August 25, 2003
Pottermania shows little sign of abating, as a quick trip to London last week confirmed to me. At Luton and Gatwick airports, Waterloo and London Bridge railways stations, Potter books and banners were omnipresent. Even in the staid banking district, a Harry-type figure painted on display windows offered magical interest rates. The fifth Potter book […]
August 18, 2003
Last week I promised a fresh evaluation of the Harry Potter phenomenon – but decided you’d be encouraged by the following story of hope. It comes from a YWAM leader in the Middle East who typed it while driving back across the desert from Baghdad with a Korean YWAM family who had spent the last […]
August 11, 2003
(feedback from the series on Christian hope in an age of Pax Americana). If you have felt I’m a little off the wall in the perspectives expressed over the past few weeks concerning Pax Americana, you’re probably not alone. Not that I’ve heard that directly from anyone. Almost all the feedback has been fairly positive. […]
August 4, 2003
(part 5 in a series on Christian hope in an age of Pax Americana) Now we come to the bottom line of this series. How should we respond to the new global realities, as followers of Jesus Christ who taught his disciples to turn the other cheek, to seek justice not revenge, to overcome evil […]
July 28, 2003
(The fourth in a five-part series on Christian Hope in an age of Pax Americana) IN THIS AND THE FOLLOWING W E E K L Y W O R D , my intention is to: · understand what produces terrorists; and, · evaluate the role of Christian hope in world threatened by hopelessness. So far […]
July 21, 2003
We’re enjoying thirty-plus degree holiday weather (90+ degree fahrenheit) so Wisdom (personified in my wife) has prevailed upon me to postpone for a week the fourth in the series, Christian Hope in an age of pax Americana. Instead let a me share a paragraph or two from my holiday reading, related to our subject. From […]
July 14, 2003
(The third in a series on Christian hope in an age of Pax Americana). IN THIS AND THE FOLLOWING TWO W E E K L Y W O R D S , my intention is to: · inquire how we got from Pax Britannica to Pax Americana; · investigate the making of a terrorist; · […]
July 7, 2003
(The second of a series on Christian hope in an age of ‘Pax Americana’) Last week’s W e e k l y W o r d obviously raised an issue close to people’s hearts, judging by the widespread response. But before we ask next week how the phenomenon of ‘Pax Americana’ (i.e. world peace under […]
June 30, 2003
It is time to stop pretending that Europeans and Americans share a common view of the world, or even that they occupy the same world. So wrote Robert Kagan in “Paradise and Power”, as the Second Gulf War was being launched in the face of European opposition. Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from […]
June 23, 2003
Recently I indulged in a spot of navel-gazing in Greece. I travelled to Delphi, one of antiquity’s most sacred locations, and there – ta-DAAAAH!!!! – I beheld the world’s belly button! I kid you not. The clear inscription on the beehive-shaped carved monument declared it to be “THE NAVEL-STONE OF THE EARTH”. Hardly a metre […]
June 16, 2003
If you’re old enough to remember those three disturbing words on the TIME cover in 1966, “IS GOD DEAD?”, this week’s European edition of the magazine brings the welcome news that maybe He’s not so dead after all. Granted, He may have been shut out of the new EU Constitution, and Christianity may well be […]
June 9, 2003
Somehow I had always suspected that Paul had rather stuffed it up in Athens. From his experience in that city of idolatry, Paul had gone straight to nearby Corinth, arriving in ‘fear and trembling’, spurning human philosophy in favour of the power of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2). Charismatics and pentecostals tend to conclude therefore […]
