July 16, 2018
As silent witnesses, the spires and towers of churches and cathedrals across Europe’s cities and landscapes testify to the biblical roots of our western cultural heritage. Paradoxically in this most secularised continent, cathedrals are among the most visited tourist sites in Europe. They are priceless treasure houses of a legacy shaped by the Bible. Their […]
July 9, 2018
A visit to the Louvre in Paris, the Prado in Madrid, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Hermitage in St Petersburg, the Uffizi in Florence or the Tate in London cannot be fully understood without some biblical knowledge. Master artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Rubens and Rembrandt painted many works based on Bible stories. […]
July 2, 2018
During the summer months, the weekly words will be of a slightly different nature. Shorter than usual, they will be based on draft chapters for a popular-style, coffee-table, illustrated gift book about how the Bible has shaped so many facets of our western lives. This is a project I am working on together with Indian […]
June 25, 2018
Europeans like you and me are the core problem of the current migration issue. The root cause of Europe’s response is fear. Our fears make it possible for populist parties to influence centrist parties move to the right. And fear is False Expectation Appearing Real. I learnt that from Dr Katrine Camilleri, head of Jesuit […]
June 18, 2018
Good news. Summer begins this week. And with it come great opportunities to engage with our world. Cambridge: Next month, The Social Reformers Summer School will be held in Cambridge, England, run by our good friends and colleagues from the Jubilee Centre. Designed for recent graduates, young professionals and others in business, public services or […]
June 11, 2018
In Holland they used to say: One Dutchman, a theologian, two Dutchmen, a congregation, three Dutchmen, a split. Optimists added: Four Dutchmen, a revival. Over the four decades I have lived in the Netherlands, much has changed. Just how much I discovered this past week when Romkje and I participated in a National Christian Forum […]
June 4, 2018
‘We cannot aim at anything less than the union of Europe as a whole.’ These emphatic words–we may be surprised to learn–were pronounced by Sir Winston Churchill at the Congress of Europe, held in The Hague in May, 1948. Representatives from many western European nations met together in the stately 13th century Ridderzaal (Hall of […]
May 28, 2018
Yesterday was Trinity Sunday on traditional church calendars, the first Sunday after Pentecost. For those of us from free church traditions, Trinitatis is not something we give much attention to. Much to our impoverishment. For a consciously Trinitarian approach to life and faith is essential for a balanced, all-rounded Christian lifestyle. And reflection on the […]
May 22, 2018
Pentecost reminds us that the end goal of God’s purposes in human history is the ingathering of a multi-lingual global church ‘from every tribe, language, people and nation’, as John writes in his Revelation (5:9). Pentecost saw the birth of this ‘rainbow’ church with the outpouring of the Spirit. Jews and converts, including Cretans and […]
May 14, 2018
Mothers in Europe are an endangered species. Maybe that sounds too hyperbolic. But when motherhood is no longer widely respected and birth rates are falling well below replacement rate, it seems that Europeans as a race have chosen to die out. Tomorrow’s Europe will be a continent of fewer and older people, an individualised and […]
May 7, 2018
Something is missing in our European calendars. Last Saturday evening the Dutch celebrated the end of World War Two with an open-air royal concert held on the Amstel River flowing through the heart of Amsterdam. It was a glorious balmy evening, and an appropriate commemoration proclaiming the message: Pass freedom on! Yet the end of […]
April 30, 2018
Two swallows don’t make a summer, says a Dutch proverb. Yet two recent Dutch books do perhaps signal a significant climate change concerning Christianity in Europe. One is written by the publisher of the successful spirituality magazine Happinez. As mentioned in an earlier weeklyword, Inez van Oord argues in her book Rebible that ‘we have […]
