In the light of Brexit, these two volumes, published just before the UK Referendum and sadly in my view without noticeable effect, obviously remind one of the stable door post equine exit. Nevertheless they both provoke serious reflection on the European Project, what its purposes might be and whether there is such a thing as a soul of Europe to which the churches contribute. In the UK this is by no means irrelevant as we try to discover what our new relationship with ‘Europe’ might be. And it is as well for Christians and lawyers (not that the two professions are necessarily in opposition) to ponder on these things in the light of uncertain futures. The editors of God and the EU are Gary Wilton, an Anglican priest who was the Archbishop of Canterbury's Representative to the European Union and remains Programme Director, Faith and International Affairs at Wilton Park of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and Jonathan Chaplin, Director of the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics and a member of the Cambridge Divinity Faculty. The editors have gathered together 14 essays by authors of different backgrounds covering first the Christian inspirations of the EU in the past and today, and second religion and the actual policies of the EU. In Christian Churches in European Integration, the Orthodox Christian Sergei Mudrov, a research fellow at the New Europe College in Bucharest and a visiting scholar in Belarus, Hamburg, Tallinn and Dundee, looks systematically at themes of integration and the churches, and then gives us case studies. Some ground is common between the two books but the two are complementary to each other rather than a duplication.

In God and the EU the Christian origins of the European Union are explored and the catholic social teaching which influenced Robert Schuman, Conrad Adenauer and Alcide de Gaspari is well recounted in Gary Wilton's initial essay on the Schuman Declaration. Northern protestantism was more cautious towards integration and is examined in a study by Sander Luitwieler that inter alia covers the developing Christian support for the European Project in the UK, especially the Christians and the Common Market report of the British Council of Churches (1967) and the important Christians for Europe Movement of the mid-1970s with the referendum campaign of 1975. The contemporary comparative silence of the churches (in England, though not in Scotland and Wales) in the last referendum is perplexing. Since accession to the Common Market, with the important exception of General Synod and House of Bishops' Europe Panel reports, there has been less interest in questions of integration.

Orthodox attitudes are well expounded by Peter Petkoff, covering both a wider eastern European Orthodox perspective as well as reflection on diasporas in the West. This is followed by a perceptive study by Werner Lachman, who contrasts the German social market economy with the French model based on centralised state planning. This contrast is directly relevant to UK attitudes. Brussels can be reduced, admittedly over-simplistically, to the marriage of a German economy to French bureaucracy. I suspect that the UK, in joining the Common Market, was signing up to one but not the other. Adrian Pabst follows with another contrast: is the EU a market-state or a commonwealth? Is the vision for Europe simply about a ‘secular’ market economy, with growth as the only goal, or does Europe's cultural and religious history point towards something greater, including being a bastion for people of faith(s) and none? Studies on identity and place and on religious freedom and the EU follow, together with a more technical description of religious representation to the EU, God and the abortive European constitution, economic ethics and environmental policy.

Two final essays turn from detail to core values. Diana Beech and Jonathan Chaplin touch on a ‘soul for Europe’, starting from Jacques Delors’ speech to the churches in Brussels in 1992. Chaplin's concluding essay is particularly interesting because he explores ‘souls’ in the plural. He speaks of a balance between Christianity and humanism. I would press this further and say that there needs to be a balance between Europe's very diverse Christian heritage – Orthodox (see again Petkoff's essay), Latin and Protestant (fitting in Anglican where one can!) – and the heritage of both the Renaissance and the Enlightenment – humanism not narrowed to secularism.

Mudrov's monograph is understandably more cohesive because from a single author. It suffers from some repetitiveness by reason of the straitjacket of the thesis format: you say what you are going to say; then you say it; finally you say what you have said. But the research is solid, extensive and persuasive. Mudrov examines and compares different socio-political theories of integration. Economic functionalism as the driver for integration is rejected as inadequate or only partially true; as is the theory of ideological state inter-governmentalism, namely the view that states drive everything. Mudrov prefers a social constructive perspective: that is, one in which a number of different factors influence the matter. This allows for the inspiration of catholic social theory in the ‘founding fathers', the practical economy of the market, and entirely non-governmental factors such as the churches.

Mudrov examines what he calls ‘non-state actors’, meaning both non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the churches but quite clearly distinguishing the churches from NGOs. While the churches sometimes act consciously like NGOs – for example, in lobbying for causes – they sometimes act entirely altruistically. He contends that the churches’ level of influence, while not to be exaggerated, is unique and deserving of further academic attention. In arguing this he examines in detail the representative church structures in Brussels, their origins and their purposes. He especially singles out, with supportive argument, the work of the Commission of the (Catholic) Bishops' Conferences of the European Union (COMECE) and the Conference of European Churches – Anglican, Protestant and Orthodox (CEC).Footnote ²

In the second part of his book, Mudrov gives us two excellently detailed case studies. The first is on the role of the churches in the reform of the treaties of Maastrict (1993), Amsterdam (1999), Nice (2003) and finally Lisbon (2007). This is much, much more than whether the (failed) European Constitution should have referred to God. The Lisbon Treaty speaks of the religious and cultural heritage of Europe, and Article 17 explicitly established that there shall be dialogue between religious representatives and the European Institutions – as also with other philosophical movements. For the detailed work of COMECE and CEC in achieving this, Mudrov gives full chapter and verse. Finally, he looks at the work of the churches in Europe in relation to asylum and migration. He particularly singles out the Churches Commission for Migrants in Europe (CCME), which is an associated body with the CEC. This particular case study is important not only because of the sad topicality of the escalating tragedy of migrants in and on the borders of Europe but also because it gives the lie to the suggestion occasionally heard that the churches' representation in Brussels is merely by reason of self-interest. Rather, the work for migrants is a very concrete example of the Christian duty to love neighbour as we love God, and of remembering how widely the Lord teaches us to determine who our neighbour is.