One of the goals of HOPE.II was to bring together world-class speakers to to stimulate dialogue on issues facing us as Europeans today. We also wanted to include any in this dialogue who were not able to be with us in Budapest.
This weekend we have launched a new website, www.hopetalks.eu, to make the plenary addresses available to all.
Obviously inspired by the popular TEDtalks format, HOPEtalks will be added to by recordings from other events, including the annual State of Europe Forums, the first of which was held on Europe Day, May 9 as a pre-congress event.
For some at the congress, the plenary sessions were like drinking from a firehose–the one speaker after the other delivering meaty content that deserved pause for thought, a pause that never seemed to come!
While others were delighted at the opportunity to hear such a concentration of qualified practioners and thinkers, some for whom English was not their mother tongue struggled to keep up.
Misconceptions
The new website gives us all the opportunity to listen again at our own pace, gleaning the nuggets of insight that can help us in whichever corner of Europe, or the world, we have been placed.
Personally, as I have listened to just a handful of sessions so far, I realise how much ground was covered in the short space of one evening and a day.
Vishal Mangalwadi took us back through the centuries to give glimpses of how the Bible had shaped so many areas of European thought and life, as he presented his latest title, The Book that Made Your World, launched the next day in America. The publishers were delighted to report that by the end of the week, the book had risen to number 54 in the top 100 booklist in the US.
Pamela Rosewell-Moore changed the pace as she told personal stories of how the years she spent with Corrie ten Boom taught her about the power of forgiveness to open up new possibilities for the future.
With professorial humour, Philip Jenkins almost just chatted with his audience about misconceptions many have about Europe today, as he drew upon his own rich historical perspective in his three sessions to help us look at ourselves in a fresh light.
Renaissance
Prabhu Guptara and Michael Schluter shared insightful analyses of the current global financial crisis, proposing that it is time to effect a relational revolution in Europe.
Os Guinness and Michael Ramsden encouraged us not to be intimidated by the prevailing intellectual cynicism towards the faith, but to believe for nothing short of a new Christian renaissance.
All these talks and more are now available for personal viewing, shaing in small groups and classrooms for discussion.
We hope we can make this site a useful resource for Christians in Europe to dialogue together as we seek to shape the future of our continent.
Till next week,
Jeff Fountain
Till next week,
