Anglican Mainstream

Bill Muehlenberg

There are plenty of ways one can assess the health or otherwise of a nation, or people, or continent. There are numerous measures: economic, social, political, ideological, cultural, demographic, and so on. But on top of all these is one more which is the most important. People of faith will also gauge the spiritual condition of a people or nation.

My recent trip to Europe has reminded me of this. Only my second time there since living in Europe over 25 years ago, there have certainly been many changes which have occurred on the continent. Some are changes for the better, and some for the worse. Many of these demographic, moral, political and social changes I have documented elsewhere.

But here I wish to briefly address the spiritual state of Europe. It has long been realised that Europe has become the most secular and the least Christian continent on earth. It has seemed to be all one way traffic there, with the Christian faith slowly but surely dying out in most European nations.

Spiritual demographers have also noted that while Europe and the West as a whole are floundering when it comes to Christianity, God has not abandoned planet earth. Indeed, great things are still happening in the world, but not in places where we have tended to expect to see God at work.

We have known for some time now that the spiritual centre of gravity has moved south. Books like The Next Christendom by Philip Jenkins (OUP, 2002), have chronicled this shift. Places like Africa, Asia and Latin America are the new hot spots when it comes to church growth. Marvellous things are taking place there, and the Kingdom of God is far from finished on planet earth.

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