The Dutch will go orange-crazy this coming Monday. Canals in Amsterdam will overflow with boats crammed with orange-clad merrymakers. Music will fill streets festooned with orange…
Read moreFreedom – of speech or of worship, from want or from fear – was both celebrated and contested on various fronts this week, reminding us that the…
Read moreEver since Constantine in the fourth century, nations and empires have been tempted to define themselves as ‘Christian’. But can a nation or an empire be…
Read moreThis month marks twenty-five years since the first Weekly Word was sent out in February 2001. When this column began, Europe stood at the dawn of a new…
Read moreThe slogan ‘Never again’ evolved after World War Two rooted in the vow to prevent the recurrence of the Holocaust’s horrors. It has been broadened over time…
Read more“Europe is being transformed beyond recognition, hollowed out culturally and overrun by hordes of Muslim migrants in an irreversible process of civilisational decline”. So prominent voices…
Read moreThe emergence of an isolationist-yet-imperial United States under a fascist and autocratic administration is not as ‘unAmerican’ as we might like to think. All our lives…
Read moreA year ago this week, the 47th president of the United States was inaugurated, supported by millions of Christians seeking stability, prosperity, moral renewal, or protection…
Read moreMy Christmas reading has offered a surprising perspective of hope for Ukraine from a new book about the 17th century Dutch painter, Johannes Vermeer. Vermeer lived,…
Read moreBeyond the sentimental glitz, music and food, Christmas can be very unsettling. Now for the fourth time since Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, we are celebrating the Word…
Read more