What is Love?
Secretary General of Les Groupes Bibliques Universitaires (GBU) David Brown shares about the latest Veritas Forum in France
This March, 570 students, faculty and community members attended the fourth Veritas Forum in France. Held over the course of four evenings at the University of Nice, the event focused around the question of love. The forum opened with a conversation between French intellectual Pascal Bruckner and Secretary General of the GBU (the French arm of Intervarsity) David Brown about the relationship between love, sexuality and marriage. The forum also brought together philosopher Luc Ferry and theologian Henri Blocher to discuss whether the notion of neighbor-love is utopia or reality. Discussions centering on the role of humanitarian aid and on Islam, a hot-button issue in France, rounded out the event.
The event was an enormous success in a highly secular cultural context that often engenders only hostility toward faith. Conversations between Christian and secular academics are rare in France, and the forum proved to be a unique instance of bridge-building and fruitful, mutual dialogue. French evangelical Christians have been growing in numbers over the past few decades (from 50,000 in 1950 to 460,000 today), but evangelical churches often lack credibility in French society. The Veritas Forum in Nice was a huge step in the right direction toward engaging and captivating French university students with the person and story of Jesus Christ.
