Evangelical influence in European politics remains limited, expert says • FRANCE 24 English

Evangelical influence in European politics remains limited, expert says • FRANCE 24 English

This is apppropo. Well, since the US vice president described the slain conservative influencer as a martyr for Christianity, admirers of Charlie Kirk have been suggesting that his assassination will galvanize throngs of people to become more engaged in evangelical and Catholic churches. Evocations of Kirk inspired religious fervor surfaced almost immediately after his death. As Siobhan Silk reports, thank you for protecting him. Evangelical Christian leaders pray for then presidential candidate Donald Trump, a man they see as a savior. We believe you’re a vessel. You’re a chosen vessel. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Christians, get out and vote just this time. It’ll be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore. my beautiful Christians. The Christian vote was essential in getting him back into the White House, and he’s rewarded them with victories like the overturning of abortion rights. Now, contraception, same-sex marriage, and no fault divorce are in their sights, as is shifting funding from public schools to Christian schools, part of a mission to end one of the fundamental principles of the United States, the separation of church and state. Evangelical Christians are deeply embedded in the second Trump administration, including his cabinet. This is a culmination of a decadesl long strategy that dates back to the 1980s when the original megaurch pastor Jerry Fwell founded the moral majority and now defunct conservative movement that for the first time put social and moral issues at the heart of US politics and helped put true believers at the heart of US power. The Evangelical Christian lobby has also been winning the hearts and minds of ordinary people with notable success in one particular demographic, disaffected young white men. They’ve been recruited on mass by a new breed of influencers and podcasters like the late Charlie Kirk, credited with turning a new generation towards Christian nationalism, a way of ensuring its continued survival. These methods have been making inroads in other countries like Brazil where far-right former President Jaier Balsinaro, now convicted of attempting a coup, sought and won the support of a rapidly growing evangelical base predicted to soon outnumber Catholics. But though Bolsinaro is gone for now, evangelical Christians continue to have an outsized influence on politics. 40% of members of Congress are part of the evangelical parliamentary front, the so-called Bible block. Even in France, where traditionally only a fraction of the population practices a religion, evangelical churches are growing. And in a country that prides itself on its secularism, conservative Christians are now trying to influence politics with the National Council of French Evangelicals sending lobbyists into the halls of power. That’s mirrored in the EU. Groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom are active in Brussels. It’s an American Christian advocacy group that was instrumental in using US courts to overturn abortion rights. And now wellunded undetermined it’s attempting the same tactics in Europe at the European Court of Human Rights to discuss. We are joined now by Gier Andre, professor and chair of the department of theological studies at Concordia University. Thanks so much for being with us on the program. Firstly, let’s start with the basics. Evangelicism, what exactly is it? It’s a very large umbrella term, isn’t it Kanye? Yes. Yes, it is a very very large term uh that engulfs a lot of different uh various types of religious expressions especially uh you know expressions like Baptists or Pentecostals and so on. And uh when we think about evangelicals essentially we can reduce it to about four things. The emphasis on the Bible the Bible is the word of God. the emphasis on the necessity of conversion uh experiencing new birth, the idea of the message of Jesus’s death on the cross and of course the idea of activism meaning sharing one’s faith and participating in promoting the Christian message. So essentially that what that is what constitutes evangelicalism but it’s a very very large umbrella term that regroups various types of uh religious denominations and congregations and we largely associate it of course with the US but how big is the movement here in Europe do you know? Yes, you’re right. The the reflex is to associate it with the US. Uh there’s 23% of uh the people in the US about 80 million people out of a population close to 350 million in the US that belong or have a claim to be uh evangelical. Uh in Europe however uh the numbers are quite uh less. In fact, it only represents evangelicals only represent about 2.5% of the population. That that’s about 22 to 23 million uh evangelicals. And you have evangelicals of course in in various countries like in France there’s about a million uh in in uh in the UK around maybe five million in Germany in about two million and in other countries even less. So the proportions are not comparable to what we see for example in the US and in Brazil. And is it having an an you know an increasing role in politics though here in Europe? And if so why? At this it has up to a certain extent. Of course, when you talk about evangelicals, they do have certain concerns and some of those concerns often are reflected in ideas that you know parallel a bit what we see in the US. What stems a lot in the US is this idea for example of religious freedom. Sometimes evangelicals feel that their religious freedom even in the context of uh Europe uh they have less religious freedom uh some of them at least that’s what they they they encounter. So it’s normal for them to want to have sometimes a voice uh and they do. We can’t uh we can’t neglect the fact that evangelicals remain for most of them a conserv uh people that have conservative values in relation or at least in that really differ from what we see in a secular society. Uh of course they value traditional family uh issues around abortion. they’re they’re against abortion and they’re all pro-life uh issues around gender roles and and so on. So when they do have opportunities to speak out their mind, they they will take those opportunities uh because for them they are people that get in you know that get involved in elections and uh they feel that they should have a voice. At the same time due to the small proportion of evangelicals in in Europe uh there you know the impact is not really really significant uh due to the fact that of course a lot of European countries are are quite secular. At the same time, uh you’ll have uh other countries uh in eur in Eastern Europe, for example, that are more traditionalist Catholics that some of those values sometimes align with those of evangelicals. And sometimes what they will do is they will uh get together co cooperate on certain issues so that they can have one voice and uh you know share the things that are important to them. uh and even if these things uh they can bring them into the public and political arena if they have the opportunity to do so they will do so. At the same time, what’s very important and I this is important to stress, a lot of evangelicals and most of them I would say in uh Europe do not want to associate or be associated with what the brand of evangelicalism that we see in the US and the type of Christian nationalist agenda that is pushed. uh many of them actually want to distance themselves and don’t want to be identified as as uh evangelicals uh that share a similar agenda as that of the US. But of course again some of their values up to a certain extent are social conservative. Yeah. Is does it play out more subtly than perhaps here in Europe? because we saw during the the referendum campaigns in Ireland when it came to same-sex marriage and abortion that influence was creeping into some of the debate that we were seeing around those issues. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. It’s more subtle uh and they will play on some of these issues but again to have a direct impact on policies it would be much more difficult for them. At the same time, it’s very interesting when you look at the situation of the European Union. You have a a party that is called the European Conservatives and Reformists that is currently the fourth largest uh group uh in the European Parliament. and they constitute a group of individuals that do value traditional types of uh social conservative values that are very very close to uh the values of people that we would label as being the Christian right in the US. uh they value uh the churches as being important institutions uh in Europe and that should remain and they very much push the idea that there needs to be religious freedom in uh in Europe. That means that uh people are allowed to express their ideas. they are allowed to have views that are not necessarily aligning themselves with the views of uh you know a secularist Europe. So again, you will see this uh played out but in more subtle ways because they don’t have the demographics that are present of course in the US. And would you agree in the US particularly that this is kind of winning over a lot of those young white male disaffected young people, men particularly? Absolutely. You’re absolutely right. and and we’ve seen it with the phenomenon uh Charlie Kirk uh the the impact that uh his his death has had on uh a lot of young people. He was of course very influential on uh on uh college campuses in over 3,000 campuses across uh the nation and and really engaging in this idea of debate and open discussion. That’s what at least he he tried to uh say uh or uh the way he promoted his events as being open open the bank. But that we can we can maybe question that to a certain extent. Uh but yes uh there’s a there’s a a generation of young people sometimes that feel uh they they have lost their way somehow and it gives them a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging. You see when we talk about evangelicalism and it maybe it’s important to say this uh at the moment the growth of evangelicalism globally is more in the global south countries uh the exception is really uh in global north countries is really uh the US in Europe the growth is not as phenomenal so it’s global south countries and uh at the same time the types of evangelical churches that grow more significant ificantly are those that I call Pentecostal, neocarismatic types of uh evangelical groups where it’s all about experiencing the divine. It’s experiential Christianity. It’s being part of something. It’s having God transform our lives. It’s this idea of a religion of the heart versus a dogmatic religion that has no life. So that’s very attractive for a lot of people that are looking for meaning and looking for a way to actually make a difference in the world and that’s why it attracts a lot of young people. GA Andre, we’ll have to leave it there for now. Thank you so much though for being with us on the program this evening. Well, that’s it from us. Stay with us though for more wild news here on France

We speak with André Gagné, Professor and Chair of the Department of Theological Studies at Concordia University in Montreal, about the rising influence of evangelicals in politics around the world. He says that the influence of evangelicals in European politics remains limited and that many European evangelicals do not want to be associated with the brand of evangelicalism prominent in the United States.
#Religion #Evangelicals #US

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