Posted on 07/12/2005 9:06:01 PM PDT by CHARLITE
On Sunday they packed 'em in -- a circumstance you wouldn't have noted for some long while in English churches, which, like European churches in general, seem to resound mainly with historic echoes. But there was praying to be done, and it seemed to the English people meet, right and their bounden duty -- as the Book of Common Prayer would have it -- to lay their sorrows and perplexities before the Lord.
And so, three days after the explosions and screams that scarred a London morning, something like the old European civilization popped back into view. I didn't say that the old civilization itself -- abounding in faith and zeal and confidence -- made a return appearance. I said something like it emerged for just a moment. It was a sight for sore eyes, because even before the bombs exploded, Europe was in trouble. In trouble it remains. It appreciates better now the measure of that trouble, if not fully the nature of the solution.
Modern Europe lacks a first-order purpose. That lack discloses itself in the London explosions.
Europe is full of second-order purposes: enjoyment, economic security and vacations. What does Europe exist to affirm? It's doubtful if Europeans know any more.
Not Christian transcendence. In most of Europe, Christian practice barely exists. The famous, now dormant, European Union constitution lacked any acknowledgement of the historical fact of the continent's Christian past. No, no, not secular enough.
Accordingly, the European population base is in grave decline. As Robert Samuelson wrote recently in the Washington Post, "Europe's birthrates have dropped well below the replacement rate of 2.1 children for each woman of childbearing age. For Western Europe as a whole, the rate is 1.5. It's 1.4 in Germany and 1.3 in Italy."
It is what happens when those second-order purposes -- enjoyment, etc. -- choke out the older, nobler ones -- justice, reverence, etc. "Me First" is Europe's reigning principle. The first-order purposes require inconvenient sacrifices: me second, third or fourth. Who cares to change a diaper? Pay for a nanny? Send the kids, or the kinder , through college? Down goes the birthrate.
With what consequences? Not the smallest is the disappearance of a population base requisite to funding future retirees' benefits. We know something of this in America due to the Social Security debate. The case is much harder in Europe, though, than in America. That can mean bring on the immigrants: Start them paying into the system! But Europe has long been doing this. It has meant, in practice, the creation of a very large population of European Muslims -- 4 percent of Britain's population, 10 percent of France's. It would be one thing if these were happy immigrants assimilating themselves happily into the larger society. As the Wall Street Journal notes this week, the larger reality is the self-distancing of European Muslims from their neighbors. In France, as in England, "the signs of fundamentalist Islam are on the rise," and jihadist preachers address themselves to what one expert calls Muslims "unmoored from their traditional beliefs and ripe for recruitment."
The bishop of London, Richard Chartres, preaching at St. Paul's Cathedral the day after Bloody Thursday, recoiled from attacking Islam as a religion. He probed more deeply. He saw "a spiritual vacuum" into which "false religion" had intruded itself -- a religion, heedless of God, "awesomely powerful and destructive." The strayed or departed Christians of Europe -- of Britain -- might on such a reading reproach themselves for creating an opening for the murderous radicals of Islam to reach through and plant their explosives.
The evil purposes of murderous bombers are just the present problem. Evil itself is the original and enduring problem -- one that, as Europe for centuries maintained and preached, reflects humanity's willing breach of its relationship with God.
Is it back, now, at last, to first principles for Europe? Is there, indeed, a shred of a choice?
God vs. God in Europe
The London bombing draws a vivid line in the sand. Religiously driven Muslims believe that the decadence that is secular Europe is incompatible with their design for a reverent life. They pray five times a day. We all can argue with the terrorist tactics employed, but we continue to ignore the basic issue. God is an essential part of and a central factor in Muslim life whereas Europe has essentially abandoned God in favor of a life without standards; if it feels good do it.
As their numbers grew and their self-imposed segregation from the main population became painfully obvious, it was inevitable that a clash of civilizations would occur. It hasn’t been as pronounced in America because a great majority of Americans have not abandoned God, just the ACLU and leftist elites who swallowed the monkey fiction of Darwin. But the radical Wahhabis have targeted America because it is the most powerful force on Earth and the impediment most likely to defeat their attempt to impose their theocracy on the world.
How will Europe react? By carelessly ignoring the Muslim issue like they did in Bosnia or by the ruthless slaughter with which they terminated the “Jewish Problem”. The alleged pack mentality of Arabs and Jews is offensive to multi-cultural Europeans. Although it was claimed that the “Jesus factor” was the motivating principle in the hatred of the Jews, it was not religion; it was and still is intellectual and commercial envy. Europeans by and large don’t believe in God much less Jesus. The Muslims are another matter.
They plan to overturn the entire culture of Europe. Install the devotion to God as the highest principle of life. Will the continent follow the early development of the Dutch resistance to Islam, or will they just give a pass to them like I expect the British will. Islam has God on their side, Europe has the French. It does nott stack up as a fair fight.
In the coming months and years, it will be interesting to see (if we live long enough) whether civility and tolerance will overcome the Koran’s declarative to exterminate all non-believers. My guess is the former and only because Europe will call on the United States to bail them out once again. George W. Bush has a leg up on that job already and Condi is spreading the word through the tents. Get ready, it pencils out to be a bumpy ride.
A bumpy ride indeed. It will probably take a major crisis - terrorism along with economic and political collapse - to awaken western Europe. The eastern Europeans may turn out to be made of sterner stuff. The Poles, for instance, still hold on to their Christianity (and have been spared the Moslem plague), and it was a Polish king four centuries ago who stopped the Islamic invasion at the gates of Vienna. We can only hope - and pray.
The Churches in the USA were full after 911 too. It is too bad that the Brits will most likely blow off services again as soon as the shock wears off. That country is worse than this one about being PC and will not recognize the evil among them even now.
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