Religion in Europe: An Interview with Brent Nelson

By Norbert Gasaj on 23 September 2005

Europe was once the heart of Christendom. What has happened to its religious makeup? What are the basic patterns of religious demography of today's Europe?

You may or may not be familiar with a book by Andrew Greeley called Religion in Europe at the End of the Second Millennium. It is the best book on the religious demography of Europe. To briefly summarize, there seems to be rather strong belief in God, although not as strong in Europe as in America. On the belief issues, people still say they believe in God but on the practice of religion, it seems to have deteriorated dramatically. And I would also add that the actual theology of Europeans seems to be much, much less orthodox than it might have been even prior to 1970.

So people still remain for the most part very religious in the sense that they believe in God. Of course there are some exceptions. For instance, in the former East Germany, only 25 percent say they believe in God. But if you look at the figures overall, basic belief in God remains rather strong. Even in places like Latvia, 71 percent believe in God, and Slovakia it is 72 percent. You don't get below 50 percent until you get to the Czech Republic and East Germany.

However, while people will say they're not atheists and that they do believe in some of these things, when you ask about the practice of religion — like prayer, going to church — then you see a dramatic drop-off. Only about a third of most Europeans say they pray. There are cases where it is higher, such as 84 percent in Ireland, but you find dramatic drop-offs elsewhere — for example only 18 percent of Russians say they pray. Only 35 percent of Latvians say they pray, even though 71 percent say they believe in God.

You've got this odd shift where people say they believe in God, but they don't practice religion in any traditional sense. Sociologists have been looking at this, and some would say that this shows a dramatic secularization. Others would say that religion is simply evolving, and that practice has become more individualistic rather than corporate. Those are two different views. My view is more of the former, that this is a secularization of society, not just a change in religion. I don't deny the evidence of the people that say that there is religiosity in Europe. But I don't think that makes as much of a sociopolitical impact as corporate practice of religion.

It used to be said that America was unusual for being such a religious society. Now it is increasingly common to hear people say that it is Europe that is unusual for being so secular. Do you agree that Europe is secular, and if yes, how did this happen?

I would say yes, that Europe is secular. I don't think that people who believe in God but don't ever do anything about it can be said to be very religious. I don't think that religion is very important in their life if they don't do anything to indicate that it's important in their life. Words have to be backed up by actions, and we don't see much of that in Europe, at least not in the poll data.

I do think that there has been a systematic extraction of religion from public life in Europe. Religion has become very privatized, and therefore out of public view. How and why this happened is a much deeper and broader question, and it is hard to answer in a good two minute response. But I think it has something to do with the breakup of Christendom in the Reformation. I am a Protestant, but I still think that Protestants had an effect on the mentality of Europe. It allowed for a questioning of authority and an undermining of the church's authority, and it started or continued the process of the exalting of the individual. Certainly intellectually, and eventually politically, it freed people from authority structures.

I would say that the wars at the early part of the last century had an impact as well, even though we saw some religious revival after WWII. The ultimate effect of world wars seems to have undermined religious credibility as well.

But the big turning point or the watershed was about 1970. Prior to 1970, you still had church leaders speaking with some authority. After 1970 church leaders were simply not listened to as much as they used to be. The big exception there is Pope John Paul II, but his impact was primarily in the East. He was a moral voice in the West, but not an authoritative one in the West. He was respected, but not considered a commanding figure, with the emphasis on "command." He could not command people to do things in the West that they really didn't want to do.

Europe's secularization has something to do with the role of the state and the church, and the fact that established churches remained established in Europe, even after people began to question their beliefs in the church. I think it has made the church look almost foolish in some ways, that it still gets taxpayer money but nobody goes to it or takes it seriously. I think that has also undermined credibility.

Now I'd like to ask you some questions about the role of religion in European public life. First, where do established state churches still exist? Are these church establishments merely formalities or do they meaningfully affect public affairs?

It depends on where you are. I think the church still affects public affairs in Ireland, although that's declining. The same goes for Poland. There are other places that have established churches, say in Germany with its two established churches or Norway with its established Lutheran church, where it doesn't really matter; the church speaks, but it is only one among many, many voices. The Lutheran church in Sweden has been disestablished — I haven't noticed any difference.

There is variance among countries, but the trend among all European countries with an established church is clearly toward a decline of church influence.

Does religion and religious diversity affect political attitudes and voting in the domestic politics of European countries any more? If yes, what are some of the most significant examples?

This is one of the great paradoxes of the study of religion and politics: even though religiosity is declining, religious affiliation still matters to voting behavior. As the political scientist Russell Dalton has shown, church attendance is a powerful factor in determining vote choice. I think this still holds — or at least it certainly has held until very recently.

My own research is on religion and attitudes toward the European Union. My co-authors and I are finding that there has been a decline in the impact of religion on attitudes. This decline has been showing up especially since the late 1990s, where it doesn't matter quite as much whether you are religious or not as to whether you support the EU.

It used to be that if you were a very strong Catholic, you were very much in favor of the EU. But we are seeing a decline, and I think this is relevant to what's going on in the EU now. We have found that the most "Euro-skeptical" people in Europe are the secular people, those who claim no tradition. And the secular population is growing, so this doesn't bode well for affective support for the EU.

More than one year ago, in May 2004, 10 Eastern European countries joined the European Union (EU). We would expect that after 40 years under an atheist Soviet system these former communist societies would lose their sense of religion. Have they? Are they in transition?

I would say that no, they haven't lost all of their sense of religion — but are they in transition? Yes, I would say they are. I was in Poland this last summer, and people are much more religious in Poland than in Germany, but the impact of the church has declined. Certainly church attendance has declined dramatically. So I think that they are in transition, as the people who were members of the church for more political reasons are leaving. This means that the impact of religion will decline.

An important point that comes out of the transition from communism to a market-based democracy is that communism could not kill religion entirely. It survived, albeit evenly across Eastern Europe; it couldn't be squeezed out everywhere. And even in East Germany you had a powerful influence of the church in the transition to democracy. Even though today's East German church is not very powerful, it had an important role to play in the transition. The situation of the Polish church is somewhat similar.

How, if at all, does religion affect attitudes about EU unification in 'new' (eastern) countries? In 'old' (western) countries?

The early data that we use, from the early '90s, shows that on the surface, there is very little impact of religion on attitudes toward the EU. But if you dig deeper there is still a strong influence of Catholic thinking on positive attitudes towards the EU. So it is a kind of deep, cultural commitment that pushed religious people in favor of the EU.

Now we do have 2002 survey data that have religious questions in them. Our analysis of that data is that we can't find any effect now, and I think that that may be the direction Western Europe is going as well.

Although the official position is that the EU is a pluralistic society that is open to those of all faiths, the idea that the EU should reflect Europe's Christian heritage is also present at the popular level. How does this affect European politics?

The short answer is that I don't know; we don't have good data that asks clear enough questions. I'm trying to get the Euro-barometer survey to ask better religion questions that may help us answer this issue. For instance, I would like to know, at a popular level, whether there is a difference among religious or nonreligious people or Catholics versus Protestants on their attitudes toward Turkish accession to the EU. We have some polling data from individual countries, but not for the whole of Europe.

I do think there might be a kind of cultural reaction to the EU actively discouraging any influence of Christian faith on the development of the EU. At least in some Catholic countries like Ireland, Poland and Austria there is some popular-level desire to insert some words in the constitution’s preamble about Europe's debt to its Christian history when it comes to human rights. There was some support for that, but not enough across Europe to make it a reality.

Opposition to Turkey joining the EU is said to have been a significant factor in the recent "no" referenda votes in France and the Netherlands, rejecting a proposed EU constitution. Is religion a factor here?

Is religion a factor? I don't know for sure, but I think it has more to do with the culture that religion left behind — that is, Western European culture as influenced historically by the Christian religion — than religion per se. I think there is this deep sense within people that they can't articulate, a sense that they simply don't want Turkey in. They don't want Muslim culture in, but they can't really say overtly "I don't want Muslims in" so they say things like "Turkey does not have a European culture." I think they're reflecting old Christian culture, even though they have somewhat left this culture behind.

What is your opinion about the ability of the EU to handle, culturally and politically, religious diversity and freedom going forward? In particular, do you think religiously-motivated terrorism a threat to religious freedom in Europe?

My opinion is that toleration is going to decline. I think it's already clear from the Dutch case, where there has been a crackdown in the wake of the horrific murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh. I think it's also clear in the UK that there is a tightening of religious toleration, especially following the London subway bombings. I can't really criticize, because the fact is that some groups have abused that tolerance. I think that is a great shame, because I don't want to lose the tolerance. But at the same time, I don't want people blowing themselves up in the Tube station either. That is a problem, but I definitely think that toleration is going to decline, that there will be boundaries placed on tolerance.

Regarding religiously motivated terrorism and its effect on religious freedom, I think that it depends on what you define as religious freedom. If you define religious freedom as the right to say anything, even violent things, and call it religion, than yes, there will be a decline in religious freedom. But if you continue to define religion as a collection of beliefs about God and about society, then there will be plenty of religious freedom in Europe.

The question is about where the boundaries are, and this is what concerns me about, say, the blasphemy law that they are now discussing in Britain. The boundary between acceptable and unacceptable is in this case determined by the state, and I want the state to allow enough freedom so that people can discuss religion in a calm and peaceful manner, and to even attempt to convert someone to another religion. But the boundary between that kind of activity and violent activity is vague. I'm afraid that the state will be overly zealous and will eliminate a lot of religious speech that is not violent.

I would like to think that genuine religious speech will continue to be tolerated in Europe, but I have some questions about some of the things I see in Britain and the Netherlands. I also know that in Norway they have expelled a cleric for talking about violent Islam. I don't sense that there is a major crackdown on all religion, but I do think that any time you expel somebody for saying religious things, people begin to think before they speak, is this illegal or not illegal? Most people tend to be cautious, so they may not speak their minds about religion as much, which could be a bad thing.

The outgoing president of the European Council, Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxemburg, concluded his presidency by saying that, "The EU is not in crisis, it is in deep crisis!" Do you agree?

I think that's funny, because after the referendum in France and the Netherlands, Juncker was the one saying, "We don't really have any problems, we will just continue with the referendum process," and then by the end he is saying that the EU is in deep crisis. I would say that, yes, Europe is in crisis, but I don't see this major unraveling of the EU that some people see. There are major challenges ahead, and I definitely think the EU has to change. It has to alter its strategy for reaching people. But there are too many interests that the EU meets for European countries to turn their back entirely on the project.

This crisis is probably equal to the "empty chair" crisis of 1965, when Charles de Gaulle withdrew the French delegation from the European Council of Ministers over funding of the cap. The EU was probably more fragile at that time, and it was missing one of its major partners, but it still survived. It survived because the interests, economic and political, that the European Community met for the members states outweighed the problem.

I still believe that integration solves more problems than it creates for Europe. I have thought for some time, however, that integration was going in the wrong direction, so the recent turn of events is, in my opinion, a needed corrective. It could reach a deep crisis in the future, and I could see a number of scenarios occurring where there could be an unraveling of the agreement. But I am hoping that perhaps with some leadership change in Germany and France that there may be a better, more realistic basis for cooperation.

In my view, a federal Europe was never a realistic possibility. I don't care what Joschka Fischer said or any of the radical federalists, I never thought it was realistic. I also never thought that ratifying the constitution was realistic. Indeed, I never thought that all 25 members of the EU would agree on anything, much less a constitution. The EU overstepped its boundaries, and what they need is to rethink what cooperation is useful for.

I actually think that Tony Blair's effort at changing the nature of the conversation has been a step in the right direction. I don't know if he has all the right answers, but he is asking the right questions, and maybe in the next two years or so, the EU can come to some kind of settlement.

So Juncker is not right; the whole thing is not on the verge of falling apart. But somebody has got to think these things through clearly and set a new direction for Europe.

Last updated 12 January 2009