[extropy-chat] Fighting for God in a secular Europe

Giu1i0 Pri5c0 pgptag at gmail.com
Wed Nov 10 14:34:10 UTC 2004


This article is quite relevant to recent discussions.
Newsweek: For Europe, the clash of civilizations is less between
"Islam" and "the West" than between muscular religiosity and militant
secularism. With the collapse of communism, Europe's religious
conservatives - Catholic or Muslim - now see secularism as their chief
enemy. To the naked eye, the secularists appear to have won. Western
European pews are empty. Church membership is plummeting. Families are
shrinking, breaking up and evolving as parliaments pass laws to pave
the way for gay marriages. Fantasies of a Christian Europe have been
dealt a blow by surging immigration and the EU's nod to Turkish
accession earlier this month; the religious vigor of many of Europe's
30 million-odd Muslims stands in marked contrast to the apathy of the
Christian flock. Writes Catholic theologian George Weigel: "European
man has convinced himself that in order to be modern and free, he must
be radically secular."
After Rocco Buttiglione, the conservative Roman Catholic nominee for
the Justice portfolio, pronounced homosexuality to be a "sin" and
unwed mothers "bad," the outcry from parliamentarians forced its
incoming president, José Manuel Durão Barroso, to withdraw his entire
slate of commissioners just two days before EU leaders gathered to
sign the new European Constitution, which despite strenuous lobbying
from Christians contains no mention of God or Christianity.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6370137/site/newsweek/



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