August 31, 2024
‘By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; he went out, not knowing where he was to go.’ This verse from Hebrews 11:8 was foremost in my mind half a century ago as I left New Zealand for the first time. […]
August 24, 2024
Superhuman efforts by the some of the world’s fittest and ablest bodies riveted our attention on the Paris Olympic Games in recent weeks. These coming days, the Paralympic Games will bring us more athletic feats, this time performed by the heroic efforts of those overcoming disabilities. They are declaring to the world that social value and […]
August 17, 2024
My first encounter with Amsterdam, fifty years ago this week, was shrouded in confusion. I was on my way to the first of several concerts in the city with the Shekinah Company of some sixty singers, dancers and musicians, of which I was manager. We had just completed a concert tour in England from York […]
August 10, 2024
Competing at the Olympics is like experiencing ten funerals for every wedding. Every one person’s victory is at the expense of many others’ agony of defeat. So writes Ashley Null, chaplain to elite athletes and coaches, who also is an Anglican priest and an academic. The following letter to the Olympians is taken from his […]
August 3, 2024
The small Saxon town of Herrnhut close to the German-Polish border has been recognised as a World Heritage Site, along with two other Moravian settlements planted from Herrnhut in the 18th century in Northern Ireland and Pennsylvania, USA. This was announced a few days ago at the meeting of the UN Educational, Scientific, Cultural and […]
July 27, 2024
Behind the spectacle of the 2024 Olympic Games now underway across Paris, thousands of young Catholics and evangelicals from around the world are engaging in evangelism and cultural activities among the expected 11 million visitors. Alongside activities organised by Youth With A Mission and other movements, eight Catholic dioceses and 70 parishes are collaborating in […]
July 20, 2024
Ten years ago last Wednesday, July 17, a Russian BUK missile launched by Russian-backed rebels shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine killing 298 passengers and crew. Including 80 children. The pain, loss, confusion and anger felt by families and friends, especially of the 196 Dutch victims, was shared with the broader Dutch public […]
July 13, 2024
We Westerners, who have only known the seventy years of peace sustained by the international order ushered in after World War Two, know little of the anxiety and fear Ukrainians and others in war zones experience daily. Horrific reports of the cruel Russian attacks on the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv just a few days […]
July 6, 2024
Bucking the current European trends towards the far-right, the British have delivered a landslide victory to the traditionally left Labour Party. ‘KEIR WE GO!’ announced the Daily Mirror in large capital letters against a full front-page photo of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria. The new occupants of 10 Downing Street […]
June 29, 2024
Persecution, torture and murder of Christian leaders by authoritarian rulers in occupied Ukraine as we reported last week, and in many places in the world today, has been a constant feature of the Christian story since the birth of the church. Almost all of the apostles were martyred, according to tradition, although the only biblical […]
June 22, 2024
Russian propaganda that Vladimir Putin is ‘protecting Christianity’ against Satanism and neo-Nazism flies in the face of reliable reports from numerous sources of the brutal and ruthless persecution of Christians in the occupied Ukrainian territories. To justify his imminent ‘special operation’ against Ukraine, Putin said in February 2022: “The overthrow of faith and traditional values and the suppression of freedom […]
June 15, 2024
In a secular society where ‘faith-based’ learning institutions are often viewed as fossils of a bygone age, education today is widely considered the rightful domain of secular governments. Should governments even allow ‘special’ religious-based education anymore? Hasn’t religion caused so many conflicts in the past? Shouldn’t education be based on scientific facts, not ‘superstitious’ beliefs? […]
