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…
Questions bombard us from all sides. Where and when will the next Islamist terror attack be? What will Putin do next? What effect will the Greek elections have on the European economy? Can democracy survive the intolerance of the ‘tolerance’…
This month we entered a four-year season of remembrance and commemoration. Through a barrage of television documentaries and newspaper articles, we will be reminded of the battles of World War One: Verdun, the Somme, Ypres, Gallipoli, Jutland and many more.…
Christians have often suspected human rights to be the product of humanistic Enlightenment thinkers devising ways to sideline the Church and religion in the public square. With abortion, euthanasia and even infanticide being claimed as human rights today, many Christians…
The world watched on as Holland mourned this past week. Four days in a row, the same somber ceremony was performed at Eindhoven Airport, as coffin after coffin was respectfully unloaded from the Hercules aircraft into scores of waiting hearses.…
The loss of solidarity signalled by last week’s European election outcomes has prompted much concern and uncertainty concerning Europe’s future. Roy Searle of the Northumbria Community wrote in his blog that he woke up feeling depressed, downcast, demoralized and quite…
Last week, Russian, American, Ukrainian and European Union officials met in Geneva to seek a resolution for the Ukrainian crisis. To everyone’s surprise, a consensus was reached which gave hope for further de-escalation and a way forward. I happened to…
The news is not so reassuring this week. Russian troops along the Ukrainian border threaten invasion. Extreme rightists in France make great gains in municipal elections. And the latest UN report predicts the impact of global warming to be ‘severe,…
The sun was setting on the little French town of Toulouges, near where the Pyrénées meet the Mediterranean coast, when my Dutch host jumped up and exclaimed, ‘Let me show you something before it gets dark!’ Hastily putting on our…
Okay, so you’d love to be with us here in New Zealand right now enjoying the southern hemisphere summer. Well, if it’s any comfort, we are experiencing the tail-end of a cyclone that ripped across the Pacific Island of Tonga…
