TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO I WROTE A BOOK ON THE ART OF LETTING GO. IT WAS IN THE TIME OF GORBACHEV (1985-1991) AND THE TIME OF THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL (1989). FOR A SHORT TIME THERE WAS AN OPTIMISTIC MOOD IN EUROPE. PRESIDENT BUSH SENIOR TALKED ABOUT A NEW WORLD ORDER AND THE NEW RUSSIAN PRESIDENT GORBACHEV USED TO TALK ABOUT THE EUROPEAN HOUSE.

The Iron Curtain was gone and for a moment it looked like a new springtime for Europe. A time to let go: let go of the old closed society, let go of the old animosity, let go of the old fear. Springtime in Europe celebrating freedom and emancipation.

That’s when we held our first conference in Brussel on the spiritual state of Europe: the 1993 New Europe Forum. There I used Gorbatsov’s frequently used image of Europe as a house with many rooms. That image helped me make my point that a house cannot stand without foundation piles (heipalen). I phrased it a bit more elegantly as: the seven pillars under the European House. Europe would never have become Europe (it would have stayed an insignificant peninsula of the massive Eurasian continent (as I quoted the historian Christopher Dawson) if there had been no preaching of the Gospel that provided the great diversity of all these peoples with these seven unifying pillars, the European values, as has been discussed at this conference: a sense of destiny, meaningful work, the dignity of each individual, freedom, democracy, monogamy and morality, and compassion for the poor and the weak.

All these values grew under the influence of the Gospel. I ended that lecture in an optimistic tone: Eastern Europe should learn how to build on these values, Western Europe how to go back to these values. The East needs Reformation, the West revival. The East should move from the roots to the fruits, the West from the fruits to the roots!

Jeff Fountain asked me: what would you say after these 25 years–looking back? Has there been Reformation? Has there been Revival? I must say that I am not qualified to give a good answer: I do not know enough, but as a little observer from my own tiny corner I have seen hopeful signs in Ukraine and St Petersburg of movement in the right direction. As I know more about Western Europe I am very glad to be part of revival movements like New Wine, Reveil, Opwekking and many others. I hope and pray it will keep growing.

BUT: reviewing these 25 years, one major development comes to my mind of which we were not aware at that time. That is the complete new chapter in Europe’s history that was announced with far-sightedness by Samuel Huntington in 1994 with the publication of his book The clash of civilisations. True, after the fall of the wall the fear of war between European nations was over but little did we know that a new era had begun and would soon hit us in the form of a clash, not of nations, but of cultures. Huntington describes nine world civilisations and it soon became clear what he meant: the real conflict in the Balkan War was a conlict between Muslim, Orthodox and Catholic worldviews, a clash of civilisations. We all know 9/11, Osama Bin Laden, the so called Arab spring, the bloody wars in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, the rise of ISIS, and the result is the immigration of millions of refugees from mainly Muslim background. Behind the rise of populist political parties, terror in Paris and Brussel, social care, journalism, education, even recreation and sport, lurks the reality of the clash between different civilisations that face us with the question: will the European House stand on its seven pillars now that it is ‘flooded’ by this wave of mainly Muslim immigrants? Or will it crack under outside pressure (or like in Groningen under hidden underground mining)?

The answer is: Yes, unless we hold on!

That leads me to my message at the end of this conference. We have to learn the art of holding on. As I said,  25 years ago all things turned around freedom and emancipation, and books on the art of letting go found a good market.. “Let go, and you yourself will be set free!” These are words of Jesus from his sermon in Luke 6:37. These were Jesus words before Ascension Day. It struck me that the emphasis in the ten letters to the churches after the ascension day are different: hold on, he wrote to the church in Philadelphia, hold on to what you have, so that no one may take your crown” (Rev.3:11).

On earth before the Cross: let go! In heaven after the Cross: hold on! That little command on several places in the New Testament to the church of the New Testament contains a programme for us as Christians in Europe. All the elements of what we should do in the complexity of our situation are hidden in this final call.

In the first place: it is a command. All the values of the European culture are gifts that are entrusted to us- like the talents in the parable (Lk.19:11 ff). We should not bury them, but protect them and teach them. No refugee should be allowed into our countries if he or she does not know them and respect them. We really need to learn the art of holding on. It is not easy. It means making our own people aware of them and teaching them to the foreigner, who takes refuge with us. We should tell them: take it or leave. That sounds harsh and in a way it is. There is a tough side in holding fast to what is given to us. Sometimes it is a fight.

In the Greek word krateio that Jesus uses is the first meaning: if some one tries to take away the purse or the bag under your arm (as happened to me with a guy on the back of a motor scooter who tried to grab my laptop), hold on and have them put in prison. Values must be protected.

Holding on to old values can also be misunderstood. It may sound very conservative: just falling back on ‘old ‘values’ like Mr.Carson the butler in the television series Downton Abbey. But that is not the real meaning of holding on. Holding on is not just a repetition of the old time values but more a wake up call to renew them in their original strength. Holding on is a creative application of the old values to the new challenges. How can we apply our faith in human dignity to the modern problem of unemployment or euthanasia? In short,  holding on is not so much reset but more recycle or repurposing!

But in the second place: it always goes hand in hand with compassion. In the same letter in which Jesus calls the church to hold on we read that the Lord loves that church because of their open door. Rev 3:8: “Behold I have set before you an open door which no one is able to shut.” Europe’s strength is this compassion. No one has made this more clear in recent times than the German chancellor Angela Merkel. This is because all the values in the whole list of the seven pillars are put to the test in compassion. Without compassion they all become distorted. Philadelphia has shown to be faithful to their given values because of the open door. Former Polish president Lech Walesa warned already a longtime ago for the danger that the Iron Curtain would be exchanged for a golden curtain around the rich Europeans celebrating their feasts. The door for refugees, the poor and the weak should never be closed. How to do that is also a part of the art of holding on! Severe on one side, compassionate and sacrificial on the other side.

Finally last but not least: The command to hold on comes with great comfort. Behind it we see the figure of the risen Lord who walks in the midst of the lampstands and fills them with oil and light and energy. We can hold on because He is holding on. Holding on was his great achevement in the garden, on the cross and the resurrection, even now after the Ascension as He is on the throne. He is holding on: to us and to his character and values in which his character is expressed. He is holding on and so are we. We remember this Sunday that he has not left us as orphans but richly bestowed on us his Spirit and his Grace.

It is not so much the art of letting go, but the art of holding on!