World News and Trends: New Three-Pronged Axis on the Rise in Europe?
From Europe to the environment, here's a look at the latest headlines and their significance from a Biblical standpoint.
The concept of a European army -separate and entirely apart from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-has been in and out of the news for at least 10 years.
A small conference on a standing army for Europe occurred five years ago at Weimar in former East Germany. Reports Britain's The Independent: "In the town of Weimar in 1991 the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland gathered to inaugurate a new alliance. Their meeting went almost unnoticed by the rest of Europe, but the foreign ministers of the three countries have continued to meet annually to devise a common security concept."
Some British observers now talk of a new axis, an alignment of France, Germany and Poland. Britain has not been included in annual discussions of the alliance. Margaret Thatcher, former British prime minister, consistently opposed a common European army that would be an essential component in a European federal state with its own foreign and defense policy.
The idea of some Euro-federalists is to merge all the national sovereign armies (including Britain's) into a single supranational force with the German heartland at its natural geographic center. But, as the Independent article pointed out, "France, Germany and Poland have repeatedly been the area for European aggression and war."
Memories of this area tend to be of armed conflict. Could some of these events in central Europe eventually result in history repeating itself? (Sources: The Independent, The Sunday Telegraph.)
An Article from:
Good News Magazine: July - August 1996
Course Content
John Ross Schroeder
John died on March 8, 2014, in Oxford, England, four days after suffering cardiac arrest while returning home from a press event in London. John was 77 and still going strong.
Some of John's work for The Good News appeared under his byline, but much didn't. He wrote more than a thousand articles over the years, but also wrote the Questions and Answers section of the magazine, compiled our Letters From Our Readers, and wrote many of the items in the Current Events and Trends section. He also contributed greatly to a number of our study guides and Bible Study Course lessons. His writing has touched the lives of literally millions of people over the years.
John traveled widely over the years as an accredited journalist, especially in Europe. His knowledge of European and Middle East history added a great deal to his articles on history and Bible prophecy.
In his later years he also pastored congregations in Northern Ireland and East Sussex, and that experience added another dimension to his writing. He and his wife Jan were an effective team in our British Isles office near their home.
John was a humble servant who dedicated his life to sharing the gospel—the good news—of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God to all the world, and his work was known to readers in nearly every country of the world.
Scott Ashley
Scott Ashley was managing editor of Beyond Today magazine, United Church of God booklets and its printed Bible Study Course until his retirement in 2023. He also pastored three congregations in Colorado for 10 years from 2011-2021. He and his wife, Connie, live near Denver, Colorado.
Mr. Ashley attended Ambassador College in Big Sandy, Texas, graduating in 1976 with a theology major and minors in journalism and speech. It was there that he first became interested in publishing, an industry in which he worked for 50 years.
During his career, he has worked for several publishing companies in various capacities. He was employed by the United Church of God from 1995-2023, overseeing the planning, writing, editing, reviewing and production of Beyond Today magazine, several dozen booklets/study guides and a Bible study course covering major biblical teachings. His special interests are the Bible, archaeology, biblical culture, history and the Middle East.
