Zadkine’s sculpture of a man with a hole instead of a heart is not only an image for Rotterdam after the war, but also the spiritual state of Europe. Christian and non-Christian historians agree that the origin and existence of Europe cannot be understood apart from Christianity. Europe has become alienated from this heritage, thereby losing its heart. During N.T. times northern Europe was dominated by pagan religions. In the period between Paul’s call to preach in Macedonia and the baptism of the lcelandic people in 1004, the truth of the Gospel changed the whole outlook of European culture. The church came to symbolize the heart of each European city and village and its worldview produced one European culture and heritage.
The European flag also has an empty space at its centre. What will be the future heart of Europe? I hope that the empty place will again be filled with new life coming from a return to our Maker. I am convinced that the source of the problem is our ‘uprootedness’, being cut off from the main root, the foundation of European culture. You only need to read the leading European thinkers of the last century, starting with the ‘masters of suspicion’, to feel the underlying emptiness, as if God does not exist, that He is irrelevant. It’s more a feeling than an intellectual objection, an inability to believe.
How can we see Europe with the eyes of God? European history is mixed: two world wars, but also the development of science and technology, and the resulting welfare society. We can see both curse and blessing. What is the secret, behind this? I am comforted by the comparison of Europe with Israel. In both cases God has tried to reach out to a lost world through a supernaturally changed culture. Israel’s calling was unique – to bring forth the Messiah, but God also wanted Israel to be different as a national culture and so fore-shadow the coming of the Messiah and His rule. In this respect there are parallels between Israel and Europe. We, as European countries were called to be an ‘after-shadow’ of his coming, to bring forth the fruits of the coming of Christ and fore-shadow the coming Kingdom! This motivated our Christian ancestors to work for a Christian culture. Even when they were not personally converted they still demonstrated what Francis Schaeffer called: the fruits of the fruits of the fruits of the Spirit.
When the gospel came to Europe pagan cyclicism was broken and a way to the future opened up. Relationships were renewed, and the family assumed a central place. Authority became delegated authority. Christian values created a completely different culture renewing all aspects of life. The Holy Spirit planted the fruits, and out of that the fruits of the fruits of the fruits of the Spirit appeared. At the beginning of Constantine’s rule Christians were already accepting responsibility for government and economic growth. It was not the fall of Christianity as some people believe; but God-willed renewal of the culture. Europe’s example was not all good. European culture was deeply fallen and violent. Church and state conspired together in the crusades and religious wars.
Europe’s history has always been a synthesis between real Christianity, paganism and humanism. They ran away with the secondary Christian values: equality, justice, liberty and brotherhood, but they stayed away from the primary Christian values: the cross of Christ, sanctification and the coming of the Kingdom, so we should not see European history as Christian. For centuries Christianity was the top-layer, paganism and humanism the undercurrent. This began to change at the time of the Enlightenment. By the 20th century, the undercurrent had become the top-layer, and Christianity had become the undercurrent. In most European countries now Christians are a minority.
The enlightenment in Europe came in two waves. In the first, thinkers like Voltaire and Rousseau moved the majority of Europeans away from theism to deism. The second wave at the end of the 19th century took European culture from deism to atheism. The U.S.A. was spared this wave which shook the foundations of the spiritual state of Europe. The four masters of suspicion: Darwin, Marx, Freud and Nietszche, all atheists believed that God was a projection of the human mind. Morality, authority and Christian character were all undermined and assumed to be driven by suspicious motives. The church was seen as a way to help people feel good about themselves. They sowed distrust of everything religious, trusting only science and technology, making it very hard to talk about God or to preach the gospel in this climate of suspicion. Modernism followed with its methodic atheism and big dreams, but after a century of living under the rule of ideologies the dreams were shattered. Two world wars followed by decades of recovery have made people aware that world problems like war and poverty have not moved any closer to solution. Yes, we are post-modernists.
On the outside people appear happy consumers in a welfare state, but when we go deeper we find suspicion and disappointment. The truth about God is just too good to believe. We are back to the times of Jesus: no preaching without healing. Europe’s problem is not just loss of truth, it is also a wounded heart. People fear being trapped again. This could be true of the masters of suspicion themselves, their unbelief is more a rationalization of a felt ‘absence of God’, than a conclusion from their scientific work.. This does not make talking about the reality of God in Europe today any easier. We need to focus as much on the underlying doubt, suspicion and disappointment, as on the intellectual argument, although refutation of the latter remains an important task. A deep work of healing must take place. The reality of God has to be convincing. In Acts we see that this is the work of the Holy Spirit through words, acts of healing, signs and wonders. Without that we will get nowhere, either in Europe or elsewhere.
We could see the switch of Christianity to the under-current as God’s judgment on Europe. Our response should be real mourning, repentance and prayer, to feel what God feels, then we need healing of our suspicion and disappointment. Non-Christians usually come to Christ in Europe in the context of healing communities, shared meals, personal care and good apologetics. We need to resist the temptation to hide in Christian sub-cultures, instead to be genuine Europeans accepting responsibility for the culture in which the Lord has put us and showing the truth of God in a renewed lifestyle and culture. May God use us again in this period of Europe’s history more like Esther and Daniel who were salt and light in the world of their time!
Where do we go from here? I believe our message to western Europeans should be: Go back from the fruits to the roots It’s not that they do not know what justice or mercy are, but that they believes they can achieve them without walking humbly with God. Thinking that they can keep enjoying the fruits without the roots is a huge mistake. Eastern Europeans need to hear the opposite: Go on from your hidden roots to the fruits. We see a new openness in the east, a searching for their roots. Many are asking for help to remodel their society according to Biblical principles, as in the west. We should realize that Byzantine Christianity has always been mystical, and other-worldly. We learned from the Reformation how to renew a culture on the basis of the Bible. What eastern Europe needs is not western evangelists, but deeply committed Christians in business, politics, and the professions who can help them to work out a Biblical view in all areas of life and culture.
In short, western Europeans need revival, eastern Europeans need reformation. If this does not happen, all our fears for the future of Europe could come true. May God use us in promoting revival in the west and reformation in the east.
© Wim Rietkerk 2004 Source: Link: http://www.euroleadershipresources.org/resource.php?ID=73