What Kind of Euro Unity?
How far will European unity go? Robert Wearner turns to an ancient prophecy that gives a clue.
European political unification has been attempted time and again, always without success. After the guns fell silent at the end of World War II, the issue re-emerged. Economist Christian Chabot gives Winston Churchill the credit for being the first to call for the creation of a “United States of Europe.”
The courageous prime minister of the United Kingdom had led his nation through years of warfare against Hitler, beginning within a generation of the Great War, with its huge loss of life. All Europe longed for lasting peace. In a speech before the students of Zurich University in Switzerland on September 19, 1946, he spelled out his dream for a peaceful society:
“If Europe were once united in the sharing of its common inheritance, there would be no limit to the happiness, to the prosperity and glory which its three or four hundred million people would enjoy. Yet it is from Europe that have sprung that series of frightful nationalistic quarrels . . . which we have seen . . . wreck the peace and mar the prospects of all mankind.”
In the course of his short speech, he used the term “ united states of Europe” five times, as he earnestly appealed for a remedy to “the horrors of the past.”
The first major step toward trans- European cooperation took place in 1952 when the European Coal and Steel Community was organised. Thus economic union became, hopefully, a precursor to political union. The next step came in 1958 with the formation of the European Economic Community (EEC) with France, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Italy participating. In time, the two entities merged into a single international organisation known as the European Community (EC).
Churchill’s dream seemed about to become reality as this then became the European Union (EU), with the addition of Denmark, Ireland, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Finland and Sweden.
Through the decade of the 1990s, a three-stage creation of a single currency called the euro took place. Chabot explains: “The euro is the newly created currency of the European Union. . . .
Freshly printed euro notes and coins . . .
replace the Austrian schilling, Belgian franc, Finnish markka, French franc, German mark, Irish punt, Italian lira, Luxembourg franc, Dutch guilder, Portuguese escudo and Spanish peseta as the exclusive tender of those 11 nations.” Earlier in 2002 Greece also said goodbye to its historic drachma, making the euro nations an even dozen.
Without doubt, a common currency was a great step forward toward unity, but the problem of languages continues to cause problems. Someone came up with the idea of making English the universal language of the continent.
Then workers could travel for better jobs anywhere in the area as people do in the USA. Not surprisingly, that idea went nowhere: Europeans are willing to give up their francs, marks and pesetas, but not their native tongue.
Detractors called the euro “funny money.” Three western European countries— the UK, which is not an EU member, Denmark and Sweden—voted against accepting the euro. Switzerland, Norway and Eastern Europe remain outside the EU, so don’t use it. The continent remains divided to some extent, with only a small possibility of any further steps toward political union foreseeable.
biblical perspective Does the Bible shed light on the question of European unity? After all, it mentions other grand empires and dynasties. Europe is not mentioned by name. But there is a partial answer in Daniel 2. The central message of the chapter is that God knows the future and reveals it to mortals. The message comes from some 2500 years ago, in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, on the Euphrates River in modern-day Iraq.
As emperor of a vast, wealthy empire, the young king was concerned about its future. In ancient times, people worshipped at the feet of images of their gods. Apparently for this reason the God of heaven chose to reveal events of the future by means of an immense statue that appeared to him in his sleep.
The statue was composed of four sections— head, breast and arms, belly and thighs, legs—made respectively of four metals—gold, silver, bronze, iron—and a fifth section comprising its feet and toes of iron mixed with clay.
Then, from the sky, a huge stone landed on the statue’s feet and ground the colossus into infinitesimal fragments.
Then the stone expanded and filled the whole earth.
Daniel, a young Hebrew captive serving in the court, explained the meaning of the dream. Although he claimed no supernatural knowledge, he did say, “But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries”(Daniel 2:28).
The interpretation that the God of heaven gave was that the metal divisions represented four successive empires of vast eminence in world history. Looking straight at the king, the young man declared, “You, O king, are the king of kings. . . . You are that head of gold” (verses 37, 38).
But before the king had much time for pride, he heard the disquieting words that his kingdom would eventually fall.
“After you, another kingdom will arise, inferior to yours” (verse 39). (Later in his book in chapter 5, Daniel describes the fall of Babylon and the rise of the Persian Empire.) “Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth,” which Daniel identifies as “ Greece” (Daniel 8:21)—Alexander’s Greco-Macedonian Empire and the group of Hellenistic kingdoms that developed out of it.
“Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron” (verse 40). Any world history book tells of the might, power and ruthlessness of Rome—the nation that ruled the earth in the time of Christ.
It is important to observe that in the prophecy of Daniel 2, God predicted only four empires established by force of arms. A fifth empire comes in the future when “the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor left . . . to another people” (verse 44).
How does the prophecy describe the state of Europe and the Middle East between the fall of Rome and the set- tling up of God’s kingdom? This corresponds to the period of the feet and toes of the great statue. “Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom. . . . The people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay” (verses 41, 43).
History attests that the Western Roman Empire disappeared from the map in AD 476, breaking into small parts exactly as the prophecy predicted by Daniel.
Since then, many talented and ambitious men have tried to unite these fragments of the Roman Empire, beginning with Charlemagne in the eighth century and ending with Adolf Hitler in the 20th.
At the height of Hitler’s power, the then Signs of the Times ( US) editor Arthur S Maxwell predicted the dictator’s downfall based on his understanding of the prophecy of Daniel 2.
John Rossant, an editor of Business Week magazine, wrote a commentary in the June 12, 2000, issue entitled “A United States of Europe.” He quotes a speech by German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer made on May 12, 2000, at Berlin’s Humbolt University, in which he called for the formation of a European parliament and government, with power to legislate and execute power. Many liked the idea, while others attacked Fischer’s ideas as proof that Germany was not yet cured of Nazism. To the reader of the Scripture this appears to be another false hope.
When Jesus was on earth, He talked not so much about the kingdoms of this world; rather, he spoke mostly about the kingdom of grace. He talked about the future kingdom of glory that Daniel predicted: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. . . . Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance . . .’” (Matthew 25:31-34).
The second chapter of Daniel climaxes with the great rock—the Rock of Ages. Jesus will set up a kingdom based on righteous principles. Given that everything Daniel predicted has proved to be true, given to him by the supernatural word of God, you can believe this fifth great kingdom will also one day exist.
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Articles of interest:
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This is an extract from November 2002
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