Making history in the Crimea
Clearing out some drawers last week I came across a couple of old maps of the Crimea picked up on various visits to the peninsular over the past two decades. On one visit, I arrived in Simferopol after 19 hours…
Mars Hill: wisdom for today
Rain drizzled all across Athens today as I stood on Mars Hill somewhere near the spot where Paul delivered his famous sermon recorded by Luke in Acts chapter 17. Like a giant lump of volcanic pumice, Mars Hill is a…
The Peace and Truce of God
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…
Democracy’s midwives
Not only did missionaries play a midwife role in the birth of the nation of New Zealand, as I wrote in last week’s WW; they also midwifed the rise and spread of democracy around the world, according to a persuasive…
Midwife to a nation
A high Celtic stone cross marks the spot in New Zealand’s Bay of Islands where Christian mission in the last land on earth to be populated by humans began two hundred years ago. The sermon preached on Christmas Day in…