It seems that Europe is now importing what it exported, namely Christianity. But this is often a different kind of Christianity:
The “Amens!” flew like popcorn in hot oil as 120 Christian worshipers clapped and danced and praised Jesus as if He’d just walked into the room. In a country where about 2 percent of the population attend church regularly and many churches draw barely enough worshipers to fill a single pew, the Sunday morning service at this old mission hall was one rocking celebration.
In the middle of all the keyboards, drums and hallelujahs, Stendor Johansen, a blond Danish sea captain built like a 180-pound ice cube, sang along and danced, as he said, like a Dane — without moving. (washingtonpost.com)
A more emotional religion than the methodical Lutheranism Denmark would have exported, to be sure.
Yet what’s most interesting about the article is not the fact that missionaries are going to Europe. That’s old news — I often saw Evangelical missionaries in Poland trying to convert Poles from Catholicism to Christianity. (Yes, I know — but that’s how they see it.) The interesting thing is where the missionaries are coming from.
The International Christian Community (ICC) is one of about 150 churches in Denmark that are run by foreigners, many from Africa, Asia and Latin America, part of a growing trend of preachers from developing nations coming to Western Europe to set up new churches or to try to reinvigorate old ones.
World Christianity today is in an odd stage of development. Evangelicalism, that distinctly American version of Christianity, has been on fire throughout the world. America has been sending out Evangelical missionaries, especially to countries that have large Catholic populations, and now, it seems, these missionaries are going to Europe — full circle.
I wonder if they’re bringing disease back with them, though…