Mission-Net Erfurt, 29 Dec. ’11
(on Europe’s spiritual health)
What do we expect from this seminar?
à Gain clearer insight in (Western) Europe’s spiritual status.
à Understand the main paradoxes in the reality of today’s Europe.
à Discern important signs of renewal or revival
à Discover how we can be part of ‘movement of transformation’ in Europe.
We are all European civilians. Let us think about your main‘small corner’ (where you work, study, live) and try to answerthree questions.
1. What kinds of religion or religiosity are dominant (Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, ‘New Age spirituality’, ‘secularism’, ‘consumers-mentality’ etc.)?
2. Do you see the influence of Christianity growing or declining?
3. How do you consider the ‘spiritual health’ of the church where you belong to (where you are baptized or where you are most committed)? (Signs of spiritual health: clear Biblical teaching, fellowship, prayerful life, table community.)
Two examples: Anglican church in Venice (traditional churches are dying or declining), Richard Aidoo, Ghanese pastor in Dusseldorf.
(A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege to hear the Ghanese pastor Richard Aidoo speaking at an Alliance meeting in Germany. He was asked to speak about ‘full shelves and empty faces’. He didn’t touch his subject so much, but what he declared his unshaken love for Germany and the Germans. And his whole lecture was telling funny stories how he broke the ice and took every opportunity to share the love of Christ with his fellow citizens who hide themselves behind their books and their newspapers. Richard is leading a growing international church in Düsseldorf with 6 services every Sunday bringing together over 1000 people from more than 40 nationalities. Richard doesn’t analyse so much, but loves all the more!)
Europe’s Paradoxes
At the Hope for Europe congress last May I attended a meeting of GATE (Gift from Africa to Europa, African pastors working together to bring back the Gospel to Europe). They were speaking about the ‘poverty’ of Europe(!) ‘Europeans are very poor, they always have lack of time and we, Africans, have plenty of it!’
This is the day-to-day ‘paradoxality’ in (Western) Europe that we all know. Europe is a very rich continent and still very poor. Look for example at this:
- All helpful technical instruments like cars, washing machines, computers, mobile should give us plenty of time. Compared to our father or grandfather we must have plenty of time, but the reality is that we have less time and we are much more stressed than our forefathers.
- There is roughly speaking plenty of money (despite all signals of a financial crisis), still there is a big lack of care, of homes, of education (items that cannot simply bought). Behind the economic crisis we refuse to see the spiritual crisis.
- Speaking about religion: no epoch saw so many religious (and also Christian) books, papers, articles, conferences, websites… but agnosticism and atheism are shaping our continent in such way that from the south Europe is considered as a spiritually dying continent. And looking from Christian perspective: what one century ago was a missionary continent (sending missionaries all over the world) has become a continent to be ‘missionized’ again.
Marked by fear.
Speaking about Europe’s spiritual reality, I like to quote the famous US sociologist of religion Philip Jenkins, who published several books on the future of Europe.
Jenkins is very pessimistic about the future of the traditional church in Europe. Although we find a church tower in nearly every little village across Europe, the general influence of Christianity in society has decreased considerably (secularization). European (Western) world is post-modern and post-Christian. According to Jenkins European Christianity is near to disappearing. We can prepare the burial of the official church. That doesn’t mean that Christian faith will disappear, but its appearance will be more humble, more in movements, more like leaven in the bread, more feminine, more young.
But this development is part of a broader development indicating the distrust or the pessimism about the old institutes (that had great influence and impact…The old myths have been abandoned: from blind trust, to disappointment, to refusal: the church, the state, the banks, ‘science’ –we have seen many sign of fraud last year).
Jenkins says that Europe is a ‘continent of fear’. Cf the way. European media deal with religion as a problem, whether you speak about islamization of Europe, the paedophilic priests in the RC church (institute that brought rottenness), or the fear for all kinds of religious sects, including evangelical sects. In all cases religion is seen in a criminal perspective. Many articles and interviews have as a basic emotion: fear. Europe is a continent of fear: fear for losing individual freedom, fear for losing personal and social security, fear for losing financial and material possession. The value of Jenkins’ research is that he compares these kinds of developments with developments in the US, Middle East and China. So he argues that fear for islamization of Europe is unrealistic. 50 years ago the US society had to face all kinds of violent migrant groups, but in particular by migrant woman who were able to raise their social status and their influence violence diminished. Of course he sees the problems with a 2nd and 3rd generation of migrants, but as migrant families will have less children in 2nd and 3rd generation, he expects more an adaption to western secularized culture. Migrants give a new opportunity to share the love of Christ with others!
Question: where do you see signs of hope, signs of revival in your context?
Signs of renewal
1. Revival movements in the established churches. It is special that the Anglican Church in UK was the cradle of some major movements that influenced the church in may parts of Europe and in other parts of the World, like the Alpha course (I can testify how several people came to faith through Alpha in my traditional Protestant Church in R’dam, where I served as a pastor for 8 years). But also other movements like ‘New wine’, ‘Charismatic Movement’ and an interdenominational movement like ‘ Together for Europe’. But look also to revival movements in the RC church, like Focolare, Egidius movement, Chemin Neuf. Last year my church participated in receiving guests from different parts of Europe who attended the European Taizé meeting in Rotterdam. It is quite an experience to sit and pray together with 30.000 young people from across Europe. The participants stayed with church members in the region, they only had a simply copied A-4 booklet as their conference handbook. It was all organized low budget, but the participants were very attentive.
There are remarkable expressions of emerging churches including new types of monasticism in their practice.
2. Migrant churches in E. Migrant churches are the fastest growing churches in Europe. The biggest ones in Kiev, London being Nigerian. In nearly all big cities in (Western) Europe the dying established churches can be confronted by vibrant, dynamic, growing migrant churches with a very non-Western liturgy but also a very non Western approach in helping their members to face the social day to day challenges like housing, educating children, employment, financial crisis etc. Recently in the city of Rotterdam is was calculated that the common effort of the migrant churches to help migrants with social problems helped the city council to save over 4 million Euro!
The migrant church can help the Western church to identify modern Western idols, like security, individualism and individual self development at the cost of community, and the hunger for material welfare and to become more committed to creative evangelism and social action. The Western Church can help migrant churches to understand secularisation better, and help with resources, buildings, structure, organization and knowledge. I encourage local EA-groups to make contact with migrant churches.
(This point is part of the strategic policy plan of EEA)
3. Church planting initiatives. The last 10 years we see a growing movement of church planting. Over 20 pan-European networks already exist. In every big city of Europe you can find church plants, some very small, immature, but others are on the way to pass the limit of 100 members. These are little signs of hope. Church plants occur in mainline churches (although a bit rare).
Your role in Europe’s future!?
As William Wilberforce (in UK around 1850) on a certain moment knew that he was called to the fight against slavery (instead of becoming a pastor). And as Bonhoeffer took the decision before God and his conscience to combat the Nazi ideology, we in our little or even bigger corner are called to follow Christ in the midst of society and only with God’s help we will succeed in the battle against the ‘idols of our time’.
- Truth is brought from back the world of convictions, or feelings. Plurality is seen as a number of windows to look at reality. Truth is divers and complex (like how Indians see an elephant – its trunk, its back,..etc). To refrain from fear and to establish a renewed confidence in the truth of the Gospel. The Gospel is not ‘good views’, but is tis ‘ Good news’ (Eu-angelion – a word that was used in the Greek-Roman time to announce a victory, or the succession of a new emperor, it was to announce a new state of affairs). The Gospel is not about what we have to do, but about: what God has done. Here is the big difference between religiosity and faith. Jesus said: ‘You will know the truth and the truth will set you free’ (John 8, 32). This is the truth of God’s unconditional love for a lost world (John 3,16), for lost people as we are in ourselves. Faith cannot be brought back to a number of convictions or feelings. It means accepting the new reality that God has brought away.
- European society suffers from a lack of confidence. There is a lot of distrust, suspicion towards the ‘old institutes’. To promote and to work practically for a new Christian fellowship and brotherhood across denominations, against the fear, that causes individualism, isolation, fragmentation and group thinking, that uses community only as a matter of self-interest, or self-development. 1 John 4,18. ‘ Real love throws out fear’. It is Christ’s love working through us. Unconditional love has always been a core value of Europe as a Christian continent.
- Europe has been the continent of aggression and violence. Now ‘personal violence ‘ is growing. Why the Norwegian guy took a gun to kill so many people? What happened in Liege a couple of weeks ago? It seems a sort of bitterness and aggression. Lunatics are part of their environment; they have some history that you cannot separate from society. To withstand the violence of words and guns a to give all our energy to the seemingly powerless act of prayer, and -for worldly eyes complete senselessness- honouring God in the liturgy of the church.
- To withstand the enslavement of a super fluent society. This is not an easy one. Remember the story of Eustace in the ‘ Voyage of the Dawntrader‘ (Narnia tales). Eustace is an annoying young man. Nobody likes him. On their journey to reach some islands, and Eustace –on his own- finds a cave with a lot of gold and jewels. He thinks that it all belongs to him, but he doesn’t know that these are all possessions of a dragon. When he falls asleep his skin changes slowly and when he wakes up he is changed into a dragon himself. Now he has to live his life as a dragon. Only Aslan, the Lion can save him later, when he uses his paws to tear the dragons skin from him. The early Christian find their joy in sharing their possessions. They only could do this because they shared the bread and the wine that God has provided in His mercy. (Acts 2, 46 ‘With joy and simplicity of hearts’). This will give us life in abundance!
‘Not what you do, what you plan, but for whom you live!’ (Egyptian friend)
‘Not where you are, not what you experience, or suffer, but to whom you belong!’ (Heidelb. Catechism)
Revd. Niek Tramper, Gen Sec European Evangelical Alliance, and pastor in the Protestant Church of the Netherlands.
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