June 21, 2025
How did secularisation unfold in a Europe that, at the time of the Reformation, seemed so thoroughly Christian—whether Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox? Amsterdam’s transformation from a bastion of Reformed faith in the 17th century to a cradle of secular modernity in the 18th is one major trajectory of that shift. And one worth tracing for […]
June 14, 2025
This weekend, the Geloof in Mokum series explores Amsterdam’s so-called ‘Golden Age’—a time when faith played a central role in making the city the world’s leader in the 17th century. Spoiler: faith influenced virtually everything. Amsterdam’s rise was rooted in the Reformational worldview embraced during the Alteratie on May 26, 1578. That day, the city’s […]
June 7, 2025
Church leaders from around the world gathered in Amsterdam this week to commemorate 500 years of their Free Church tradition, which began as a persecuted minority but has grown into the largest stream within Protestant Christianity today. The starting point of this movement was not Amsterdam, but rather a little town called Zollikon just outside […]
May 31, 2025
We hear a lot of claims these days about ‘making things great’. But what is true greatness? How do we recognise greatness? How will we know when those who promise to ‘restore greatness’ have delivered the goods? What should we be looking for? Jesus had a problem with his disciples’ expectations of greatness. In Matthew […]
May 24, 2025
As democracy, freedom of speech, human dignity and rights come under increasing threat even in the heart of the western nations, we are being forced to realise we cannot take these elements of our western civilisation for granted anymore. While essential for our lifestyles in free nations, none of these facets are self-evident or self-perpetuating. […]
May 17, 2025
Nestled in the valley between the European Union institutions in Brussels is the Chapel for Europe, a reconstructed former convent chapel resurrected as an ecumenical worship space for EU politicians and staff. The chapel stands as a reminder of the spiritual values the founding fathers of Europe believed were essential for lasting peace in Europe. The […]
May 9, 2025
Headlines the world over yesterday announced the new pope, Leo XIV. Headlines exactly 75 years ago today, May 10, 1950, announced a new audacious plan for peace: ‘France takes the nations by surprise’. ‘Sensational decision’. ‘Schuman bomb’. It was a plan inspired by the teachings of Pope Leo XIII, renowned for his 1891 encyclical Rerum […]
May 3, 2025
‘Is this the time you are going to make Israel great again?’ Sometime between the Resurrection and the Ascension – where we happen to be today in the church calendar – the disciples ask Jesus this question on one of the several occasions when he appeared to them over a period of forty days. Luke […]
April 26, 2025
Flags around the globe hang half-mast as Catholics and people of goodwill world-wide mourn the passing of Pope Francis. We find ourselves in a most fragile moment of geo-political affairs with much hanging in the balance, especially in Ukraine and Gaza. As world leaders converge on Rome for Francis’s funeral, the foreign affairs committees of Britain, […]
April 19, 2025
Three years ago, the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a mere three weeks old when a performance of Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion took on new dimensions of pathos for me. I wrote then that the parallel of the false accusations, lies and unjustified suffering inflicted on Jesus with the unjust suffering of millions of innocent […]
April 12, 2025
Some came from Balkan societies where war memories are still fresh. Others were studying in Bucha, Ukraine, where just three years ago over 500 civilians and prisoners of war were butchered by Russian invaders. They were among the mainly eastern and central Europe students attending a conference held in a Dutch monastery this week on […]
April 5, 2025
Germans, Poles and Ukrainians have had to work hard on forgiveness and reconciliation since World War Two. As a German now working in Poland, Fr. Manfred Deselaers has devoted much of his life to German-Polish reconciliation and Christian-Jewish dialogue at the Centre for Dialogue and Prayer in Auschwitz. From this experience, and in an effort ‘to […]
