A member of President Sarkozy’s Cabinet once told me that France – as the “eldest daughter of the Church” – could never lose the faith. I suggested to her that she visit Ephesus. The Holy Mother spent her last days there and was assumed from there into Heaven. Ephesus was one of the ancient churches mentioned in the Gospels. Go there now. It is an archeological dig. There is a village a few miles away and in it there is no Christian church. But there are mosques. The faith does not grow on stones but only in human hearts.
And so the Southern Baptists had it right in Vienna a few weeks ago and so did Weiler before them. Europe is tired. Europe may be spent. Europe is almost certainly dying. The spread of radical social policies and their death-dealing pathologies, the epoch-ending birth rates, the death of marriage; all these are symptoms of a deeper malaise of the spirit. Europe can only be saved by “more Europeans proclaiming the lordship of Jesus Christ.”
To reiterate: This is the language of America and of American Evangelicals and it is the language that has kept America percolating as the most religious country in the west. Catholics owe a great debt to Evangelicals for this kind of language. It may not be our language, but it is language that has protected this country from going the way of Europe.
Austin Ruse Saving Europe
