The Schuman Centre
I met with Jeff Fountain last week. Jeff is someone I have know for a good number of years and for at least 20 years he has served as the European Director of YWAM. In addition to that function he has pioneered Hope for Europe – an attempt to rediscover the Christian roots of Europe at the level of culture and politics as well as in the areas of church life, mission, evangelism and church planting.
Jeff is standing down from his YWAM role and is going to take time to develop what he is calling the Schuman Centre – a European studies network. His thinking is twofold. First he makes the point that Robert Schuman (who, together with Jean Monnet, largely developed the thinking that led to the European Union) was a devout Christian and that to a large extent the vision behind the EU was also an attempt to rekindle the Christian roots of Europe. It is therefore ironic that the EU has increasingly become a vehicle for secularisation. Part of Schuman’s thinking was that the Christian nations of Europe needed to stop their incessant warfare with each other in order to return to a Christian vision of what Europe could be and so to contribute to the total family of nations from a Christian perspective.
Second, Jeff is very aware that whereas commerce, entertainment, sport, politics, trade unions and every other sphere of life operate on a European basis, Protestant Christians, stuck as they are in their national churches, seem unable to work in such a way. Of course the Roman Catholic Church does this easily and Protestants need to find a way of engaging on a European basis if we are not to be increasingly shut out from many of the important discussions and decisions that impact our communities, our churches and our personal lives. The Schuman Centre is an attempt to further the thinking of Protestant Christians in this important sphere. Jeff is never short of a few words of enthusiasm regarding his work and in that vein, I was able to catch a few words with him on video.