The churches of Europe are full — of tourists. Except for a few middle-aged and elderly people, the great vaulted cathedrals and small parish churches are mostly empty of worshippers.My work as an architect and historian takes me to many churches across Europe, particularly Italy and England. So much of our history and culture resides within, and on, those hallowed walls. On one such visit to study some frescoes in a small neighborhood church in Tuscany, my wife and I stumbled into a mid-afternoon mass. We stayed, respectfully quiet at the back, listened to the service, and studied the congregation. There was no one there uder 60.
Suddenly the door flew open, admitting the afternoon glare and a harried young woman in her 20s, who hurriedly genuflected toward the high altar and made the sign of the cross before taking one of many vacant seats. Two minutes later, her cellphone beeped loudly; embarrassed, she rose, sketched the cross on her chest one more time and dashed for the door.
That vignette symbolized the social position of the church, not just in Italy but throughout much of the continent. Established religion is not as important to younger generations, except in a few instances when it’s squeezed in between business and social appointments.
On a visit to Santander, in northern Spain, my wife and I had supper at the apartment of a young professor and his wife, both offspring of large Catholic families. Conversation turned to their new baby, and their determination to have a small family. In defiance of the Pope, they, like hundreds of millions of other Catholics, openly embrace birth control. They largely brush aside church doctrine as irrelevant to their lives.
Our Spanish hosts, like their counterparts all across Europe, are part of a “post-Christian” society, one where the church exists as an historical element of culture rather than something living and relevant to today’s world.
In Britain and France, less than 10 percent of the population go to church on a regular basis. In Sweden, it’s closer to 3 percent. Most people tend to put their faith in reason, following the humanist tradition of the Renaissance and the intellectual revolution of the 17th and 18th century Enlightenment. The rise of science also plays a large role in the fall of faith on the continent that gave birth to the Industrial Revolution, quantum physics and modern genetics. In addition, the monstrous death toll from two world wars has done little to foster faith among grieving families.
Judeo-Christian principles still form the bedrock of moral codes, but they are filtered through many layers of skepticism. Religion has brought more war, death and destruction to Europe over the centuries than peace and beneficence. Today, as tensions between Christians and Muslims still simmer in the Balkans, and sectarian Christian violence rises again in Northern Ireland, religion is seen as a problem rather than a solution.
Europe’s loss of faith poses a striking contrast to the situation in the United States, where polls show that 95 percent of Americans believe in God. As well as being far less prevalent, religion is also much more private in Europe. The aggressive public religiosity so common in American life is rarely seen on the other side of the Atlantic. Televangelists don’t exist; the very few imported to European TV are seen as evidence of how weird America is.
Europeans are surprised, amused or shocked when US politicians regularly end speeches with “God bless America.” It’s impossible to imagine a prime minister saying “God bless Britain” or “God bless Norway.”
In the aftermath of 9/11, the sharply differing attitudes toward religion in Europe and America are especially important, because they underlie many of the political disagreements between the US and its European allies. Europe’s rejection of religious faith disturbs Americans, who consider God a specific sponsor and supporter of their country — even of their political party.
But Europe is content without God, and it’s impossible to argue that those nations are less moral or caring than the churchgoing United States. As an article in the Washington Post stated, “Americans put up huge billboards reading “Love Thy Neighbor,’ but they murder and rape their neighbors at rates that would shock Europeans.”
Norwegians don’t go to church much, the article continues, but “their government gives aid to poor countries at a per capita rate 10 times that of the US government. Indeed, every West European government devotes a considerably higher share of its budget to foreign aid than the United States does.”
One religion that is on the rise in Europe is Islam, as hundreds of thousands of immigrants from North Africa, South Asia, the Middle East, Turkey and the Balkans flood into the European Union. The devotion of these newcomers to Islam is causing new tensions; from a humanist European perspective, Islam can look disturbingly like a theocracy where a few people, mainly men, get to decide what is God’s will for everybody.
America’s appropriation of God also disturbs Europe — intellectually and politically. In a world divided increasingly between Islamic fundamentalism and American Christian zealotry, European democracies devoutly embrace their post-Christian humanism as the only sane choice for a peaceful future.
This article appears in Jul 31 – Aug 6, 2002.
