God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis by Philip Jenkins

It is the year 2074. Silver Jubilee celebrations are planned for the month of Ramadan to the delight of the citizens in Londonistan. In Paris-al-Alwah, the Sharia law courts continue their long docket of cases against homosexuals, while Christians gather in front of the mosque of Notre Dame to pray and silently protest the loss of their church. Meanwhile, Rome continues to stand as an empty ruin as the city was rendered uninhabitable by a powerful dirty bomb that was set off in the Vatican several years ago. These, and other dire ‘what-if?’ scenarios often crowd the pages and talking points of people concerned about Europe’s future in the 21^st century. But then Philip Jenkins has to come along with another one of his well-researched and thoughtful books and ruin the apocalyptic party. In God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis, Jenkins doesn’t say any of this couldn’t happen or even that it shouldn’t. In point of fact, Europe is wealthy, increasingly secular, and so hedonistic, that it is committing suicide by demography. On top of this, the nations of Europe identify more racially than nationally which means for the most part they are adrift as far as having any core values or things they would fight and die for as a people. Given these factors, should we be surprised that the large and vocal Muslim immigrant population of Europe is slowly and inexorably moving in to take over in the coming decades? And if Europe is so culturally sick, wouldn’t it be best that she live by her own value system and be euthanized? But this is only part of the story of God’s Continent. According to Jenkins there are some other factors that need to be considered. First, Muslim immigration is relatively new (since the 1950’s). Families most likely to immigrate are younger and more energetic, and are likely to have children that fill local schools which makes people feel like they are being overrun. In reality, immigrant communities generally have a dropping birthrate the longer they live in a host culture especially if the cost of living is extremely expensive. Another factor ignored by many is that Europe has a lot of other immigrants also coming in from Asia and Africa and these are not Muslim but vibrant Christian believers. The empty state-run Churches of Europe belie the fact that immigrant churches are growing by leaps and bounds and are evangelizing and revitalizing the ancient faith that came to them from European missionaries in the 19^th century. Quite apart from this are spontaneous revival movements occurring within the more traditional Anglican, Protestant, and Catholic denominations. Certainly another dimension to this is Muslim demands are making European leaders and people wake up to the reality that if they are doing cartwheels to accommodate this one group, why aren’t they doing more to protect the future of their majority population? The irony of all this is that Europe for decades has been almost prideful of her secularism and toleration of amorality, and yet despite their best efforts to remove God from the continent, their most consuming problem in the coming decades will be religious. Apparently Europe may be done with God but God is certainly not done with Europe.