Jacobsen describes the ending of the nineteenth century ended very positively. The Protestants moved into an era of modernity, the Catholics were looking to care for a new industrialized Europe and the Orthodox Christians were slowly regaining their control over their nations and churches. According to Jacobsen the first world war should never have been fought. During this war the German Protestants portrayed the war as a holy crusade against the Germans. The Russian Orthodox leaders explained that the war against Western Europe was necessary to defend Russia against the “antichrist”. The French Catholics were drawn to images of Christ. They drew the Sacred Heart of Jesus on their flag which portrayed their strong faith. The Anglican church told the British soldiers to kill all Germans. Whether they were old, young, good, or bad the Germans needed to die to stop the spread of a dictatorship. “Almost all the war rhetoric, on all sides, mixed God, glory, and gutsiness into a hot soup of righteous fervor” (122). Essentially all the major branches of Christianity in Europe were changing and shifting the Word of God in order to shape their own ideals. They wanted to sway soldiers, civilians, and governments with the Bible in order to get what they wanted. Pope Benedict XV spoke adamantly about how the war was silly. He said that due to five million civilian casualties that the war was “the death of a civilized Europe”. The laïcité was a law of required secularization. Due to these new laws church attendance dropped and people started straying further and further away from organized religion. The spread of communism was fast behind the iron curtain. Due to the armistice and lack of fighting this gave way to a huge wave of communism to sweep across half of Europe. Christian communities were vastly affected by the spread of communism in Eastern Europe. Mainly Christianity varied from country to country and ultimately the Balkan War in the 1990’s pitted the Orthodox Church and the Muslims against each other.
The decline of Christianity in Europe stems from wide spread secularization. Churches in Europe are left empty. Cathedrals that once help hundreds of Christians now stand empty. Jacobsen makes two conclusions. The first is that the Protestants have been more affected by secularization than any other denomination and that Eastern Europe is more secular than Western Europe. Due to immigration there has been a steady rise of Muslims in Europe migrating from Africa and Asia. Due to Muslim immigration larger and larger strictly Muslim communities have begun to form all across Eastern Europe. Due to the rise of Muslim immigrants Christianity has begun to take a dip. Due to the rise of Muslim immigrants Western Europeans began to evaluate their faith differently. This has lead to a renewed sense of faith and belief in Christianity.
European intellectual life has judged the relationship between reason, science, and faith to be controversial. For European Christians they want to seek truth in faith. Most believe that if they were required to pick between faith and truth they would pick truth due to Christ being truth, therefore truth>faith. Thinkers like Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Dun Scotus, and Martin Luther have asserted their own ideals in regard to reason. The most important of these is Luther he believed that Christianity should be explained in simple terms. In order for reason to come from Christianity, it must be kept simple so every man can understand it. Science is controversial in the European Christian community because for example some Christians completely reject the idea of evolution to where other Christians fully accept that evolution is an explanation of how the world came to be as it is now. This controversy has lead to divisions within the Church but the ultimate goal is to attain truth keeping in view Christ and His teachings. As for faith, faith in the Christian ideals have been steadily declining in Europe due to the rise of secular and scientific thinking/reasoning. More Christians are turning to science, reason, and truth instead of turning to their faith in Christ. This ultimately leads to the fall of Christianity.
I think that Post-modern ideals will lead to a further decline of a Christian lifestyle in Europe and the Americas. I think with the rise of science, truth, and reason Christian countries and communities are becoming more and more secularized. Christian communities will be forced to adapt to post modern ideals and ways of though instead of relying on their faith in Christ. Ultimately I believe that Christianity will continue to steadily decline, immigration will continue to rise, and science which can now in my opinion be considered a religion will supplement Christianity.