Establishment churches in America are heavily invested in missionary efforts in Third World countries and native cultures. More bang for the buck compared with trying to convert well-off Western Europeans, who have been unduly influenced by their welfare socialist governments not to stand behind their birthright religion.
Now an East-West pincer movement centered in both America and Eastern Europe is coming to the rescue.
In the US, Donald Trump openly touts freedom of religion even for himself and those in his own government. He supports the rights of Christian fundamentalists who are investing millions to bring Western Europeans back to the fold, led by the president’s lawyer Jay Sekulow and his education secretary Betsy DeVos. Include as well his spiritual advisor Franklin Graham, and a host of conservative political power brokers such as Steve Bannon and the Koch brothers who want to restore family and traditional values.
Even before Trump’s dramatic entry, Hungary’s Orbán led the way, according to Filip Mazurczak in “Eastern Europe’s Christian Reawakening”. A needy, spiritually flagging West was obvious: “Since taking power in 2010, Prime Minister Viktor Orban—a charismatic veteran of Hungary’s anti-Communist underground—has victoriously stood at the forefront of what Americans call the culture wars.” In fact, “Orban himself can be said to symbolize Hungary’s reawakening.”
Mazurczak reports that “In Hungary, Croatia, and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, a pro-family, pro-life revolution and a rediscovery of Christian roots is occurring. While few in the American media have noticed, this trend should challenge those who simply lament Europe’s moral malaise. Unnoticed in the shadow of a secularized west, religion’s public role has been growing in the east since the collapse of communism.”
Ancient forms of Christian worship now are thriving in Eastern Europe: “Whereas Hungary and Croatia are experiencing a rebirth of Western Christianity, the Orthodox Churches are also booming east of the Elbe. Russia is rediscovering Orthodoxy.”
Trump undoubtedly saw that Orbán knew what happening overseas: “While many academics speak of Europe as a uniform secularized continent, two decades after the collapse of Communism it is more accurate, if still too simple, to speak of two Europes: a West that has largely abandoned its religious roots, and an East that is rediscovering its heritage.”
Even so, it’s not just about Judeo-Christianity, but about Making Europe Great Again, returning it to the cultural leadership that brought forth modern science and civilization.
