The only growing faith. . .

The shape of Western Europe with its deep history and legacy of faith is eroding away both in practice and in reality.  The once vibrant Christian origins of Europe have been replaced by a society in which Islam is the only growing faith and the rest are in decline.  It is a sobering reality.  We see it everywhere.  In Scandinavia the religious fervor of the past has been replaced by a passion for environment, sexual liberation, and a sustainable lifestyle.  This is what God and redemption have come to mean where Lutherans were once a profound, singing, and practicing and near universal majority.  In Europe, the Luther lands with their sites so important to Reformation history have become tourist ghettos in which the population loves to market the past but has no real or living faith to be nurtured by the Word and Table of the Lord.  Roman Catholics are equally absent from worship and polls tell the same story of a faith at least diluted if not practically absent from daily life.  Indeed, the story of the fire at Notre Dame and its rebuilding treat this as a tragedy to a historical landmark more than one for a community of faith gathered under its roof.  This says it all.  As many have said, there is no room for God in Europe except to be a footnote to its history.

That Islam is the only growing faith is not simply due to immigration but to the decline in the birth rate. Of course, it is also due to the alarming rate that Christians seem to be pushing faith into the realm of feeling over fact and distancing doctrine from spirituality.  The once overflowing worship spaces have become excess real estate or historical monuments or mere community space to house everything from painting classes to yoga.  As we watch the buildings become largely secular spaces, we are also seeing societies and individual lives move much more into the realm of the secular over the religion of their fathers (whether Lutheran or Roman Catholic).  Where prayers were once offered, spaces now function as museums or art displays.  Where people once knelt in solemn joy receiving the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus, people now dance or listen to music.  Where preaching once spoke God's Word into the hearts of the hearers, now poetry is read or a self help class meets.  Of course, the special spaces will be preserved but not for worship.  Worship is the occasional activity of even those buildings deemed culturally significant.  The form remains but the heart is empty.  Christianity is not growing but declining and rapidly.  Islam grows where the fertile soil of society once welcomed the Scriptures and where people once cared enough about doctrine to even fight over it.  No more.

We can content ourselves to think that God is purifying His Church and weeding His garden to get rid of those less than true believers.  If that is what floats your boat, I guess it is consolation enough for now.  But not for me.  I am not content to see the Church merely survive.  I pray you are unwilling to settle for that as well.  We may not control society on the grand scale but we can preserve the faith in our hearts, preserve the faith in the home, preserve the truth by teaching our children and speaking it back and forth to each other.  We may not be able to affect the great society content to see children as burden or ornaments but we can be fruitful and multiply in our own families and train up our children in the way they should go.  We may not be able to influence the taste of culture for art that is not vulgar or music that has no melodic value but we can sing the sturdy hymns of old and teach our children to sing them as well.  In short, Islam is growing because that faith lives in the home as well as in the mosque.  Perhaps we need to learn the lesson.  The Church will not save the Christian religion without the home beating with the same heart of faith.  We can afford to lose the real estate but we cannot afford to lose the home.  That is Europe's problem and it will become ours unless we mark Christ as the center of our homes as well as our churches.