The dream of one currency and one mighty economic force has been behind much of the history of Europe. The modern day ideal of such a unity without the shedding of blood seems to be the ultimate accomplishment -- especially as another dream unfolds in the Ukraine with blood and destruction. It is hard to look at a modern map and realize that Europe is an invention of nations and rather a modern invention at that. Look below:
This is how Europe looked in 1356 and parts of its boundaries and divisions remained until the 1800s. Germany was a modern invention. France. Italy. Right down the line. Before that were small kingdoms none of which in and of itself had the wherewithal to threaten many others. Conflicts were rather small in comparison to the worlds at war in the 20th century. We should have been so lucky!
By 1800, the Holy Roman Empire was shell of its former self. The remaining princes of the Holy Roman Empire met in Regensburg in 180e to try and made sense of it all. They had been long the targets of the successful French and were struggling to resist the destructive outcome of the French Revolution. Many of their number had already surrendered to the irresistible French onslaught. Germany had used the three archdioceses of Cologne, Mainz and Trier to form a type of democratic election of a single ruler but the power lie with these electors just as it had 500 years before. In the post-Reformation world of Germany, things were not up to snuff. Then came Napoleon.
Under his leadership, the French army became the most advanced fighting force which had ever existed to that time. Napoleon was canny enough to know that if you could achieve the outcome without fighting, that was its own victory. What he could not take by negotiation, he took by force. Invading across the Rhine, Napoleon did not merely fight for land but to destroy what had been. He plundered abbey and cathedral along with banks and government houses. He robbed graves and took churches to be stables and barracks. Everyone ran. In its final hour, the Holy Roman Empire or what remained of it made peace at any price. The cost was everything that had been.
The European Union voted its way in, first in the capitals of Europe and then in the united legislative body of that Union. It has pursued the path of diversity in a highly successful campaign to try to eliminate as much as possible the individual loyalties left across Europe and to make it so interdependent that they must follow along or suffer catastrophe. Only Great Britain resisted but they were always different from Europe and separated conveniently by a body of water. Now the great heads of Europe are more like children who have to play nice in the sandbox or risk losing out on the treats. National identities have proven to be remarkably fragile in the face of military or economic power. What we are seeing today is the twilight of Europe's grand history but what may be its undoing is more the low birth rate and their dependence upon guest workers from the Middle East to keep the factories humming. Without much of a church to help them resist, the national identities of Europe may well become merely folklore as Muslims who do the work and have the babies take over. Europe will become a legacy land which sells to tourists interested in the history but not so much the future. England is still behind the game a bit but it still has a monarch of sorts. In the end the once grand unity came about largely through a bloodline back to Victoria until it all unfolded in battles and wars and an end to monarchies nearly everywhere. With it came the humiliating admission that God is no longer in charge of their future (at least as an earthly kingdom) and that great buildings are more history than temple.
Will we be far behind? God knows.
1 comment:
The interesting thing about Europe is that anyone from America who visits there will be impressed by the numerous crumbling castles and fortresses which dot the continent. Like the vast stretches of the Mideast and visible ruins in Italy, Greece, and North Africa, the ruins of past civilizations, once mighty and prosperous, reflect the endless wars and conflicts, and natural disasters which brought them down. The map of Europe and the arrangement and rearrangement of borders throughout its bloody history give testimony to the illusion that world peace is attainable. When there is peace, it may last only a few decades, the exception being Pax Romana, when Rome ruled ostensibly for a thousand years. But did Rome really rule? There were vast lands, with hostile inhabitants refusing to bend, and numerous revolutions to put down, and as the barbarians advanced, the borders of the Roman Empire shrunk. We Americans see Europe and think it is distant from us, over there, and we forget that the United States is still a young nation. Should the world last another 5000 years or so before the Lord returns, how would our own borders look in an uncertain future? Do we think that the long history of Europe, with all the struggles, plagues, and continual warfare will not be reflected in our own future history? It is humanity’s desire for power and influence, control of resources, and delusions of grandeur which never ceases. Time has not erased conflict. The curse of original sin remains to bruise the best efforts to find lasting albeit temporal peace. For the believer, we have the promise of peace that is not found within the borders of the nations, where no principality or earthly government can guarantee; as Romans 8:35 describes, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ……in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us….” Soli Deo Gloria
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