May 9, 2013
Most Europeans have no clue, and couldn’t care less, that this Thursday, May 9, is so-called ‘Europe day’. And certainly under current circumstances, there’s not much to celebrate, Right? May I suggest, however, that there is an intrinsic relationship between Europe Day and Ascension Day, which happen to fall on the same day this year. […]
April 29, 2013
George Frideric Handel was only 28 years old when he was commissioned by the British royal family to compose a special sacred work to be performed in St Paul’s Cathedral in thanksgiving for the end of the first world war in 1713. No, that is not a typo. For the world’s first global war took […]
April 22, 2013
While Margaret Thatcher’s state funeral last Wednesday was the occasion for VIP’s and angry protestors to praise or blame her for the shape of modern Britain, the President of Ireland was delivering a passionate speech in the European Parliament which prompted a standing ovation. The simultaneous events both carried warnings about the transience of power, […]
April 15, 2013
How much the European landscape has changed since the founding of YWAM in the Netherlands forty years ago in 1973! Secularism, Islam(ism) and new spirituality seem to have pushed Christianity to the margins in the continent once synonymous with Christendom. Not much to celebrate, it would seem. Yet over the past few days Romkje and […]
April 8, 2013
Prostitution is a violence which touches the whole person–physically, verbally, sexually and psychologically–and ought to be criminalised along with rape and marital violence. So stressed the Strasbourg Declaration, signed last week by 220 women from 27 European nations gathering in the capital of French Alsace. The declaration will be presented to the European Parliament, officially […]
April 1, 2013
No matter how hard many Europeans try to shake off a Christian past, media coverage this Easter has again reminded us how indelibly imprinted the story of Jesus remains in European culture and consciousness. Television and newspapers across this increasingly secularised continent carried story after story of concerts and performances retelling the core message of […]
March 25, 2013
Hands up everybody who has aunts, uncles and cousins. According to author George Weigel, only a minority of Italians will be able to raise their hands in the future. And that in the land of La Famiglia! Weigel, best-known for his thought-provoking book on Europe, ‘The Cube and the Cathedral’, predicts that by 2050, 60 […]
March 18, 2013
This time last week no-one knew who the new pope would be. Suddenly on Tuesday evening, while the whole world was watching, the choice of the new pontiff’s name turned the global spotlight on a bare-footed young Italian who dared to live in radical obedience to the teachings of Jesus. What is it about Francis […]
March 11, 2013
What should the role of the church be in Europe’s future? This was the question Gerard and Chrissie Kelly of Bless Network asked me to address at their recent BlessTalks day in Hilversum, Holland. Following the popular TEDtalks formula, eight speakers had 13 minutes to present their topic, interspersed with Q&A sessions. Gerard introduced the […]
March 4, 2013
Visitors approaching Cologne Cathedral this past week saw the retired pope waving from a huge photo hanging on a building opposite what was once the world’s tallest structure. One word expressed appreciation on behalf of millions around the world : ‘Danke’. To which I added a hearty ‘amen’ when passing through that city the […]
February 25, 2013
As my train rumbles through the snowy countryside of Moravia in the Czech Republic, my thoughts go back over a problem vexing youth leaders from across Europe this past weekend in Bratislava. Research presented at the Pentecostal European Forum of Youth Ministries (PEFY) revealed that the youth ministries represented were losing four out of every […]
February 18, 2013
The days are getting longer here in the northern hemisphere. The birds are chirping again, mornings and evenings. Lent has arrived. For many, that means a 40-day season of voluntary sacrifice and self-discipline. But for millions, especially in southern Europe, there’s nothing voluntary about their season of austere living which began several carnivals ago and […]
