May 26, 2024
Freedom is a slippery concept. Our very pursuit of freedom can lead to its loss: to captivity, dependence, restriction, enslavement, addiction and poverty. Freedom to do what we want – rather than what we ought – is deceptive. Yet we live in a society where the right to be free to do what you like […]
May 20, 2024
Pentecost was a radical divine incursion into human history and pointed towards God’s intentions for human society. The outpouring of the Spirit on the disciples in Jerusalem breathed life and power into the fledgling church. It lit the fire of the missions movement that has spread the faith round the globe. The modern Pentecostal stream […]
May 12, 2024
Come with us on a walk through the European Quarter of Brussels. The European Parliament elections are looming next month (June 6-9), so we ought to know a little about how ‘Brussels’ works and what we are voting for. Admittedly, the workings of the EU institutions can seem distant, foreign and boring. Yet so much happens […]
May 4, 2024
This coming Thursday, May 9, happens this year to be both Ascension Day and Europe Day – the celebration of two decisive events separated by over 1900 years. While Ascension Day moves about on the calendar, being 40 days after Easter, Europe Day is fixed on May 9 each year. Few Europeans today could tell […]
April 27, 2024
The name Bob Goudzwaard may not be widely known among readers of Weekly Word – but it deserves to be. After his passing last weekend here in the Netherlands, aged 90, obituaries in both secular and Christian Dutch newspapers honoured him as a Christian political economist and scholar consistently anchored in biblical justice and love […]
April 20, 2024
Recent articles on the Christian news website Evangelical Focus, ahead of the upcoming European Parliament elections in June, reflected the views of evangelical Christians that the European Union was ‘a distant entity that had little impact on their daily lives’. Brussels, others felt, was part of the problem of a continent that had abandoned its […]
April 13, 2024
The stubborn myth that science and faith are diametrically opposed gets knocked about in the current exhibition on ‘the creation of science’ in the Catherijne Convent Museum I visited in Utrecht this week. Early scientific instruments, first editions of breakthough publications and arresting art illustrate the essential midwife role of the Christian faith in the […]
April 6, 2024
Easter, 2022, two months after the Russian invasion began, Volodymyr Zelensky led his nation in prayer for Ukraine from the St Sophia’s Cathedral in Kyiv in a pre-recorded video. Two years later, his prayerlist remains a highly relevant and concise guide for us as we pray for justice, peace and freedom. The president stood symbolically […]
March 30, 2024
He is risen indeed!! Christians have greeted each other with this confession on Resurrection Sunday since early in the First Millennium. The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the climax of the Big Story, the turning point that has shaped European history and continues to reshape world history. Yes, there is a Big Story, despite […]
March 23, 2024
Who was the greatest artist who ever lived? A quick search online offers several lists of ‘greatest’ artists, frequently naming the following : Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh, Monet, Picasso, Dali,… Notably Dutch painters rank consistently among the world’s greatest. Even Philip II, the 16th century king of Spain against whom the Dutch rebelled, […]
March 16, 2024
‘YWAMers are known for thinking out of the box.’ YWAMers are ‘innovative’, ‘imaginative’, ‘creative’ and ‘visionary’. These were descriptions offered by attendees at a symposium held on Friday, evaluating 50 years of Youth With A Mission’s influence on church and mission in the Netherlands. The hundred participants – staff, alumni and friends of YWAM, representatives […]
March 9, 2024
My offspring have a new name for me: Europapa – after this year’s Dutch entry in the Eurovision Songcontest. Frisian singer Joost Klein topped the charts in the Netherlands after one week, scoring over eight million hits on YouTube and Spotify. The song is also very popular in Belgium and Poland, and is already number […]
