June 29, 2024
Persecution, torture and murder of Christian leaders by authoritarian rulers in occupied Ukraine as we reported last week, and in many places in the world today, has been a constant feature of the Christian story since the birth of the church. Almost all of the apostles were martyred, according to tradition, although the only biblical […]
June 22, 2024
Russian propaganda that Vladimir Putin is ‘protecting Christianity’ against Satanism and neo-Nazism flies in the face of reliable reports from numerous sources of the brutal and ruthless persecution of Christians in the occupied Ukrainian territories. To justify his imminent ‘special operation’ against Ukraine, Putin said in February 2022: “The overthrow of faith and traditional values and the suppression of freedom […]
June 15, 2024
In a secular society where ‘faith-based’ learning institutions are often viewed as fossils of a bygone age, education today is widely considered the rightful domain of secular governments. Should governments even allow ‘special’ religious-based education anymore? Hasn’t religion caused so many conflicts in the past? Shouldn’t education be based on scientific facts, not ‘superstitious’ beliefs? […]
June 8, 2024
Commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy this week carried a poignant warning for those Europeans preparing to vote for their new European Parliament. Kings, presidents and other world leaders – notably including Volodymyr Zelensky but not his Russian counterpart – joined the handful of surviving veterans in recalling the sacrifices […]
June 1, 2024
Wanted: saints in suits. In Brussels. In every European capital. In cities everywhere. “The saints of the future will be saints dressed in suits.” These are the words written by Henri Eschbach to his 25-year-old friend Robert Schuman on hearing that the young lawyer had decided to give up his promising legal career and enter […]
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 […]
