June 1, 2015
You could mistake him for Gandalf, with his long grey beard and priestly robes. And you will very likely see him mixing with magicians, wizards, seers, fortune tellers and spiritual seekers in Body Mind Spirit fairs and festivals. But Ole Skjerbæk Madsen is actually a Lutheran priest serving in the downtown Bethlehem Church in […]
May 25, 2015
A generational gap seems to have emerged in my circle of Christian friends in response to the Irish referendum on same-sex marriage. After the majority of those who turned out to vote supported the YES vote, Facebook comments and ‘likes’ revealed a (for me) surprising degree of support for the outcome from the younger generation […]
May 18, 2015
After the more serious reflections of the past few weeks, its time for a personal story–about the new Schuman Centre mobile office. As my sixty-fifth birthday approached last September, my wife Romkje said she needed to confess to scheming together with our boys since the previous March. Knowing that what I missed most about […]
May 11, 2015
The end of World War Two 70 years ago was commemorated on Friday in London, Paris and Berlin, and on Saturday in Moscow. In Riga, where this year’s State of Europe Forum was being held on these same two days, native Latvians recalled the German capitulation in sober style on Friday while the next day […]
April 27, 2015
European children are dwindling. Everybody knows however that without children there is no future: even the makers of The Simpsons children’s choir clip. What is obvious is that this demographic factor is going to have major consequences for Europe, economically, socially and politically. Yet few politicians seem prepared to address this issue. It’s just not […]
April 20, 2015
Exactly seventy years ago, Canadian troops liberated the towns of our region in the Netherlands from the Nazi occupier amidst scenes of jubilation. Commemoration events and parades in a sequence moving northwards from town to town are stirring memories of the elderly and creating memories for the young. Some memories are painful. In our town […]
April 13, 2015
Where Jesus hung out after his resurrection and before his ascension is not explained in the Gospels. Two of the Gospel writers are clear however about his appearances to the disciples during this forty day phase of the church calendar we are in right now. While Matthew and Mark end their gospels rather abruptly after […]
April 7, 2015
The Christian faith is all about death… and resurrection! That memorable take-away from Philip Jenkins’ excellent book on Europe, God’s Continent, continues to stir my hope for this part of our world which has been most shaped by the story of Jesus–and by its rejection. For the Easter message we have been com-memorating this weekend […]
March 30, 2015
We were caught off guard as we stepped inside the St Denis Cathedral in northern Paris yesterday. After spending the weekend in dialogue with missionary couples working among secular, unchurched Parisians, we expected to encounter the stereotype of Christianity today, a huge empty cathedral with perhaps a few old women praying before the altar. To […]
March 23, 2015
The street girls called her the angel of Berlin. But now they’ll miss Patricia Green walking the shady streets where the girls ply their trade, with her smile and a basket of give-aways. Last week, she lost her battle against cancer and passed away in her home country of New Zealand, where tomorrow a memorial […]
March 16, 2015
Wherever the Irish are in this world, they’ll be painting the town green tomorrow, St Patrick’s Day–if they haven’t already started. Even in the Netherlands, green will dominate the Grote Markt in the centre of The Hague, where there’ll be Irish dancing, music and Guinness beer flowing. Celebrations have already begun in London, where 900,000(!) […]
March 9, 2015
Facts and figures were not the essence of education; norms and values were. That was the core belief of the inspiring fourteenth-century educational pioneer, Johan Cele, whom my wife and I revisited on an evening walk through a 600-year old district of the city of Zwolle last week. With about a hundred others, we made […]
