Top Quotes from the ELF

I'm back now from the European Leadership Forum. I'm not going to say too much as blogger and U2 fanatic Mark Meynell has some super reflections in greater depth than I could ever ascribe to. (Incidentally Mark's seminar on the spirituality of Irish super group will be well worth downloading once it goes onto the ELF website!)

Instead, I thought I'd share a handful of the excellent sentences that particularly struck me from some of the sessions I attended:

• Stuart McAllister on the need for personal integrity amongst leaders: "We are all just one decision away from stupidity."
• Martin Haizmann on the need for Scriptural evangelism: "Europe needs to meet Jesus in his fullness and completeness."
• Wayne Grudem on taking the Bible seriously: "To fail to love Scripture is to fail to love God."
• Fyodor Dostoevsky, quoted by Amy Orr-Ewing, on the lack of moral absolutes in atheism: "if there is no immorality, then all things are permitted."
• John Stott, quoted by Lindsay Brown, on the responsibilities of husbands in Ephesians 5, looking to the example of Jesus: "If Lordship means power in any sense, it is power to care and not to crush; to serve and not to dominate; to help to fulfilment and not to frustrate."
• Hartmut Kopsch on Luke 15 and the danger of moralising: "If the younger brother had met the older brother before he met his father, he might have returned to the swine."
• Avi Snyder on wise evangelism: "Jesus answered questioners, not questions."
• Albert Camus, quoted by Raphael Anzerberger on our greatest problem: "Now that Hitler has gone, we know a certain number of things. The first is that the poison which impregnated Hitlerism has not been eliminated; it is present in each of us. Whoever today speaks of human existence in terms of power, efficacy, and ‘historical tasks’ spreads it."
• Bono, quoted by Mark Meynell, on the lyrics of Wake Up Dead Man: "It’s the end of the century, and it’s a century where God is supposed to be dead. … People want to believe, but they’re angry, and I picked up on that anger. If God is not dead, there are some questions we want to ask him. I’m a believer, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get angry about these things." See also here for more.