OPENING PLENARY – SUNDAY MAY 8, 19:30
Meditation by Gerard Kelly: The truth will set you free
Dr Jonathan Chaplin: What is the EU for? A Christian perspective.
Panels will introduce participants to the themes of the track sessions the next day.
SECOND PLENARY – MONDAY MAY 9, 9:00
Meditation by Gerard Kelly: Humanifesto of Freedom
MORNING SEMINARS 9:30-12:45:
(coffee break 10.45-11.30)
• Politics: Reframing the European project (9.30-11.00)
• Europe and the churches: Voices for freedom (11.30-13.00)
• Economics: How can we truly free the ‘free’ market
• Refugees: New chances for freedom
• Security: What price freedom?
AFTERNOON SEMINARS 14:00-17:15:
(coffee break 15.15-16.00)
• Religious freedom: Freedom for conscience and worship
• Trafficking: Freedom’s dark side
• Family: Freedom, commitment and dignity
• Education: Educating for freedom (14.00-15.30)
• Creation care: Creation–‘waiting for freedom’ (16.0-17.15)
CLOSING PLENARY 17:30
Final thoughts: Wim Rietkerk: Europe: Holding On and Letting Go
Wim Rietkerk (NL) is the chairman of L’Abri International and with his wife Greta leads the work of L’Abri in Utrecht. A retired pastor of the Nederlands Gereformeerde Kerk, he is also chairman of the Jewish Monument Utrecht Foundation (Stichting Joods Monument Utrecht, SJMU), and author of numerous books.
Conclusions and next steps.
18:30 Reception
Suggested background reading for forum:
• A soul for the union, Ben Ryan, Theos
The European Union is in crisis. The crisis in question is a hydra, a beast with many heads, each of which have the potential in their own right to prove fatal. The ongoing economic crisis, particularly as expressed in a few debtor countries (and, most prominently, Greece), the refugee crisis, the democratic deficit, and the spectre of a UK referendum, each seem to have the potential to break the whole Union.