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
skceptical. 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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