Christianity and Europe - What Happened?

Excerpts from an essay by Bruce Walker 08/11/2006 from the American Daily

The problem with Europe is not its systems. The problem of Europe is its loss of faith. The problem with Europe is not new, but rather old and it is the natural progression of a loss of faith in God, particularly the God of Judeo-Christian heritage and, because of the history of Europe, more specifically a loss of faith in Christianity. The seeds of failure are at least as old as the French Revolution, which was so hostile to Christianity that one hundred and twenty-five years later in the First World War France suffered from a serious shortage of nurses, which had historically been sisters in religious orders (which had been persecuted systematically in differing degrees since 1789.) How silly to imagine that France, which thumbs its nose at America, is really too timid to take on its Moslem immigrant population! The problem is that the French are trying to fight something with nothing: faith, however misguided, beats nihilism.


Before the First World War authors were writing about how unserious Germans took Christianity. During the years of the Weimar Republic other authors wrote of Germany as a “spiritual graveyard.” The hatred of Christianity by the Nazis was profound and authors during that awful time noted that Nazi Germany had gone farther down the road of “de-christianization” than even the Soviet Union or Fascist Italy.

Mussolini, the leader of Fascism, loathed ethical monotheism of any sort. His first essay, never repudiated, was entitled “God does not exist.” Although he entered into political arrangements with the Vatican, he never embraced Christianity. He, too, made himself into a sort of little god.


This is the opposite of what happened in America. The Founding Fathers warned that free democracies only work with people firmly grounded upon faith in God. Immigrating to America was an act of faith, just like immigrating to Israel. It is not accidental that America, where church-going is higher than in any nation on Earth, the will to resist evil is still strong. It is not accidental that the historical homeland of the Jewish people has an equally strong will to resist evil. Good democracies work, but goodness comes only from God. It is not accidental that godless Europe is failing.