Playing the Indian Card

Monday, January 19, 2015

A Christian Revival in Europe?



A writer living in Paris claims he sees early signs of a Christian revival: the churches in that city are now, he says, SRO.

Purely anecdotal, but I would not be surprised. In fact, I am surprised it has not happened already.

A lot of commentators, especially on the left, argue that with increasing prosperity and development, religious faith inevitably wanes. And there is something, no doubt, to that: blessed are the poor. But America has for a long time shown itself to be much more religious than Europe, and America is also more developed and prosperous, on the whole, that Europe; so that cannot be the only factor.

Christianity is currently under attack, in direct religious terms: on the one side from militant Islamism, massacring the Christians of the Middle East, and on the other from militant atheists, questioning traditional religious rights. It would be very strange if there were not, in response, a large-scale rallying to the cross.

And if this giant wakes—its current attackers would be dwarfed by it. It would immediately become the single most significant factor. There are simply a lot more Christians in the world than either atheists or Muslims.

It is quite likely to happen.

It would be a very good thing. It would be the revival of Europe and the West; it would be a matter of rediscovering their raison d'etre, their meaning and purpose. Christianity is the rock upon which Western civilization is built. Anything not built on the slopes or on the pinnacle of that rock is built only to be washed away.

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