I have just published a report on the future of Europe. I spent the last couple of years as Bishop of Leeds and in the House of Lords interviewing a large number of remarkable people across the political and perspective divides: politicians, diplomats, university and school students, Lords and Ladies, journalists, academics, ecumenical partners, and so on. I am hugely grateful to all of them. The report, however, is my personal take on what we heard and what I distilled from those rich conversations.
I have done this report because I have always strongly believed that the Church should not simply react and respond to what goes on in the world, but also contribute to shaping the future. Being a victim of other people’s vision is inadequate, especially when the world is in a precarious place. My question was: where is the vision-setting or the imagining that goes beyond the narrow life of the Church and seeks to understand, explore and offer a contribution to the imagining of a different future.
The report can be found here. Some churches on the continent are already initiating moves to reawaken democratic commitment and help Christians to think seriously about the challenges we face in a changed (and changing) world. The report is offered as a stimulus to debate.
Coincidentally, it was announced this week that the German public philosopher Jürgen Habermas had died. Emerging from the ravages of the destruction of German democracy and the Second World War, he wrestled publicly and intellectually with the demands of democratic thought and process. He shaped the following generations as democracy grew … and before it became taken for granted. (Katya Hoyer has written an excellent reflection here.)
Coincidentally again, I am reading the 1933-45 diaries of the German Jewish philologist Victor Klemperer. When writing, he didn’t know what the future would hold. But, noting observations on everyday life (his obsessions with health, his profession and house, etc.), he illustrates the gradual subsidence of democratic Germany – built on the shoulders of great Enlightenment thinkers such as Goethe and Schiller – into the destruction and genocide of the Holocaust. This destruction didn’t happen in an instant; it was slow and gradual, a little bit more being given away every day. And Klemperer sees how people give it all away in their self-protective silence, their collusion, their apathy and fear.
There is an urgent need now for thinkers to shape public thinking about the future of our continent. Everything is shifting on our planet. History tells us that no future is guaranteed. Hence the ruminations in this report. I hope it sparks some debate. I hope my mistakes will be opened up for correction.
It is a decidedly Christian contribution. However, a Christian contribution must of necessity take seriously the perspectives of other faiths and those of little or no faith. The future of Europe includes us all.
