September 30, 2019
The eighth in a series on the spiritual revolution behind the fall of communism thirty years ago: Exactly when the first crosses appeared on the Kryžių Kalnas–or the Hill of Crosses–in northern Lithuania, no-one really knows. Not far from the Latvian border, hundreds of thousands of crosses of all shapes and sizes cover this small […]
September 23, 2019
The seventh in a series on the spiritual revolution behind the fall of communism thirty years ago: Two years after Pope John Paul II had celebrated mass with hundreds of thousands of his fellow Poles on Victory Square in Warsaw, I found myself in Poland’s capital to address a student conference. It was May Day […]
September 16, 2019
The sixth in a series on the spiritual revolution behind the fall of communism thirty years ago: Perhaps the greatest, most unexpected event of the 20th century was the non-violent fall of the Soviet Empire. How did that happen? Mikhail Gorbachev, the eighth and last leader of that empire, readily admitted that it would have […]
September 9, 2019
The fifth in a series on the spiritual revolution behind the fall of communism thirty years ago: Over the last six weeks of 1989, the Velvet Revolution in what was then Czechoslovakia saw the non-violent transition of power from one-party rule to a democratic parliamentary republic. It culminated in the surreal presidential installation of dissident […]
September 2, 2019
The fourth in a series on the spiritual revolution behind the fall of communism thirty years ago: Long before the events of the Pan-European Picnic and the Baltic Way, and nearly two decades before the names of Gorbachev, Reagan and Thatcher appeared in global headlines, one Russian writer emerged from the Soviet gulags as the […]
August 26, 2019
The third in a series on the spiritual revolution behind the fall of communism thirty years ago: The longest human chain in history was formed across the Baltics just thirty years ago last Friday as a moral protest against the illegal occupation by the Soviet Union of these lands. It stretched 675 kilometres from the […]
August 19, 2019
The second in a series on the spiritual revolution behind the fall of communism thirty years ago: Thirty years ago today, a seemingly innocent event took place on the border of Hungary and Austria which catalysed the downfall of the Berlin Wall. We have shared this story before. Current efforts by some to turn back […]
August 12, 2019
The first in a series on the spiritual revolution behind the fall of communism thirty years ago: This November will mark thirty years since the Berlin Wall crumbled, unravelling communism in Eastern and Central Europe and hastening the end of the Soviet Union. A whole generation has been born and raised since then with no […]
August 5, 2019
How can we nourish our own spiritual lives through drawing from historical wells? This was the focus of our daily meditations during the Masterclass in European Studies last week in Amsterdam. With a dozen participants from five European countries, we explored some of the many rich resources often neglected in free church circles, some from […]
July 8, 2019
Three Dutch words, ‘God roept u’, shine out in blue neon lights on the roofline of the Samaritan’s Inn, next to the words ‘Jesus loves you’ we wrote about last week. Meaning ’God calls you’, these words have been visible to all entering and leaving Amsterdam Central Station since the Second World War, formerly painted […]
July 1, 2019
When visitors to Amsterdam step out of the Central Railway Station, they may be surprised to be greeted with the words, ‘Jesus loves you’, lit up in blue neon lights on top of one of the most prominent buildings in the immediate vicinity. After all, in most people’s minds, Amsterdam is not associated with spirituality of […]
June 25, 2019
Forty years ago this summer, my wife Romkje and I and our eight-month-old baby boy moved into the house next to our newly-purchased laundry building, close to the Heidebeek training centre in the Dutch countryside. What we were supposed to use the building for, we were not sure at the time. Maybe we were just […]
