August 8, 2017
Sounds of the preparation for the Pride Parade in Amsterdam drifted up to us from five storeys below. On our last day of the Masterclass in European Studies, we had gathered on Saturday morning in the prayer tower of the YWAM facility De Poort. Looking out on a magnificent city skyline encircling us, we could […]
July 31, 2017
Poor Moses! For forty years, he has been leading a quiet pastoral existence in the wilderness looking after his father-in-law’s flock of sheep. His urban past, with its royal upbringing and education, has almost faded from memory. Suddenly he encounters the bizarre sight of a bush burning without being consumed; then a voice claiming to […]
July 24, 2017
Returning from a funeral in Northern Ireland last Thursday, my wife and I came across an unremarkable road sign on the A26, just before turning off to Belfast International Airport. It simply read ‘Dundesert Rd’, yet pointed to the remarkable but forgotten influence of both Copts and Celts in shaping European civilisation. For Dundesert, according […]
July 17, 2017
Like Chaucer’s characters from Canterbury Tales, they came from many different backgrounds. They included a doctor, a retired air traffic controller, a Presbyterian minister and a surveyor; plus teachers, grandmothers, newly-weds and missionaries. They hailed from Europe, North America, Asia and Oceania. While the pilgrimage to the tomb of the murdered St Thomas a Becket […]
July 10, 2017
Ever since Joseph and Mary had to flee to Egypt with their new-born child, religious refugees have played key roles in the Christian story. Early Christians fleeing Jerusalem to escape persecution planted the first Gentile congregation in Antioch. In 1722, illegal religious immigrants settled the village where this weekend we paused on our Continental Heritage […]
July 3, 2017
Had young Martin Luther not been caught in a heavy summer thunderstorm in the first week of July, 1505, there may never have been a Lutheran Reformation. For while returning along a country road to his university law-studies in Erfurt, a great thunderclap burst beside him. Terrified, the 21-year-old desperately pleaded with St Anna, mother […]
June 26, 2017
Can you remember where you were a year ago last Friday morning? That is probably when you first heard the surprise outcome of the Brexit referendum: that 52% of the British voters had made the unprecedented choice to leave the European Union, much to the dismay of the ‘Remain’ voters who included the majority of […]
June 19, 2017
The haunting slogan of the title above, reinforced by the despairing figure of a woman in a refugee camp, shouted at me from a UNHCR poster on my office wall, soon after I arrived in the Netherlands in the 1970’s. Its memory still arrests me whenever I am tempted to focus on the problems around […]
June 12, 2017
Recent terrorist attacks in Britain and the Middle East continue to fuel fear and hatred, greatly aided by the media and exactly as calculated by the terrorists. Yet since the 9/11 attacks in 2001, a movement has been spreading through the whole Muslim world in which more Muslims have become believers in Isa (Jesus) than […]
June 5, 2017
In the midst of terrorist attacks, the return of alpha male leaders and the undermining of the current world order, Pentecost is a sign of hope of what the Holy Spirit will yet do in our world. Despite widespread secularisation, Pentecost Monday is still a public holiday in many European nations. However, most Europeans today […]
May 29, 2017
In the cool of the Schuman Salon during Brussel’s tropical heat on Saturday, the discussion centred around our view of the future. What had our various church backgrounds taught us? From six different nations, participants of the European Studies Course reflected on our expectations of the future. Mostly, it seemed, we had picked up negative […]
May 22, 2017
Could Donald Trump’s most positive legacy perhaps be to help make Europe great? After all, since his inauguration just four months ago, European voters–warily observing the chaos, confusion and contradictions across the Atlantic–have been scared away from populist options in the Netherlands, France and now Germany. Wilders, Le Pen and the AfD populist party leadership […]
