The term European Christianity is not contradictory. Religion is alive in Europe and continues to play a unique role. In the future it could play an even larger role beyond its borders.
by Darris McNeely
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been making headlines in France of late with several statements about religion. This might not be a big deal in America where religion this year has been a major topic in the presidential primary. But in France, officially a secular country, when the president talks too much religion, people get upset.
Speaking to a group of foreign ambassadors on Jan. 18, President Sarkozy said the "return of religion in most of our societies" was a reality and that "only sectarians do not see it." He expressed concern that religious revival not come only in fundamentalist forms that were exclusive and closed.
Earlier in the week Mr. Sarkozy spoke in Saudi Arabia and said that religion should hold a bigger place in the social and political life of France. In this speech he mentioned God 21 times. He said Islam is "one of the greatest and most beautiful civilizations the world has known." He was especially effusive about Saudi leaders whom he described as those who "appeal to the basic values of Islam to combat the fundamentalism that negates them."
Before the pope
Perhaps the most interesting speech Mr. Sarkozy gave was on Dec. 20 in Rome before Pope Benedict XVI. President Sarkozy was there to be made a canon of the Church of Saint John Lateran, something done for French heads of state going back to the time of Henry IV.
Excerpts of the speech include praise for the Catholic Church, as well as a recognition that in these modern times there was a need for "religious convictions" to counter destructive trends caused by secularism. Speaking as a politician, Mr. Sarkozy expressed the need to be "enlightened by opinions that reference norms and convictions which are free from immediate contingencies."
