October 2, 2006
THE GIRL BEHIND THE DESK SLAPPED A BRIGHT YELLOW ‘HOT’ LABEL ON MY BAG, HANDED ME MY PASSPORT AND WISHED ME A PLEASANT FLIGHT. I watched curiously for a few moments as the bag disappeared down the conveyer belt and before heading off towards the airport lounge to await my flight to the Caucasus. ‘HOT?’ […]
September 25, 2006
Who was the last pop star you heard of who converted to Islam? Cat Stevens? Try ‘googling’ ‘pop star’ and ‘Islam’ and, yes, up come several stories on Yusuf Islam, better known as Cat Stevens. You can even download a video from www.turntoislam.com telling his story reminiscing back forty years. Or maybe you have heard […]
September 18, 2006
While storms rage across a muslim world upset with the pope, I will not be distracted from writing about the spiritual challenge to Europe I mentioned last week. That challenge, I proposed, was greater for Europe than that of Islam. It was, I wrote, ‘subtle and winsome, quietly eroding our foundations while a boisterous radical […]
September 11, 2006
Almost every newspaper in the world today is devoting editorials, pages and even special supplements to that infamous event exactly five years ago. There are stories about survivors and families of victims; investigations as to who in the US Government did and didn’t do what to prevent such a catastrophe in the years leading up […]
September 4, 2006
THE LINES, PAINTED IN WHITE CALLIGRAPHY ON THE BLACK FACTORY WALL, silently summarised why we were gathering over the past two weeks as YWAM leaders from around the world. The occasion was our annual Global Leadership Gathering, this time in an old industrial building in Harpenden, north of London. We listened to reports ‘terrible and […]
August 14, 2006
A VIDEO WAR WAS WAGING IN THE BALKANS LAST WEEK WHILE THE WORLD WAS TRANSFIXED BY EVENTS IN ENGLAND AND LEBANON. Serbian television fired the first shots by airing video footage from 1995 ostensibly showing Croatian and Bosnian soldiers executing Serbian citizens and setting Serbian villages on fire. Bosnian and Croat officials heatedly denied the […]
August 7, 2006
HOW SHOULD WE RELATE TO CHRISTIANS OF OTHER TRADITIONS THAN OUR OWN? Over the past few weeks we have considered some dynamic lay movements within the Catholic church. Yet few protestants have heard of groups like the Focolare and St Egidio movements, even though they are as big as if not larger than Campus Crusade […]
July 31, 2006
A MONTH AFTER RETURNING FROM ROME, I AM STILL PROCESSING THE THOUGHTS AND IMPRESSIONS OF THE ‘FOCOLARE TRAIL’. Travelling for ten days in a bus from Trent to Rome with fellow passengers from a wide church background-Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Baptist, Pentecostal and free church-produced lively dialogues. For me this was no mere academic exercise. […]
July 24, 2006
SUDDENLY, AS IF SOMEONE BLEW A WHISTLE, SAID THE MINISTER OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, THE STREETS OF ROME WERE FILLED WITH PEOPLE EACH EVENING FANNING OUT TO FEED THE POOR. No, the Scotsman was not describing the work of his fellow Protestants in the Eternal City. Rather he was expressing his respect for the practical […]
July 17, 2006
FROM OUR POSITION IN THE VIP SECTION WE COULD LOOK OUT OVER THE THOUSANDS THRONGING ST PETER’S SQUARE EAGERLY AWAITING THE POPE-MOBILE’S ARRIVAL. Flags from various nations waved in the hot morning air, including many red-and-white Polish banners. A jazz band struck up popular tunes in front of the crowd-control barriers at the bottom of […]
July 10, 2006
LIFE CAN RESUME AGAIN. THE WORLD CUP IS OVER AND HOPEFULLY THE WEEKLY WORD MAILING HAS BEEN RESTORED TO NORMAL. But before I continue my musings on my ‘pilgrimage to Rome’, let me tell you about a dramatic apology by a young Briton for deeds committed by his Elizabethan ancestor – as reported by the […]
June 26, 2006
WE LIVE IN AMAZING TIMES. IN A THOUSAND YEARS, THERE HAS NEVER BEEN SUCH OPENNESS BETWEEN THE MAIN STREAMS OF CHRISTENDOM. The western churches, bitterly divided for almost half that millennium, have never been so conciliatory as today. Evangelical historian Mark Noll poses the question in the title of a recent book, Is the Reformation […]
