The Context for Hope for Europe


Given that:

1. Millions of our fellow Europeans face an uncertain and sombre future,
despite the overthrow of dictators and the passing of the Cold War;
and that the demise of the welfare state, the eruption of racial tensions and hatreds both in the east and the west, the crisis of moral values, and the failure of social engineering, science and reason to produce a brave new world, all compound widespread feelings of helplessness and hopelessness;

2. Christians have a word of hope for modern Europeans that no-one else can speak,
which begins with an accurate diagnosis of the root source of Europe's malaise, the problem of sin, manifested in countless subsidiary social, economic, ecological, ethical and political problems;
and that this word of hope offers the only sufficient remedy, the finished work of Christ on the cross and in the empty tomb, and an optimistic prognosis for individuals, families and societies if God's ways are followed;
and that there is hope for a prodigal continent which comes to its senses and returns to the Father;

3. The credibility of our message of hope has been impaired
by disunity, by and unbiblical pessimism about the future, by an untimely withdrawal from active involvement in the problems of European society, by an unscriptural divorce between sacred and secular, by anachronistic expressions of church life, and sometimes by a subservience to gods of nationalism;
and that we have thus often implied to our fellow Europeans that there is little hope for Europe's future;

4. If it is true that ‚he who offers hope, leads',
then we and others in the Church are no longer seen as offering hope,
for, by and large, the Church in Europe no longer leads;
it is time that we as European evangelical Christians: