and discriminatory’ practice. Canada, France, Germany and twenty-eight of the United States of America have passed bans, with Britain and the Netherlands in process against such therapy. According to the UN, it ‘inflict[s] […]
February 12, 2022
Politics, as everybody ‘knows’, is a dirty business. No place for Christians, so the argument goes. Or should we say that’s the very reason why Christians should be involved? This week in Brussels, Romkje and I have been coaching young aspiring politicians as part of a programme of the European Christian Political Movement wrestling with […]
February 5, 2022
No one these days dares speak against sustainability. After all, who’d want Greta Thunberg to get on their case? Unless, of course, we’re talking about relationships. For here we touch on one of society’s big hypocrisies. Our governments and industries spend billions on promoting the sustainability of natural resources and environment. But who’s investing in […]
January 29, 2022
No-one knows what Vladimir Putin is going to do next on the Ukrainian border – including perhaps Putin himself. Having made such sweeping demands for western concessions, he cannot easily simply back out of the confrontation he has created without losing face. Options include a ‘peace-keeping’ mission taking over the Donbas area, and/or the strip […]
January 22, 2022
On a family visit last week, I was taken to the city which a thousand years ago was Europe’s (some say the world’s) largest and most cultured. Not Rome, nor London, nor Paris – but Cordoba, in southern Spain. With an estimated population of 450,000 at the turn of the millennium, the city boasted […]
January 15, 2022
When Henry Vyner-Brooks proposed a double biography about two ‘Fathers of Europe’, his publishers were not convinced it would work. Although they had previously published his Renaissance novels, they balked at his plan to present a ‘set of binoculars with which to observe the drama of western civilisation’. After all, the names and stories of […]
January 10, 2022
Reflections with family and friends on the highs and lows of the past year over the past days were enriched by a story shared in a friend’s Christmas newsletter. After a church service, a young lad was intrigued by the organ console with its maze of stops, pedals and keyboards. When the organist asked him […]
