Yoni Barber
Unrest
Europe is experiencing unprecedented and growing social unrest, with legitimate protests morphing into riots and clashes with police. Varying levels of unrest have been reported in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, Albania, Serbia, Romania and others. However, the violence and lawlessness appear most pronounced in France.
Causes
The causes are varied and complex, encompassing public dissatisfaction with governments, immigration-related tensions, rising living costs, housing pressures, and increasing political polarisation. Islamist extremism is also cited as a factor, with jihadist networks and Islamist movements active in certain contexts. In addition, far-left and, in some instances, far-right activists, organised groups, opportunistic looters, and individuals seeking violent confrontation have contributed to the mayhem. Overall, the picture is one of multiple, often converging sources of social and political strain.
Attack on Judeo Christian Symbols
During the riots there have been attacks on symbols of Europe’s Judeo-Christian heritage. While it is hard to determine the motivation of individual attacks, religious hatred does appear to be manifesting. In France, reported attacks and damage affecting Jewish communities included the ransacking of the Ohalei Yaakov synagogue in Paris, where prayer books, tefillin and other religious items were scattered; fires and damage affecting Jewish-owned shops in Marseille; and the smashing and burning of Rabbi Moyche Cohen’s car in Paris. All of this took place with the backdrop of widespread European Palestinian anti-Israel activism and the wearing of the keffiyeh by many protesters.
During the French riots churches were also targeted or affected by the violence. The Archdiocese of Marseille reported that several churches had been forcibly entered and damaged. Statues of Joan of Arc, France’s national heroine and Catholic saint, have been desecrated. In Paris, demonstrators climbed the statue and covered it with political stickers; in Toulouse, her statue was covered with a yellow vest and draped with a Palestinian flag.
The riots also involve attacks on key symbols of European civilization, authority and order. In Marseille, rioters toppled a statue of Marianne, the emblem of the French Republic, during an assault on the city hall. Limoges town hall was burned by masked rioters. Strasbourg Cathedral was also marked with the anarchist slogan “Neither God nor Master”. These incidents occurred amid widespread looting, arson and attacks on public buildings.
Europe’s Foundations
Europe’s historical foundations have been profoundly shaped by both Judaism and Christianity. The Church has played a central role in European society for centuries, and Christian teaching has influenced European ideas about human dignity, morality, law, education and social responsibility. These ideas have contributed to the development of European democracy and its legal and political traditions.
Jewish communities have also made substantial contributions to European civilisation over many centuries, including in science, medicine, philosophy, literature, the arts, commerce, finance and public life. Despite long periods of persecution, discrimination and expulsion, Jewish people have helped shape the societies in which they live. The Jewish Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, also provides the essential scriptural foundation for the New Testament and is central to the shared religious heritage of Judaism and Christianity.
Of course, the principles of the Christian faith have never been practised perfectly in European history. Churches and political authorities have often fallen short of their own teachings, particularly when religious institutions became closely aligned with political power. Nazi Germany provides an example. Much of the German Protestant Church failed to resist the Nazi regime, and some church leaders actively supported it. However, faithful members of the Bible-believing Confessing Church actively opposed the Nazis.
The Context
Attacks on European Judeo-Christian faith and values and the civilization they have produced go back a long way. God and the Bible have long been marginalised in the Family, Education, Government, Media, Arts and Entertainment, and Business. Society has in many ways replaced them with post-modern values, morals, norms and laws. Marginalisation in recent decades has moved to open mockery and attacks in some quarters. Bible-believing Christians are increasingly excluded from public office or public contracts for their refusal to sign up to mandatory Equalities policies, particularly those involving LGBT matters. Finnish MP Päivi Räsänen was charged with “incitement against a minority group” for sharing a Bible verse and traditional Christian views on sexuality, ultimately being acquitted of her social media posts by the Supreme Court while receiving a conviction over an old church pamphlet. Street preaching and freedom of speech are now under increasing pressure from police, prosecutors and legislators, with multiple examples across Europe. Christian faith has not only been largely replaced by secularism and atheism, but also by adopted polytheism/ the nebulous beliefs of the New Age, imported Islam, and reawakened paganism.
Europe at the Crossroads
Europe is now at a crossroads and must choose between renewing its Judeo-Christian foundations or entering the encroaching brave new world of cultural amnesia, untested moral relativism, religious fragmentation, the importing of foreign ideologies which devastated their countries of origin, and a society increasingly detached from its historical roots. Such a society opens the door to dictatorial and ultimately tyrannical leadership unsure of its direction, where freedom of speech, truth, democracy, religious liberty, trial by jury, human dignity, the value of life itself, the very foundations of European civilisation are at risk. Such a society would naturally accelerate the exclusion and persecution of Jewish communities, with nowhere left for Jewish people to go but Israel. It would also seek to forcefully close-down the practice of Christian faith as took place in the 20th Century behind the Iron Curtain.
If Europe is to renew its foundations, the Christian Church and Jewish communities must step up. They must reawaken a much purer and uncompromised form of themselves, sufficient to counter growing societal collapse. They must again offer their faith and values to a rudderless society, creatively applied to the acute challenges of modernity. They must contribute to strategies addressing those grievances which are genuine among the protesters.
European societies must embrace what the people of faith have to offer rather than marginalising, excluding and increasingly persecuting them. Bible believing Christians and Jews must again have a leadership role in their relevant nations and institutions, alongside other civilised and moral people of good will who seek the betterment of all their communities. European nations must also walk back much policy, legislation and the promotion of values and laws which conflict with tried and tested traditional positions.
Global Implications
Ultimately, Europe’s choice will dictate whether its civilizational identity survives or is irrecoverably lost to a tsunami of diverse diabolical forces. Europe can choose to be an example to the world of 21st Century renewal, or a forerunner on a dark path which other continents may also be dragged onto.
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