The Lille Declaration of Faith (2017)

An English Translation of the EPUdF's Déclaration de foi

I have spent the last few days translating the Église protestante unie de France’s (EPUdF) Déclaration de foi into English. From 2017, this document captures (in simple and characteristically Reformed understatement) the essence of what I believe concerning matters of faith. It is a commendable work.

The National Synod of the United Protestant Church of France, meeting in Lille from May 25 to 28, 2017, adopts the following Declaration of Faith:

In Jesus of Nazareth, God reveals his love for humanity and for the world.

The United Protestant Church of France proclaims this together with the other Christian churches. In the wake of the Reformation, it announces this good news: God welcomes each human being as they are, without any merit on their part. In this Gospel of grace, at the heart of the Bible, the Spirit of God is made manifest. The Spirit enables the Church to listen to the biblical texts and to let itself be guided by them in daily life.

God created us, inviting us to live in trust with him. Yet we betray this trust, and we find ourselves confronted with a world marked by evil and misfortune. But a breach (brèche) has been opened with Jesus, recognized as the Christ announced by the prophets: the reign of God is already at work among us. We believe that in Jesus, the crucified and risen Christ, God has taken evil upon himself. A Father of goodness and compassion, he dwells within our frailty and thus breaks the power of death. He makes all things new! Through his Son Jesus, we become his children. He continually raises us up: from fear to trust, from resignation to resistance, from despair to hope.

The Holy Spirit makes us free and responsible through the promise of a life stronger than death. The Spirit encourages us to bear witness to the love of God, in word and in deed. God cares for all his creatures. He calls us, together with other builders of justice and peace, to hear distress and to fight scourges of every kind: existential anxieties, social ruptures, hatred of the other, discrimination, persecution, violence, overexploitation of the planet, and the refusal of all limits. Drawing on the gifts it receives from God, the Church finds the resources that enable it to live and to carry out its service with joy: proclamation of the Word, celebration of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, as well as prayer, reading of the Bible, communal life, and solidarity with the most vulnerable.

The United Protestant Church of France understands itself as one of the faces of the universal Church. It attests that the truth by which it lives always surpasses it. To the One who is love beyond all that we can express and imagine, we offer our gratitude.

“Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever.” – Psalm 118:1