[Dialogue] Cross Purposes: Conflicting Views About Religion Threaten to Divide Europe From the U.S.

[Harry Wainwright]

Colleagues, a very thoughtful read. Peace, Harry 
  _____  




Published on Saturday, January 7, 2006 by the Guardian/UK
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/>  

Cross Purposes: Conflicting Views About Religion Threaten to Divide Europe
>From the U.S. 

by Ian Buruma

The divorce is not formal, but the rift is unmistakable: Europe and the US
have less and less in common. Or so received opinion on both sides of the
Atlantic has it. The idea is not new. French politicians, beginning with
General de Gaulle, have long pretended that Paris was closer, not just
physically but in spirit, to Moscow than New York. And they did mean Paris,
not London. 

In the early decades of the 20th century, it was a common conceit of the
radical right that "Americanism" was as much of a threat to European
civilization as Bolshevism. Americanism was associated with the cultural
shallowness of capitalism, the rootlessness of multi-ethnic immigration and
the vulgar mediocrity of liberal democracy. It is often forgotten that
Americophilia was stronger among progressives than conservatives in Europe.
After the second world war this began to shift. Some of the same prejudices
about Americanism have traveled from right to left. Admiration for the US is
now associated with conservatives. 

Even if the alleged split in western civilization is exaggerated (after all,
US pop culture is the one thing all Europeans have in common), there are
indeed things that keep us apart. An infatuation with guns, for example, or
the death penalty. But one thing, in particular, distinguishes the Old from
the New World: Europe has become more and more secular, as the Americans are
falling increasingly into the arms of Jesus. It is hard to imagine any
European state electing a leader who embraces Bush's evangelical faith.
Norway, rather exceptionally, was led for a long time by a Lutheran
minister, and the British prime minister is rather pious, but even Tony
Blair probably spends less time on his knees than the US president. 

A casual drive through any European country shows the decline of traditional
churches. The finest are open to the tourist trade. Others have closed, been
turned into mosques, or converted into restaurants or apartments. Those that
still function as churches never seem to be more than half-full, and the
worshippers in some European capitals tend to come from other continents.
Even in Italy, where politicians still actively vie for the blessings of the
Vatican, the Church's authority only reaches a small percentage of the
population. 

In countries with large numbers of Muslim citizens, such as France or
Holland, Islam will almost certainly become the largest organized religion.
This causes considerable anxiety among the non-Muslim majority, not only
because Islam is the traditional enemy of Christendom, or because political
Islam is espoused by terrorists, but precisely because it runs counter to
our newly acquired secularism. Forgetting how recently most Europeans
abandoned their own religions, people regard Muslim devotion as deeply
"un-European". Americans, still more attached to their own faiths, have less
of a problem with others' devotion to theirs. 

Now take a trip along a US freeway, especially in a Republican "red state".
Driving along Interstate 35, as I did recently, from Austin, Texas, through
Waco to Fort Worth, you see endless strip malls with billboards advertising
new bank products, get-rich-quick schemes, and other promises of the good
life. But in the midst of those malls and billboards you also see many
churches and adverts for Jesus. God himself is less in evidence. In the New
World, His son appears to have taken over the store. What is extraordinary,
however, is how close these ads are in tone to the ones for bank products
and get-rich-quick schemes. They are part of the same campaign. If a new
mutual fund makes you feel prosperous and secure, then so does Jesus. 

I listened to an evangelist on a local radio station promising his listeners
salvation "without a performance clause". Other churches, he said, demand
proof of good character or fine deeds before Jesus will save you, but not
this one; anyone can turn directly to the savior and benefit from his
blessings at once - for a small management fee, to be sure. Religion is
subject to the same rules of aggressive competition as everything else in
the homeland of free enterprise. 

It is possible that most Europeans have turned against religion itself. I
believe that it is more likely that they have turned against traditional
authority, including that of the church. Few Europeans, so far, have been
born again. Religion, like class, was something you were born with. The
widespread European rebellion against authority that began in the 1960s - or
the French Revolution, to be more exact - was also a rebellion against the
churches. The aim was to be liberated from traditional constraints, to be
free to choose how to live one's life, in a way to be more like Americans. 

This did not mean the end of faith, or the religious impulse. Many student
radicals and others on the left in the 1960s came from religious
backgrounds. Just as some orthodox Jewish intellectuals in New York had
turned from God to Lenin or Trotsky, these rebellious Catholics and
Protestants embraced Marxism with the same messianic fervor with which they
had once been told to believe in God. The cult-like status of certain third
world leaders, such as Mao Zedong, suggests that the desire to worship was
not exhausted. In their own countries both Mao and Stalin deliberately
created quasi-religious cults. It is surely no coincidence that Stalin was
the product of a Catholic seminary. He knew the tricks of the trade. 

The association with Christianity in much of the non-western world was not
the same as in Europe. In 19th-century Korea, for example, Christianity,
instead of representing traditional authority, held the promise of
liberation from a rigid, authoritarian class system. In parts of Africa,
China and elsewhere, Christianity has long been associated with modern
civilization and social equality. Like Marxism, and indeed Islam,
Christianity allowed people to break the chains of caste, tribe, race or
class. That is why many low-caste Indians converted to Islam centuries ago.
It also explains the popularity of Islam among certain African-Americans,
and Christianity among Chinese political dissidents. 

Then there is what Donald Rumsfeld calls "the new Europe". Even as western
Europeans were rejecting religion, Poles clung to the church as a beacon of
opposition to the communist regime. Pope John Paul II was at least as
important in the struggle for freedom in Poland as Lech Walesa. And Walesa
is of course a devout Catholic. Polish Catholicism may have been riddled
with prejudices, but it was a refuge from a secular ideology that was felt
to be even more oppressive. 

Religion did not play quite such a significant role in other parts of the
former Soviet empire, but even so, after the 1989 Velvet Revolution in
Prague, Vaclav Havel, a thoroughly secular intellectual, led his new
government of former dissidents into St. Vitus's Cathedral for a mass
celebrated by the 90-year-old Cardinal Frantisek Tomasek, before singing
Dvorak's Te Deum. 

All this was excellent news for the Vatican, and indeed for the Orthodox
church, whose fortunes revived after the fall of communism in Russia. But
the good fortune of organized religion didn't last for very long, except
perhaps in Russia, where political liberation is still an unfinished
business. With democracy, Czechs and even Poles began to desert their
churches almost as fast as western Europeans had done. The figures are
remarkable. In 1989, 92% of Poles said they had confidence in the Catholic
church. Ten years later, it was down to half that number, and it became
increasingly hard to recruit new priests. Czechs were always more skeptical.
According to a poll taken last year, only 19% of Czechs still believe in
God. 

Despite the heroism of the late pope, the Catholic church is burdened by a
legacy of cowardice and opportunism. As an institution it had collaborated
with Nazis, as well as communists, and after 1989, the church once again
tried to dabble in politics. No wonder people regard it with a great deal of
cynicism. But this does not mean that religion is dead. Since traditional
authority is crumbling, religion is becoming more and more a matter of
personal choice, as in the US. People in eastern Europe, as well as in
Brazil, China, and many other places, are turning increasingly toward
Pentecostalism and other charismatic faiths. 

Something similar is happening in Islam. Young Muslims are attracted to such
fundamentalist creeds as Wahhabism, sponsored by Saudi Arabia, because of
its alleged purity. The son of a Moroccan immigrant in Holland, or of a
Bangladeshi in Britain, might find the village traditions of his parents
oppressive. Patriarchal authority is vested in a culture that seems
backward, even alien. Fundamentalism allows young people to sweep away those
old cobwebs and adopt a new, purer identity, unencumbered by the customs of
their parents. In a way, Muslim fundamentalism, promoted by freelance
clerics in radical mosques, is comparable to the strict kinds of
Protestantism preached by evangelicals in the US. Young Muslims, confused
about their place in the world, want to be born again too. 

The question is whether something like this could happen among the lapsed
European Christians as well. I believe that it could. That the yearning for
religious experience is by no means extinguished becomes clear on such
occasions as the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. The mass hysteria and
adulation that this unleashed in Britain suggested a kind of repressed
Marian cult. What is more, the cult was hostile to the traditional monarchy.
A confused but canny media celebrity had been transformed after death into a
sacred idol of a rebellious faith. The massive outpourings of grief, the
candlelight vigils, the hymn singing, the flowers, the sentimental
testimonials on television, the acres of newsprint that follow the deaths of
other pop celebrities, from George Best to the Dutch populist politician,
Pim Fortuyn, show a similar tendency. Could this spirit be mobilized in a
new wave of evangelical faith? 

Two examples, one from western and another from eastern Europe, suggest that
it could. Rudolf Brancovsky is a young Czech painter and part-time pop
singer for a group called Vesela Zubata (The Merry Grim Reaper). He is a
follower of Jesus. His band has performed in churches, but their punk style
was not always to the liking of the church authorities. One pastor actually
shut a concert down. Brancovsky complained: "We weren't able to speak our
natural language in our church. They wanted us to speak only in the language
of these old structures." He also said that Jesus turned water into wine,
only for Christians to turn it back into water again. 

The other example is a Dutch marathon skater, named René Ruitenberg. His
career was severely hampered two years ago when he received a "signal from
God" that he was not to practice his sport on Sundays any more. Many people
advised him against this, but after embracing Jesus and the Lord he felt
"mega-good", as if "a backpack filled with stones" had fallen from his
shoulders. Why did God's signal hit its mark? Faith, he said, was necessary,
for without it life would have no meaning and there was no knowing where you
might end up after death. Without that certainty, he said, "I would wonder
what I'm living for. My family? ... Life is an antechamber for later, for
eternity." 

So far, so banal. But then he said something more disturbing. Islam, in his
view, is a Satanic faith which will dominate the world, because Christians
have forsaken their sacred task to convert unbelievers. This doesn't mean
that he hates Muslims as individuals. It is like someone who tells lies. "I
might still like him, but I reject his lies." 

Ruitenberg may not be a deeply reflective, or even very intelligent man, but
it would be surprising if his anxieties were not widely shared. Many people
are afraid of the meaningless of life, and equally fearful of Islam. And,
again, the fact that such people often reject the established churches does
not mean they are secular. Ruitenberg, like the Czech artist, has a low
opinion of the church he grew up with. "It's a mess in the Dutch church," he
says, "and I'm ashamed of that." All they do is "think of rules and laws".
They "fuss about baptism and uplifting songs". Instead, they should "turn to
those who don't yet know God". 

Here is the voice of the true evangelical, the rebel with a direct line to
God. Now, it may be that such voices will always be a small minority in
Europe, because secularism is already too entrenched. But I wouldn't count
on it. More and more people might start exercising their freedom of choice
and choose to be born again. As a keen Atlanticist, I still like to think
that Europe and the US are inseparable parts of the same civilization, and
deplore the current rifts. But it would be a sad thing indeed if the gap
were to be narrowed, not by those who still believe in the worldly ideals of
liberalism and reason, but by those who hope that Jesus will take them
straight to heaven. 

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 

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