Overheard in the Reijksmuseum
Two weekends ago, I took my older kids on a trip to Germany and The Netherlands to prepare for our deputation to Germany as SAMS Missionaries. After taking them to see our future home, I decided to take them up to Amsterdam, specifically to see the wonderful Van Gogh Museum. But, before this, we took the time to see the Reijksmuseum, their national museum, filled with the treasures of dutch art and culture. Think Rembrandt and life-size paintings of the Battle of Waterloo. One of the things I dearly love about this particular museum is how the museum is laid out chronologically. I’m not sure if this was intentional or not, but the first exhibit on this chronological exploration of Dutch art is their medieval collection, consisting entirely of Christian art.
It is, to say the least, a stunning collection of processional crosses, bishop’s croziers, altarpieces, statues, and iconography. So stunning that my oldest could not help but weep. But it was in that exhibit that I overheard a conversation between two middle-aged women.
“It’s just all so sad.”
“I know, all the death, and superstition, and war.”
But they weren’t weeping. That was my daughter, overwhelmed by the beauty and majesty of what can be rightly described as Europe’s glaringly obvious Christian history. Of course, it isn’t all glorious. But, that for several hundred years, the only art that anyone made was explicitly Christian, whether a statue, or a painting, or a cathedral, or a tune is not sad. It’s a testimony to the Gospel. You see, the history of Europe is the history of a barbaric people being tamed by the Gospel. Warring, murderous, unruly masses coming to be truly civilized, not through technology or scientific knowledge, but by coming to know the goodness and mercy of God. It wasn’t all perfect, but today in most of the countries of Europe, only 3% of each population claims any kind of living relationship with Jesus Christ. In Germany, there are more Muslims in mosques on Fridays than Christians in Church on Sundays. The most popular baby name in Germany last year was Mohammed.
Europe truly wrestles with this identity crisis. Some call for tighter controls on immigration. Others call for tighter controls on guns and knives. But, at the core of the problem is this: secular Europe is unrooted and being unrooted, it will fall to cultures only slightly more rooted than itself. Many today erroneously believe that it was Europe’s Christian past that drove the tragedies of two world wars and a Cold War, with millions brutally murdered. Yet, these great injustices were not caused by Christianity but the rejection of it. In reality, secular Europe is like a zombie – walking around in the clothing and world of Christianity, but without a beating heart or a well-tuned mind.
The people who once built cathedrals and illuminated manuscripts are truly in a state of death. And unlike the 15th Century, very little stands in the way of Islam’s hostile takeover of the entire continent.
But, there are great reasons to hope. Firstly, many secular Europeans are now spontaneously claiming that they are nothing less than Christian. They understand that to cling to all that is good about European society and culture is to be, at the heart, a believing Christian. They cannot escape the evidence. It is all around them. Believe it or not, this is the “hot topic” at universities like Oxford and Cambridge: “Can one truly claim the European intellectual tradition as his own if he is not a Christian?” Secular university students are coming to faith in droves, turning to radical lives of evangelism and mission. Many who once saw Christianity as just the sad past of their culture, now see it as the essence of all they hold dear.
Last August, my wife and I experienced, as we had been experiencing for many years in more subtle ways, a call to mission in the heart of Europe. In the coming months, we will be relocating with our seven children to a former Nazi-era German army base that has, for the last fifty years, been a camp and retreat center for the Reformed Episcopal Church in Europe. We believe that the Lord has granted us a vision of seeing the radical multiplication of churches on the European continent through deep catechesis and equipping for ministry. We’re deeply humbled to do this as missionaries with SAMS as it means we are not only joining a society of other faithful missionaries, but a society of generous and prayerful senders.
