Save Europe

Reintroducing Christianity to Post-Christian Europe

Ted Kim

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781725279285
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Europe is a continent of ironies. There are beautiful, historic church buildings, but they are empty on Sunday mornings. Europeans have been surrounded by Christianity for centuries, but Christ is not in them. Is this the future of Christianity in Europe? May it never be! The author combines cultural analysis with a prophetic insight to propose a new direction for the European churches. The decline of Christianity in Europe has been necessary to shed excess baggage. The beautiful heritage of Christianity in Europe is truly wonderful, but that is not the essence of Christianity. Churches must return to the original priorities of the faith. Be a fisher of men. Do not assume that people already know about Christianity but are not interested. People may not be interested in religion, but Jesus has an irresistible appeal. Christianity cannot be reinvented, but churches can. If churches stop presuming that Europeans are already Christians and instead compete in the marketplace of ideas, they will be able to win back the hearts of the post-Christian Europeans. Europe is the most important mission field of the twenty-first century and the fiercest spiritual contest will take place in Europe. If you desire to be a servant of the Lord, ask him to send you into the harvest field of Europe. Exciting days are ahead of us.

1

Europe Is a Major Mission Field

The American stand-up comedian David Chappelle said, “Chivalry is dead.” Then he added, “Women killed it.”1 Though intended to be funny, this joke is a very keen insight into people’s responsibility for their loss. Chivalry refers to men’s gentlemanly conduct toward women, but women in their independent spirit rejected it, making chivalry superfluous. Who stands to lose from this result? Chappelle’s statement resembles what Nietzsche said about God: “God is dead.” Then Nietzsche added, “We have killed him.”2 No man can kill God or bring him back to life at will. Nonetheless, if a man chose to eliminate God in his world, he has only himself to blame for his loss. By killing God, the modern man committed spiritual suicide. This suicide has taken place over a long period, and its effect is becoming more and more visible. The absence of God in the world did not produce the independence of man, but the alienation of man. It is like a divorce. A divorcee may have thought that he could be free after the divorce, but he finds himself alone and not free. Unlike a divorcee, the modern man cannot look for a substitute for God.

Nietzsche’s ominous statement seemed to predict the decline of Christianity as an inevitable result of humanity’s progress. The profound changes in the values and thoughts of European society since the Enlightenment have led to the decline of Christian faith in Europe. On the other hand, there are also some not-so-profound reasons. The flesh opposes the spirit. There is nothing profound about the deeds of the flesh. The natural mind does not appreciate spiritual things. That is what happened in Europe. It is not as mysterious as we think. The appeal of the secular lifestyle has pushed away the sacred demands of the church.

God is not someone whom man can kill or bring back to life at will. What Nietzsche thought the modern man had killed was not God, but the dominance of Christianity in modern culture. Nonetheless, the real power of Christianity does not rest on its cultural dominance but on the word of God and the Holy Spirit. Christianity was never meant to be the dominant culture of the world. Instead, it must go against the dominant culture. The success of Christianity became its own poison. Christianity should lose its preeminence in the world to save its true self. Christianity needs to be small to be great again.

Anyone will leave a church if services are dull and unappealing to his heart. On the other hand, people will come back if something touches their hearts. Basically, three conditions must be met for churches to grow. First, the congregation must not fall asleep during sermons. Second, they must come back the following week. And third, they must bring their friends. When these three conditions are satisfied, churches will grow. When such an obvious principle is lost, churches have only themselves to blame. Preserving Christianity is not very complicated.

We are not talking about the marketplace of religion or spiritual consumerism, as some pastors fear. Instead, we are talking about introducing Jesus Christ to the post-Christian world once again. The gospel took one trip around the world. When the gospel reached the end of the world, we thought the task was over. But the job is not over. We must do the work one more time. Like Peter, who fell into the water after attempting to walk on water, we must recover the faith we once had. Who is to say that one attempt at world evangelization suffices? We must go back to the basics like praying, preaching, and practicing faith. If anyone is contemptuous of these tasks, he is contemptuous of the Great Commission.

Whenever people discuss the topic of the loss of European identity, the subject of the Muslim immigrants comes up. People seem to believe that the influx of Muslim immigrants is responsible for the loss of European identity. But the truth of the matter is that Europe began to lose its Christian identity long before the Muslim immigration. Europeans cannot blame the Muslims for their loss of identity. Instead, it was the loss of faith that led to the loss of cultural identity, and this loss of identity produced timid immigration policies. The political leaders of Europe cannot talk about defending the “European values” without knowing what they are. The loss of faith is like taking the cornerstone out of the building called Europe; there is no foundation to support the structure, and the collapse is predictable.

It does not ordinarily occur to people that a problem can have severe and deadly consequences until it is too late. They expect their comfortable lifestyles will continue indefinitely. The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 was not taken seriously at the beginning. Nobody imagined that an epidemic from one part of the world could spread to the rest of the world, crippling the whole world, locking people in their homes, and bringing about grave economic ruin. Spiritual problems can do a more severe damage to the souls of people.

Throughout the history of Judeo-Christianity, deadly wars have raged for the souls of humanity. The Israelites in the wilderness were always vulnerable to the temptations of idolatry. Elijah had to prove before the people of Israel that Yahweh, and not Baal, was the true God. Apostle Paul cautioned the Galatians against false gospels. Apostle John warned that the antichrist was already in the world. Wars for the souls of men are not theoretical, but real and fierce. Defeat has deadly consequences. The emptying of the church pews in the western world demonstrates not just a cultural phenomenon but spiritual loss. Protecting the faith is always a grave task throughout the history of Christianity. One of the many titles of the British Monarch is the Defender of the Faith. But no queen or king can defend the faith in modern society. Each soul must be won through deliberate and effective ministry—one person at a time. Otherwise, Christianity in Europe will be regarded by people as an antiquated institution like the monarchy.

Discussing the condition of Christianity in western Europe gives us a sense of crisis, dread, and resignation. We feel that perhaps Christianity is on its way toward extinction. Europeans have tried Christianity for two thousand years and have reached their final verdict, it seems. Such fear is unfounded and uninformed. Christianity is not headed toward extinction when viewed from a global perspective. Europeans are not authorized to issue the final verdict. It would be presumptuous for them to think so. The judgment is not about Christianity itself, but about Europe’s performance as the custodian of Christianity for two thousand years. It is like the master coming back to see what his servants have done with the talents he gave them.

Not all the servants have suffered a deficit because Christianity has experienced rapid growth in other parts of the world—in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Christianity still has a very powerful presence in the United States. Hence it is not just in the “poor” Global South where Christianity is thriving. Eastern Europe has already experienced a society without churches. The experiment with communism in Eastern Europe was not just an experiment with communism but also an experiment with the church’s absence in society. After several decades, communism gave up, and the church returned. Christianity has demonstrated higher survivability than ideology.

The shifting of the gravity of Christianity from Europe to the Global South has been going on for several decades, but Europeans are paying attention to it only at this time because the Christian immigrants from the Global South display different attitudes toward Christianity. Europeans pay attention to the church growth in other parts of the world not because they are impressed by it, but because they find it odd. Europeans cannot imagine that God must be behind any of the extraordinary Christian revivals in the Global South. They merely ascribe them to sociological or psychological factors. Christians from the Global South who thought that the robust church growth in their countries might impress the Europeans are disappointed to see the expressionless faces of European observers. It is almost irrelevant to the Europeans because such dramatic church growth is so different from their everyday experience. Their lack of interest accentuates the depth of their spiritual condition. They cannot easily feel what Christians in other parts of the world feel. They cannot believe that God can do the same thing among them.

The flourishing of Christianity in the Global South is a little cause for optimism for the future of Christianity. The west has been a model for democracy, education, science and technology, economics, and culture for the rest of the world. If it has taken Europe two thousand years to lose its Christian convictions, can the rest of the world not follow suit in a hundred years? What Europe does today, everyone else might do tomorrow.3

Nonetheless, a sense of dread is sometimes spiritually useful because it makes people take their faith more honestly and seriously, driving them to depend on God instead of themselves. It helps them to think about what it means to be Christians. It makes Christians humble. No longer can they hide behind the number and size of churches. They should have been humble sooner. The loud voice of the American evangelicals in the political arena points to the misplaced confidence in their number and influence. Europe does not want to learn from America in this regard.

Instead of focusing on how to bring people back to church, Christians must focus on bringing Jesus Christ back to church. What they lack is not the know-how and techniques of church growth. Elijah had to endure three-and-a-half years of poverty and humility at a widow’s house even though he was a prophet with magnificent gifts and power. During the time of smallness, Elijah had to learn obedience and humility. In the same way, Moses had to go through a harsh discipline in the isolation of the desert. The man who wanted to save his people in Egypt had to persevere forty years of obscurity in Midian shepherding his father-in-law’s flock.

The lean years are the time for the remnant to seek God’s face truly. It is the time for Christians to come back to humility. Humility does not reside in success. It is no difficult thing for God to bring about a revival in Europe. Church pews are not empty because God is dead. But Europeans need to bring Jesus back to their midst. Their affiliation to Christianity can no longer be just cultural or traditional. A man is not a Christian because he was born into a Christian culture, but because he really believes. Personal faith has to be renewed and confirmed. To become reacquainted with Jesus may feel awkward after all this time. It is like a marriage renewal where long-wed couples reconfirm their commitment to each other. Older Christians need to confirm their allegiance, not to their parish churches, but Jesus Christ. Young people need opportunities to hear the gospel again. Those who already believe but are not actively attending church must find their spiritual home. Such is the Lord’s will.

The freedom of religion necessarily presupposes a secular society. Secularism and Christianity are not opposed to each other. When a state determines its official religion, people are deprived of choice, and hence freedom. Only when people are free to choose their religion their faith is meaningful and authentic. Secularism, therefore, is not antithetical to Christianity. Instead, it is in the secular context that authentic Christianity can thrive. Secularism is the water from which Christians catch people.

Christianity cannot be reinvented, but churches can. Churches have to be reinvented to accommodate the unchurched. Churches cannot expect people to change without changing themselves. The Gothic towers, stained glass windows, high ceilings, and clergy vestments have outlived their usefulness. It is painful to see old church buildings being sold off, but God does not dwell in buildings made by men. Churches have to be lean and clean to be able to move to where people are. Allegiance to denominations has little meaning to the postmodern generation. Ministers must deconstruct Christianity to the very fundamental elements because only those elements will survive in the post-Christian era. Those essential elements are the word of God, the Holy Spirit, the fellowship of Christians, and charity. Ministers should be willing to shed all other aspects as excess baggage. The s...