The news from Europe is dominated by the U.K. and French elections—and the apparent chaos that the latter in particular seems to anticipate. It might be easy to dismiss the continent as being in the death-throes of an old world order. Our world is one where despair is very chic, predictions of apocalyptic doom are effective clickbait, and the very online political classes of both extremes are happy to capitalize on peddling these narratives in which they have a vested interest. But having just returned from nearly three weeks in Europe, I am happy to report that there are other stories worth reflecting upon.
While there, I spoke at four church gatherings, one in Germany and three in the Netherlands. The first, for the organization Evangelium21, was in Hamburg. It was attended by over 1200 people, leaders and lay. The vast majority were under the age of thirty. At fifty-seven, I think I may well have been the oldest person in the building. In the Netherlands, I spoke at a conference of several hundred organized by Tyndale Seminary, then at a larger gathering sponsored by the group Bijbels Beraad. Finally, I agreed to speak at a youth gathering on a Thursday night to give two lectures. Over six hundred young people, aged sixteen–twenty-four, turned up to listen to me speak on the roots of modern anxiety and then on the theology of public worship. That was on a school night.
Everywhere I went, my wife and I had remarkable conversations both with pastors and young people. Pastors feel the same pressure in Europe that many experience here: the need to allow the politicians to determine their priorities, whether the demands of the progressive internationalists or the reactive nationalists. They are aware of this pressure and understand the danger of speaking gospel truth only to one side of the political divide. Short-term strategic truncation of the gospel is too easily a prelude to a long-term Christianity that is no Christianity. Political expediency, like cultural relevance, is a fickle and imperious mistress. Pastors well-grounded in the creedal truths of the faith understand this.
As to the young people, my wife and I had many conversations that indicated a real desire to find roots in the historic Christian faith. Many had backgrounds in Brethren churches, rooted in Anabaptism. They were appropriately grateful for the love of Jesus and the pastoral care that their Brethren churches had shown them, but they were aware that in a world where the broader culture is increasingly indifferent to or even hostile to the faith, they needed more solid food: coherent doctrine expressed in thoughtful, well-structured worship that draws upon the historic, confessional resources of traditional Christianity. Nothing exemplified this more than the Thursday night gathering: a mass of young people wanting to know how communal Christian worship is the theological foundation for answering the fundamental anthropological challenges of our era. It is there, in the liturgy, that God calls us into his presence, reminds us of who we are, and gives us the grace through Word and sacrament, to live as human beings in a world that has degraded humanity to the level of crude appetites.
What should we make of this? Certainly Europe is not undergoing some major return to widespread cultural Christianity. The personal highlight of my trips was spending a couple of days with Päivi Räsänen, the senior Finnish MP whose travails with regard to religious freedom are well known. Yet what was striking about Ms. Räsänen was the joy that marked her life. Indeed, her address to Bijbels Beraad was as much about the gospel of Jesus Christ as about any of the difficulties she had faced. Quite a contrast to the professionally angry people who populate so much online Christian discourse and yet who have likely never faced the challenges she has endured.
But if Europe as a whole has no time for Christianity, let alone confessional Protestantism, it is clear that among a section of the youth, something is happening. Of course, many young people are moving toward the radical politics of the extremes. The search for meaning, perhaps for a cause worth dying for, is understandable in an age that presents human fulfillment as a consumerist dream (while producing economic realities that place this dream out of reach for many). Yet radical politics, left and right, is too often dehumanizing. It reduces its opponents to a set of beliefs and in so doing dehumanizes its adherents too, leading them to despise those also made in the image of God. Christianity, by way of contrast, offers a cause worth living—and dying—for that places a true humanity at its core, a humanity in communion with God through the work of Jesus Christ. It offers joy in the face of bitterness, faith in the face of cynicism, and redemption in the face of perpetual retribution. It is good to see that many young people want something more than the online mortal combat offered by myriad political influencers.
I went to Europe expecting to be somewhat discouraged by what I would see. I returned exhilarated. The LORD is not done with his people yet and, amidst all of the anger and bitterness, he has his Päivi Räsänens and his many anonymous young people who will joyfully carry the gospel to their generation and beyond.
Carl Trueman is a professor of biblical and religious studies at Grove City College and a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
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