A new survey shows that most countries see Donald Trump with good eyes. Evangelical Focus asked analysts why Europe has become so isolated and what it means for relationships between evangelical Christians on a global level.
A protest against Donald Trump in London, United Kingdom. / Photo: [link]D. Lowe[/link], Unsplash, CC0.
Donald Trump’s second victory once again caught Europe off guard. While in the countries of the old continent there is pessimism and disbelief after his presidential inauguration this week, in the rest of the world there seems to be more optimism about the new resident of the White House.
After questioning almost 30,000 people from all corners of the globe, the think tank ECFR has published its findings on perceptions of Trump, the role of the US, expectations for peace in Ukraine or Palestine, and the rise of China.
Most of the world says that Donald Trump’s leadership will be good both for the US and for the rest. His leadership would make world peace and even international trade more possible.
‘Trump welcomers’, as the report calls them, are clearly in the majority in India, China, Russia, South Africa, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and all these countries are expected to become important players in today’s multipolar world.
[photo_footer] Survey by ECFR asking people in several parts of the world about Donald Trump's contribution to èace in the world. / Graph: ECFR.eu[/photo_footer]
Europe is clearly the exception to this pro-Trump enthusiasm. The new political winds in US are not viewed favourably in the EU countries and the UK. But experts such as Timothy Garton Ash and Ivan Krastev argue that “rather than harking back to a post-cold war liberal order, Europeans should focus on understanding and seeing opportunities in the new world”.
Evangelical Focus wanted to know what Christian opinion leaders in Europe think about a global scenario in which ‘Trumpian’ values are presented as the new way forward. Below are the reactions of Jeff Fountain, Evert van Vlastuin, Jim Memory and X. Manuel Suarez.
“Europe is a complex entity with great variety, so there are no simple answers” to what might happen next, says Jeff Fountain an expert in European history and director of the Schuman Centre for European Studies.
“Current trends would suggest continuing polarisation, far-right attempts at government, but possible with an eventual swing in the opposite direction as the shallowness of populist solutions and incompetence of governments which are against things but don’t know what they are for, become more evident to the voting public”, he adds.
Asked about how the socio-political changes around the world might affect Bible-believing Christians, Fountain says that “Christians should remember that Christianity grew initially in a non-liberal hostile environment but through faithful consistency and sacrificial living won over the world’s greatest military and economic power at the time”.
Believers in the European countries should also remember “that God has always worked through faithful minorities; that Christianity is always about death and resurrection; that Jesus is sovereign over history; and that the message of Revelation is: ‘hold tight folks, things may get tough but Jesus and the church are victors’”.
.jpg "How Christians in Europe see the new ‘Trumpian world’")
[photo_footer] A view of the White House, in Washington DC. / Photo: Jacob Morch, Unsplash, CC0.[/photo_footer] Jim Memory, co-director of the Lausanne Movement Europe and author of the Europe 2021: A Missiological Report says the newest trend after Trump’s victory in the US shows that “Europe finds itself not just an outlier in its opinions on Trump but also an anomaly in the emerging geopolitical reality”.
He laments that “alliances around shared values are being replaced by transactionalism” and that “the will to power is dominating once again”, a mentality that was also clearly displayed in Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
“In this new world, Europe is vulnerable”, says Jim Memory, especially after going through a “polycrisis across political, economic, social, environmental and technological dimensions” in the last decade.
He believes the war in Ukraine will “determine the borders of Europe for a generation”. “Trump wants peace in Ukraine but, at what price? If Ukraine is left vulnerable, there will be little foreign investment, the lost population will not return, and what is to stop Putin coming back for more in five years time?”
In this uncertain context, Jim Memory agrees with Jeff Fountain that Christians should “live faithfully” and doing it courageously.
“We are to be good citizens of our countries, rendering to Caesar what is to Caesar, whilst also recognising that if we are ever asked to choose between Caesar and Jesus, we must hold to that most ancient of Christian creeds: ‘Jesus is Lord’ (1 Corinthians 12:13)”.
“Whether we are living through a moment of revival or of crisis, the task is the same: to preach the gospel, in season and out of season (2 Timothy 4:2), but also to live it out: ‘to declare and display Christ together’”, as the Fourth Lausanne Congress theme expressed it.
“Populist nationalism poses a particular danger for the church, because many of these politicians present themselves as the defenders of Christian heritage and values”. These emerging leaders “claim to be defending their Christian nation against the imposition of liberal social values, multiculturalism, or Islam”, argues the author.
But “Christians must remember that the gospel cuts right across all nationalisms because our primary identity as Christians is not in our nationality”, says Memory. “Christians in Europe may need to help our brothers and sisters in the church in America to see the dangers of Christian nationalism”, Memory adds.
When having conversations with global evangelical partners, says Memory, Europeans should not judge others who see Trump favourably, but try to “understand why they see his politics as good”.
In a context in which Europe is no longer a mission sending powerhouse, one of the opportunities is “collaboration with diaspora churches in Europe. We must listen and try to understand why they think as they do whilst also explaining to our brothers and sisters from other parts of the world something of our European experience of nationalism and its dangers”.
Evert van Vlastuin, a Dutch journalist with a focus on Europe and director of news website Christian Network Europe, says he is “afraid about the growing polarisation between Europe and the Americas. As far as I can remember, Republican presidents in the USA have never been popular here in Western Europe. Think about Reagan, Bush and now Trump. But the distaste is getting worse, I think”.
The fact that “especially left-wing and progressive politicians in Europe sometimes sketch America as a threat” will stimulate the “federalising forces in the European Union”, he thinks. “The few Trump supporters in Europe might regret that he was elected finally”.
Federalisation might also happen in “the field of defence”. The NATO “might lose credibility under Trump, since it is no longer the safe ‘assurance polis’ we had before.
Van Vlastuin thinks European values will continue to be subject to political debate. “Some scholars like to point to the Christian roots of the European cooperation after the Second World War. But there is no doubt that ‘European values’ at this moment are humanistic values. This is regrettable, because humanistic values only flourish because of their Christian origin”
The journalist is more optimistic about the role of Christians. “Christians worldwide have better means for connection than ever before. As CNE, one of our goals is ‘connecting Christians’, and there are many more possibilities for this than 20 years ago”.
But the improved connection between Christians from around the global “does not automatically guarantee mutual recognition. The Trump supporting evangelicals in America do not meet much understanding in Europe; in the contrary. The political factor is polluting the spiritual unity. I am afraid, this reality will grow”.
“The big challenge for Christians”, concludes Van Vlastuin, is to “be steadfast in the Biblical faith”.
[photo_footer] An EU flag in Berlin. / Photo: Christian Lue, Unplash, CC0. [/photo_footer] “The EU has gained in economic and financial consistency, but its role as a reference entity in the world has been diluted”, says X. Manuel Suárez, who often dialogues with politicians about the positions of evangelical Christians in Spain and lead the Evangelical Alliance in the country.
“The cause of this decline is the liquidation of the values derived from the Christian worldview, most notably the Protestant, which for so long has nurtured Europe. A culture that loses its values may be very advanced economically or technologically, but it inevitably goes into decline”, he says.
“The dilution of that shared code of values leads to a weakening of the Union itself and the loss of commonly held goals”, says Suárez, who has been involved in politics in the past. “Evidence of this can be seen in the inconsistency and weakness of the EU’s foreign policy, the scant respect it generates and its lack of effectiveness as a relevant actor in today’s world”.
“Europe has been on the road to decline since it has replaced the Christian worldview with almost nothing but the fight against climate change and gender ideology. But both are too little to constitute a reference model”, says Suárez.
Many Europeans may complain about Trump’s return, but “those critical of him should consider that he certainly has a defined project, clearly defined goals and paths, which respond to a clear worldview”.
“Europeans may, no doubt, have other programmes, goals and paths, but they lack the clarity shown by Trump and his decision to take the lead in a project that decides not only to convince, but to create enthusiasm”, says Suárez, who has authored essays on the impact of Christian worldview in public debates. The problem is that “Europe does not offer a comparable alternative in these terms”.
Trump’s isolationist policies may be an opportunity for Europe to build a path of its own, “but a path cannot be charted if there is no shared, well-defined and exciting common goal”.
In this negative context on this side of the Atlantic, Christians “have to offer the biblical worldview as the basis of hope for the revitalisation of Europe. We have to call Europe to make a critical evaluation of the results of its policy of renouncing this biblical worldview”.
Bible-believing Christians should be able to “explain how to build unity from diversity, because this has been one of our marks of identity. We must also bring to the Europe of the next ten years our view of the place of minorities in the life of society”.
“We Protestants must re-explain what tolerance means, because Europe is becoming increasingly intolerant of dissent. And we must reclaim that tolerance is based on firm convictions and mutual respect, not on relativism and secular dogmatism”.
In a moment of economic uncertainty, “we must explain once again that future European economic development must not be an end in itself but must put human beings in the centre: economic growth is not the same as human development; it is human development that marks the true progress of a society”.
“And, without doubt, in this respect for the person and his or her dignity, we evangelicals are going to demand respect for life in the face of policies that promote abortion and euthanasia. A society that kills the unborn and the elderly is anything but progressive”, underlines Suárez.
Protestants were the “pioneers in shaping the Western democratic system and we did so from the Bible, emphasising, for example, accountabililty as a consequence of our concept of the integral corruption of the human being”.
X. Manuel Suárez concludes by saying: “The depth of democracy in Europe is receding and we see how the accountability of its institutions is increasingly deficient. It needs a return to its foundations, and we Protestants have the moral authority to guide that process of regeneration”.
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