Customer Reviews

God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis (The Future of Christianity)

5 star:		(4)
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The first half of the book, on the state of Christianity in Europe, is outstanding. It contains a great deal of important and significant information that I have not seen reported anywhere else, indicating that Christianity is not quite so moribund in Europe as is commonly reported.

The second half of the book, on Islam in Europe, is uneven. Jenkins begins with a number of generalizations to the effect that the common stories of the threat of Islam in Europe are overblown and unwarranted. But then he spends the rest of the book giving extensive detail and analysis to the effect that Islam is indeed a grave threat to European culture and Western security. It's an odd disconnect.

In all, an excellent book and well worth the read.

This is the third in Jenkins' fascinating series looking at global Christianity and it follows "The Next Christendom" and "The New Faces Of Christianity" but this time focusing on Christianity in Europe and the perceived threat of Islam. Reading this book was an enjoyable experience and a welcome antidote to the paranoia often seen in the media and in churches, at least with regard to the future of Christianity. Jenkins shows, using statistics and with a look through the history of Christianity in Europe, that despite the increase in secularisation and the reduction in numbers of believers, Christianity is still overwhelmingly the majority religion in Europe and likely to stay that way. He wonders whether the Islam of those who make their homes in Europe might also become more secular and tolerant and that the Islam that we fear, that of the fundamentalists, might not be as prevalent as we fear.

The second half of the book looks more closely at Islam, discussing terrorism and the French riots, showing how some people are radicalised and giving a history of many of the terrorism events of the last twenty years. He also describes some of the changes taking place in European Islam, particularly with regard to women's rights. The assumption that Islam is a monolithic faith in which there is no variation is patently false and it was encouraging to read of many of the Muslim men and women who are working as a force for good, at least as we would see it. However the overall tone of this part of the book was less positive and left the reader with the sense that Islam is very different from the liberality of most Europeans and not that willing to accommodate in most cases.

Jenkins is always a worthwhile writer to read, with an ability to see the big picture as well as to focus on the details, and he is at home in European history and culture. His writing style is excellent, always interesting, well-reasoned and clearly researched, although I was irritated by his insistence in calling the London Underground the London Subway. This book is an important study for anyone living in Europe who wonders about the future of Christianity and how we are to get along with our Muslim neighbours and who perhaps wants to learn a little more about the Islam that is becoming established in Europe.

Jenkins is a dissenter from the opinion of many author's that Europe faces such a demographic onslaught from Muslim immigrants that the continent will become Eurabia where Islam dominates and all non-Muslims are mere dhimmis. He thinks the demography will change and immigrant families become smaller. He also thinks that Islam will change and adapt in Europe. He is also an optimist about the future of Christianity. He thinks Christianity is far from a dying influence. It will adapt though numbers will reduce. This is the judgment of a liberal academic. I would not be so rash as to prophesy but I do not share his optimism over the future as regards Islam .
But as to the present facts of religion in Europe, Jenkins paints with a broad brush but I think he is fairly accurate, with the glaring exception of the assessment he gives to John Calvin. He certainly gives a balanced picture of Islamic diversity in Europe and also good reasons why European governments have been extraordinarily tolerant of the kinds of activities and organisations which Islamic governments persecute and ban. This is a book informative on now. As to the future, we shall have to wait and see.

Jenkins' analysis of the state of Christianity and Islam in Europe is thorough and realistic. If he does have a bias it is that he likes to surprise people with new, little-known facts to shade your opinion. Although the subject matter is religion, the book is chock full of information and modern history, and yes, a little philosophical speculation. It is one of the best books available on one of the most important problems facing the 21st century.

God's Continent makes a convincing case that the decline of European Christianity and the rise of Islam in Europe are not reaching quite the apocalyptic heights feared by so many. Islam is growing, but it is in many ways capitulating to the same forces of modernism and secularism that have weakened European Christianity. At the same time, the immigration trends that are bringing Islam to Europe are also bringing to the continent the vibrant Christian faith of Africa and Asia - a faith that has not capitulated to modernism's insistence upon a deep divide between the sacred and the secular, between the religious and the political. Jenkins argues that this growing Christian faith is often ignored - not because it isn't real or vital, but because it is found primarily in immigrant communities. Old-stock Europeans see immigrants from Asia and Africa and simply assume that Islam is on the rise - when, in fact, many of those immigrants are bringing a Christian faith that is often quite orthodox and vibrant.

Jenkins certainly grants that the rise of Islam is a real challenge for Europe, and he devotes quite a bit of effort at describing a way forward. Too much of his proposed solution, it seems to me, involves hoping that both Islam and Christianity make their peace with Western secularism, embracing a deep divide between the sacred and the secular, the religious and the political. The rise of Islam is exposing the bankruptcy of Western culture's gods of pluralism and multiculturalism. The solution is not for the church to defend those gods. Rather, we have much to learn from global Christianity's embrace of the communal and public character of Christian faith.

Title: God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis by Phillip Jenkins

Pages: 340

Time spent on the "to read" shelf: 1 day.

Days spent reading it: 11 months. I started it right after I received it. Stopped reading it after I was about half-way in March or so. I then completed the last half on November 22 in just one day.

Why I read it: My ordination mentor had me reading a number of books on the recent surge of Islam into western societies, namely Europe. After reading a number of books on the topic that are all doom and gloom, I heard that Phillip Jenkins was writing a book on the topic. I also heard it was going to offer a balance to the debate that was not present in other authors.

"Brief" Review: God's Continent is primarily about the integration of Islam into the western world. A number of books and articles have been written about how Europe is being over-run by Islamic fanatics, and that America needs to be careful or we will be next. The arguments center around a few points. My personal favorite on this topic was Mark Steyn's America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It. The following is a brief outline of two of the major arguments addressed.

First, Islamic nations are out-breeding Western nations almost 2:1. Numerically they will overcome their minority status in Western societies in 50-100 years according to the prophets of doom.

Second, Islamic immigrants are not integrating into societies. There have been enormous obstacles to assimilation. Islamic followers seem to be creating their own subcultures that are shielded from the values of the nation they are immigrating into. So most Islamic immigrants see themselves as Muslims first, the country they immigrated from second, and sometimes consider themselves a part of the country they immigrated into.

There are other arguments, but they will take up too much space to recount.

Jenkins book promotes a number of ideas that bring these concepts are not quite accurate. For example, Jenkins points out that although it is true that Islamic nations have a birth rate almost twice as much as most western cultures, he also notes that African nations that are primarily Christian also have high birth rates, and they too are immigrating into European nations. He actual contends that birth rates from Christian immigrants might balance out the Islamic population.

Jenkins also makes great points about how laws in European countries that are made to limit the impact of Islam on the secular state can also be aimed at limiting any religion in the country. Jenkins also contends that this may be the primary goal. Many European nations pride themselves on their secular governments. France was his primary example of this kind of secular government. The question is not just about Islam, then, but about all forms of religion and how they will be incorporated into Western culture.

Jenkins' book does serve as a needed balance to our journalistic guides who think that Europe is a lost cause and that Islam will overtake European nations in a matter of a generation or two. There are other forces at work, both within Europe and within Islam, that need to be considered before considering Europe an Islamic center. Sharia is not going to be the dominating law any time soon. However, there are trends that should alarm us and should awaken the sleeping European nations whose values and beliefs are being challenged by an intimidating foe.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the problems facing Western culture from an increasingly aggressive Islamic culture. Jenkins presents fair warnings and a detailed analysis of current trends in the current clash of these civilizations. However, this book is not for the casual reader. It has a significant amount of research and analysis of current trends. The first half was particularly difficult to read through. However, the information that is given makes this book an important contribution to the discussion of the integration of Islam and the West.

Favorite Quote:
Europeans of most political shades would now admit that they face a Muslim Problem, in the sense of deciding how to deal with social, cultural, and political views that seem barely compatible with those of the liberal mainstream. yet perhaps the issue is not so much a Muslim problem as a religious problem, a systematic failure by European elites to understand religious thought and motivation. In much of the recent discussion about Islam, commentators are understandably anxious to avert the dangers of extremism and terrorism, to persuade Muslims to absorb virtues of tolerance and pluralism. Yet often the underlying assumption is that religion itself is a problem, at least in anything like its historic forms.

Stars: 4 out of 5.

Final Word: Sobering.

Phillip Jenkins, known as a student of the modern history of Christianity in The Next Christendom, in "God's Continent" aims to argue that the state of Christianity in Europe is not nearly so bad as is generally assumed by the press concerned about an Islamic takeover.

Whilst, were it true, this would be useful to remind people, Jenkins arguments cannot hold sway. He does point out radically declining fertility rates in Muslim nations surrounding Europe, but in reality this is most likely to suggest a long-term future of radical secularism extending to the Middle East and North Africa and a rapid fading of Islam, especially if the highly centralised EU structure covers those areas (which Jenkins suggests it could).

When Jenkins looks at the secularisation of Europe, one already sees he is off-line in the way in which he studies. Whilst he clearly shows the decline in religiosity of the European population, his efforts to find a cause and to explain why the US has not followed suit is very flawed. One possibility is the fact that the US has a much smaller pension system due to Reagan's reforms. Much worse, though, is how when actually trying to study the secularisation of Europe, Jenkins puts far too little attention towards the causes of that secularisation. Given that he notes the much higher religious observance of those born before the baby boom generation of the 1940s and 1950s, Jenkins ought to have devoted at least a page or two to explaining what might cause this. The way in which conservatives can convincingly suggest a surprising answer like female suffrage (which he does note in the book) ought to make him think seriously. Instead, he spends too much time ranting on the more recent declines of later generations.

His look at the efforts to renew Christianity in Europe via African and Asian immigration is interesting. Given that I know immigrants tend to be very conservative compared to people who remain in their homeland, there is the possibility that migrant renewal could be long-lasting, but the way in which the EU has been so successful at creating a government that could threaten any conservative religion on grounds of discrimination makes this doubtful.

His part on Islam, on the other hand, is rather wishy-washy. Given how well conservatives and the politically non-aligned like myself know so well that when religion loses its essential tenets and mystery it ceases to be an effective force, it is very hard to see how Islam will survive any better than Christianity (or Buddhism, for that matter) by compromising with militant secularism.

Another noteworthy fault is that Jenkins seems to think the popularity of pilgrimages means Europeans are not so secular as people imagine. The way I see it, such "pilgrimages" as occur in modern Europe are with a very few exception like Lough Derg basically pure tourism to study a continent's past which they may find fascinating even if violently repelled by the rigid laws of the Vatican against female ordination or sexual freedom. (One book whose title I will not disclose distinguished between pilgrimage and tourism in terms of accommodation and way of life: pilgrimage involved staying with locals in private homes and living their lifestyle; tourism involved living one's own lifestyle outside).

All in all, "God's Continent" is most disappointing. In its aim to explain the secularisation of Europe, it fails, and it has another failure in looking at how Islam will evolve.

This is not the first book by the author I've read, but, after it, I feel no inclination to read anything else by him. The text has very little above the level of cheap journalism, in facts, factoids, cute language including intercolated foreign words to convey an air of sophistication. The points are few and somewhat questionable: Europeans are weak on or indifferent to Christianity, their birth rate is below the replacement level, Europe is receiving many Moslem immigrants with a higher reproductive rate apart from their countries of origin, BUT there is hope for Chrisitianity after all (with use of maybe and could and similar suggestive terms that represent a potentially optimisitc outcome). Blaming current indifference toward Christianity in Europe on the Enlightenment is the sort of stupidity blended with outright dishonesty I'd expect of some newspaper columnist. Does the author not recognize the connection between the intellectual and scientific advances in Europe, or does he want to return to an underdeveloped but more religious age? And as for those who are more religious in Europe (Poles, Irish, Slovaks), is this religiousness or simply religion as a badge of national identity? Why is the birth rate in Europe so low? The author has nothing to offer us on this count. Will the Moslem immigrants overwhelm the core Europeans? Probably so, to the extent that they are not absorbed economically but remain a marginalized and ghettoized element. This book, readers of this, is NOT worthwhile reading in order to understand the present interaction between the First and Third Worlds on the former's territory. As for Christianity, there has been some serious biblical-historical research to come out, made possible due to present-day freedom of speech and press, that seriously challenges traditional doctrines on which Christianity is based. Non-adherence, non-practice and non-belief are not simply explained through intellectual decadence, present-day affluence and anomie. Much more is involved, as well as an analysis of how the role of women and the family unit has changed over time. This book, written, I seriously suspect, to fatten the author's CV, is not the place to find such information, and is best put, merely another form of the all too ubiquitous pulp fiction that plagues us.

This is a great seller and I am very happy with my purchase. I ordered a book for standard delivery and it arrived earlier than expected. The book was in the exact condition as described by the seller.