How can we see Europe with the eyes of God?
The past 20 centuries of European history have produced shocking and horrifying events, culminating in two world wars. Yet European history has also produced great events, the development of science and technology, and the resulting welfare society. What should we say to the post-modern western European?
A glance back
Historians, both Christian and non-Christian, agree that the origin and the existence of Europe cannot be understood apart from Christianity. One historian said: 'If there had been no preaching of the gospel, Europe would have remained an insignificant peninsula of the continent of Asia'. At the time of the New Testament, the northern part of Europe was just a dark and remote corner of the Roman Empire. The pagan religions that dominated most of Europe at that time did not create unity. The mythology of the Scandinavians, the worship of nature of the Germans and the fertility cult of the Etruscans, held them all captive in their tribal differences, in a state of fear and animosity towards each other.
All this changed. From the moment the apostle Paul was called to Macedonia through that remarkable vision ('Come over and help us,' Acts 16), up to the baptism of the Icelandic people in the year 1004, the preaching of the gospel and the politically successful development of the Catholic church created a oneness that otherwise would never have existed. The truth of the gospel changed the whole outlook of a pagan European culture. Through such events as the cutting down of the sacred oak at Geismar by Boniface among the Saxons, and the martyrdom of many of these missionaries who went out from Ireland to preach the gospel all over Europe, it was this message that brought them together.
