July 11, 2016
‘What has Christianity ever done for me?’ a comedian once asked on Scottish television. This question was repeated by our guide in Edinburgh this week on our Celtic Heritage Tour through Ireland, Scotland and England, as he led us down the Royal Mile from the castle towards St Giles Cathedral. Dressed as the Celtic missionary […]
July 4, 2016
Dear British friends, Our hearts have gone out to you from the ‘mainland’, both for those for whom the referendum outcome was an unwelcome shock, as for those who voted ‘leave’, now disappointed by the empty promises made by ‘leave‘ campaigners. We have always enjoyed and admired your ability to produce enthralling detective television series […]
June 27, 2016
For many, this weekend has been a time to weep: young Britons feeling betrayed by their elders, the Scots, many Northern Irish facing the prospect of a border again with the south, the one million Europeans living in London, the millions of other Europeans living in Britain, the 2.2 million ex-patriot Britons living elsewhere in […]
June 20, 2016
On both sides of the English Channel, Protestants are most likely to be Euroskeptics while those with a Catholic heritage are more pro-EU, according to recent research. Six out of every ten of British Baptists, for example, are likely to vote to leave the EU, compared to only 41 per cent of those of no […]
June 13, 2016
Next week Thursday the Brits will decide whether or not they want to stay in the EU. Latest polls shows a swing towards the Leave vote. Its a decision of great consequence for all of us living on the mainland. Sometimes (when losing sight of the bigger picture) I find myself sympathising with the view […]
June 6, 2016
Twenty-five years ago, Sir Fred Catherwood delivered three London Lectures in Contemporary Christianity. He opened with A United Europe–can it work? Then followed Nationalism, patriotism and Christianity. Lastly he spoke on Towards greater democracy. These were then published by IVP in book form, with some added chapters and appendices, as Pro-Europe? Failing to find my […]
May 30, 2016
Pope Francis is making church history. He is causing radical innovation in ecumenical relationships with charismatic/pentecostal/evangelical streams. As the first Latin American pope, he is breaking with the European ethos which prioritises theology and doctrine. Instead he seeks first relationship with all who love Jesus and who are open to the Holy Spirit. These perspectives […]
May 23, 2016
The smiling face of the extreme-right presidential candidate, Norbert Hofer, here and there embellished with swastikas on his forehead, beamed out from posters all over Vienna as I drove through the city this weekend. Austrian voters who went to the polls yesterday to decide whether they wanted a populist president from the Freedom Party or […]
May 16, 2016
Christians in Europe must rise above narrow horizons of national interest, seek the international common good and urge fellow citizens to do likewise, argued Dr Jonathan Chaplin last weekend at the State of Europe Forum in Amsterdam. ‘We reject the secularist liberal assumption of the primacy of individual self-interest in national politics,’ the Englishman declared, […]
May 9, 2016
Liberation Day was celebrated on various days across Europe this past week to commemorate the end of the last World War. The official slogan here in the Netherlands was: ‘Pass freedom on!’ The irony seemed to go unnoticed that this celebration came just four weeks after the Dutch voted (well, most of those who bothered […]
May 2, 2016
As the Apostle Paul travelled around the Mediterranean and wrote his pastoral letters to fledgling churches in Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Colossae and Philippi, he fed his readers a vision of inclusion and universality, transcending the many ethnicities of those joining the People of the Way. To the multi-cultural Corinthians on the isthmus between the Peloponnese […]
April 25, 2016
The flowers still lay all over the Maelbeek metro entrance in Brussels last week as my colleague and I made our way to the hotel around the corner for consultations on European issues, including the terrorist challenge to social cohesion. The metro station reopens today, but life has not yet returned to normal, whatever that […]
