Christian resources for the EU Referendum

Serious-minded Christians are trying to relate their faith to the EU Referendum on 23 June.

The Tower of Babel by Pieter Breughel
By Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1526/1530–1569) - Levels adjusted from File:Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_The_Tower_of_Babel_(Vienna)_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg, originally from Google Art Project., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22179117

• Christians for ‘Remain’ believe in a neighbourly EU superstate. They are seeking to influence its development by being fully engaged in it (“Love thy neighbour”). They idealistically (or naively) see the EU as a means to equality of peoples and rights, mutual strength, (future) economic growth and ongoing peace for war prone Europe. 
• Christians for 'Brexit' may be highly suspicious of any oligarchy or think the EU superstate is the new Tower of Babel. They think that God will undermine it and disperse its people, since it is a secular, artificial power bloc ‘reaching to the skies’, an over-ambitious competitor with His Kingdom (which is an invisible Kingdom that values diversity, not homogeneity).

There is some support in the Bible for the nation state. For example, when St Paul’s addressed Greek intellectuals on the Areopagus, Greece was part of the Roman superstate heavily resented by Zionist Jews who wanted self-determination (sovereignty) not puppet rulers and governors. In spite of this, St Paul talks about how God has ordered man in various places in nations with clear boundaries:

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands” Acts 17 v 24-26

On the other hand, Jesus talks about the need to give to Caesar what is due to Caesar and to give to God what is due to God. Caesar led the Roman superstate which built and maintained the roads along which His Gospel travelled to the ends of the earth. These Roman roads helped to transform the superstate into a Christian superstate. It was the Roman Empire that widely used ‘koine’ Greek as the universal lingua franca in which the Gospel was rapidly transmitted across all boundaries and tribes.

Whether the EU becomes a superstate (largely speaking English, often better than the English) with the UK a part of it;   or the UK remains a detached offshore island of a superstate, real Christians believe that the only hope for geographical Europe is to hear about and obey Jesus Christ.

Christians need to think Biblically and to prayerfully seek God’s guidance on voting partly because later, if they feel they have made the wrong decision, they can always remember that they despaired of their limited human understanding.

They can also recall this issue around the UK membership of the EU is so challenging that :

• it tore the Conservative party to pieces for over thirty years  
• British voters are being asked to decide something that not even statesman Winston Churchill could make up his mind about!

There are two websites below on both sides of the EU argument:

• Christians for Britain
• Christians for Europe