PURITANS, MUSLIMS, AND RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS IN EUROPE

By Todd Buell

Lost in the coverage of the U.S. election was the grizzly and brazen murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. The director, who is distantly related to the famous artist of the same name, was shot and stabbed to death on the streets of Amsterdam on America’s election day. The date was purely a coincidence.

The murder was motivated by Van Gogh’s criticisms of conservative Islam and its purported incongruence with Dutch society—a society renowned for its openness, tolerance, and liberalism. Specifically his recent film Submission, which chastised the treatment of women in Islam, angered some members of the Netherlands’s one million Islamic inhabitants.

Discord between Dutch thinkers and the Islamic community originated neither with van Gogh’s film nor with his killing. Rather they have been brewing for years as an increasing number of Muslims have immigrated to the Netherlands. Some readers may recall that the last Dutch public figure to die via the bullet prior to van Gogh was the populist Pim Fortyn, who also voiced concern about the mixing of fundamentalist Islam and Dutch culture (though his killer was a radical environmentalist).

Fortyn’s legacy as a fighter for “Dutch values” still resonates strongly in the Netherlands. Following van Gogh’s death, listeners to a popular radio program voted Fortyn the “Greatest Dutchman Ever.”

Interestingly enough, as we emerge out of our Thanksgiving holiday, today’s fundamentalist Muslims are not the only historic group whose strict beliefs did not blend well with the Dutch tradition of tolerance and liberality. America’s pilgrim settlers, after leaving England, first settled in the Netherlands. Yet concern about the impact of Dutch openness and tolerance on Puritan children led the pilgrims to depart Holland and head to pure and uncorrupted America to found their longed for and unadulterated “city on a hill.”

In spending two weeks teaching the Thanksgiving story to Austrian students, I was struck at how the religious conflicts that would lead to our Thanksgiving holiday are still manifesting themselves in both Holland and America. While the Netherlands attempts to assimilate fundamentalist immigrants, the U.S. just experienced an election in which religion played an important role.

In looking at ways that the sacred and the profane can coexist, continental Europe could serve as a good example on how church and state can relate to each other. Sadly, their system appears to be teetering close to failure.

In looking at the Republican Party platform on many issues, it would only be historically, not substantively or ontologically, inaccurate to say that the Puritans emigrated from the Netherlands to America and then proceeded to win a Presidential election championing an end to abortion rights, gay rights, and secularism, while promoting tax cuts and free enterprise.

All humor aside, there are tangible connections between modern conservatives and the people reputed to have founded American Thanksgiving. One of the major points of disagreement between the pilgrims and the Church of England was the morality of the theater. The Puritans believed that theater contributed to a sinful and unrighteous life, whereas in this time Shakespeare was writing plays, some of which for a theatre company called “The King’s Men.” This Puritan repudiation of all theater may seem atavistic, however remnants of their thinking still motivates social conservatives to rail against sex, violence, or immorality on television.

Here in Europe, most people look at these examples of America’s fundamentalist religious culture—and other more radical incidents, such as efforts to purge evolution from school textbooks—and feel a tangible sense of superiority. I recall a discussion of religious values in America here where a commentator condescendingly claimed that many of these “moral questions” occupying America had long ago been decided here in Europe.

This commentator’s opinion is not wholly accurate. In only one European country, Holland, is it legal for gays to get married. In some traditionally Catholic countries, Italy, Spain, Ireland, and Austria, it is harder to get an abortion than it is in the United States. The European Union (EU) has also failed to reach a consensus on stem cell research.

What this commentator may have meant is that in Europe public religion is not as fervent and fundamentalist, and is arguably more pleasant and benign than it is in the United States. For example, here in Austria, it is customary for a cross to hang in every school classroom much in the same way that the U.S. flag hangs in an American classroom. The same practice is true in parts of Germany, all of Italy, and Spain. In Germany, it is even true for provinces to teach with an explicit preference to “Western values.” In Austria, it is also legal, and not uncommon, for a high-ranking Catholic clergyman (bishop, cardinal, monsignor, etc.) to attend a major civic event such as a school opening, holiday celebration, or health fair. Austria, and some other countries, pays for a Catholic, and Protestant, religion teacher to work in all high schools.

This summer in Austria there was a sex scandal that forced the closing of a Roman Catholic seminary in the town of St. Pölten and the resignation of its bishop. (This scandal, though grave, was not as serious as what happened in Boston two years ago. Here pornographic images and pictures of seminarians performing homosexual acts on each other were unearthed. However to my knowledge no accusations of abuse were made against priests by parishioners).

Before the Vatican officially named the new bishop, it had the Austrian minister for culture clear the new bishop’s name. Why would, or should, the government have any business telling the Catholic Church whom it should choose to oversee a diocese? One reason is that in Austria, along with many other European countries, tax revenues support churches directly.

Why does this practice continue in countries where all people have a right to practice their own faith, and when in many of these countries, regular church attendance is under one-third of the population? One reason is that the church is a part of the cultural history of these countries. Even if these countries believe that church and state are formally separated and have such a guarantee enshrined in their constitutions, the reality is that from a cultural perspective church and state are enmeshed.

One can see this appreciation for religion’s cultural contribution to European life in various ways. In addition to the aforementioned crosses in the classroom and clergy at public events, concerts that feature classical religious music tend to pack churches in many European cities—probably more so than regular religious services.

In my nearly two years of living here, I have been impressed and amazed at the number of people who have attended concerts of religious music by Mozart, Brahms, and Bach in Klagenfurt (Austria), Munich, and Berlin respectively. Also, there is no bashfulness about portraying Christian symbols in public squares around this time of year. In most Austrian and German municipalities there is a Christkindlmarkt (literally “Christ child market”) where merchants sell food, clothing, ornaments, and other seasonal items. There is typically a large Christmas tree that adorns the center of the market—which is, not insignificantly, typically held on a central town square. To my knowledge, no European court has ever ruled this type of state support of religion to be unconstitutional (although last year an Italian court did rule that their country’s practice of hanging crosses in public school classrooms was illegal; but I believe the decision is being appealed).

It is important to remember that continental Europe can have this mild, subtle, yet tangible mixing of Church and state because there is greater religious and cultural homogeneity in Europe than there is in the United States. Obviously from centuries of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, there are few Jews as a percentage on the European continent. However immigration from Morocco, Algeria, Turkey, and the Balkan states is increasing the Islamic population.

Though continental Europe lacks the religious diversity of America, or Great Britain, these religious minorities are allowed to practice their own faith. European governments and police forces do not tolerate attacks against religious symbols or houses of worship. In addition, at least here in Austria, synagogues and mosques are eligible to receive government funding.

I like the benign, mild, cultural, and nondivisive support for religion that one finds in much of Europe. It recognizes and respects the Christian heritage and history of the country without overtly using religion as a defense for brazen foreign policy or as a way to divide people. As much as I cringe when I hear President Bush say that he knows that God ordains the war in Iraq and his efforts to rid the world of “evil,” I also am particularly irked when radical secularists try to erase much lighter and less dangerous forms of religion from public life.

For example, a public school should be allowed to have a minister, or perhaps a student, read a prayer before a graduation ceremony, football game, or other special event. Our Supreme Court has ruled that this practice is illegal. We should not use a technicality to keep “Under God” in our “Pledge of Allegiance.” When I was in college, I was equally annoyed when the President of the school (Bowdoin) decided to move all college ceremonies historically held in First Parish Church in Brunswick (convocation and baccalaureate) out of this space because ceremonies being in a church offended some non-Christian students and faculty. There being no prayers, hymns, or readings from the Bible at these ceremonies did not seem to make a difference to Bowdoin’s President.

To him, and to all humbugs of things holy, the idea that religion can teach important values such as humility, kindness, and restraint, and can play a trenchant role in issues such as poverty, abortion, and the death penalty seems to ring hollow.

And it is this failure to see the benefits of religion that saddens and troubles me. When we view religion as a part of culture, history, and as a necessary but not sufficient addition to political dialogue, we put a check on radicalism and fundamentalism.

Europe’s support for “religion-lite” may be motivated by a profound fear of fundamentalist and radical religion. I read recently in a British newspaper that one reason that Europe finds George W. Bush to be so unappealing, and frightening, is that Europe holds both Christian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism in an equally low regard.

The unfortunate reality however is that mild and soft religion, akin to what one finds in much of Europe, generally, is in danger in both the United States and Europe. In Europe, few people attend church regularly (except in Poland) and, in the U.S., attendance at mainline Protestant churches is also falling, while in the U.S., membership at evangelical, fundamentalist, and “born again” churches is on the rise. In Europe there is no strong Christian fundamentalist movement, while an increasing number of immigrants from traditionally Islamic countries are entering and settling in continental Europe.

The trend, regretfully, in both America and Europe is moving toward fundamentalism or stricter religion. As more Muslims migrate to Europe, conservative or fundamentalist Islam will continue to grow there. Also, as Christian fundamentalism in America grows, there may be further attempts from Washington to undercut abortion rights, gay rights, and stem cell research funding. In Europe, it is all too likely that Theo van Gogh will not be the last victim of intolerant Islamic extremism.

It is a shame that in both the “new” and “old” world, civility, moderation, culture, and progress are being hampered and endangered by fundamentalist religion. This condition may show that the pilgrims, nearly 400 years ago, were right simply to leave the Netherlands rather than to try and convert, or potentially fight, the open and tolerant Dutch. With the exception of the native population, with whom the Puritans celebrated the first Thanksgiving, the Puritans had a free and untarnished continent on which to build the “city on a hill.”

Where are today’s fundamentalists to go?

 

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