AMERICA'S CHRISTIAN HEART HAS SPOKEN
By Wolfgang Polzer
WETZLAR (ANS) -- US-Americans
have re-elected their President – much to the chagrin of most
Europeans. George W. Bush is not their favorite person: Just four per
cent of all Germans would have given him their vote. Almost the entire
range of mass media placed their bets on John F. Kerry and predicted an
election chaos, the likes of which we had seen in the year 2000. But,
alas, the prophets of doom turned out to be false prophets.
President Bush won convincingly. What is most
bewildering to West Europeans: The war in Iraq did not play the
decisive role, and George W. Bush owed his victory to Bible believing
Christians, pro lifers, advocates of family values. America’s Christian
heart has spoken – what does it tell us Europeans?
First: America is different. We are divided nowadays not so much by
“the big pond” but by a Christian cultural watershed. “More than 80
percent of Americans believe in the Virgin Birth, while fewer than 30
percent believe in the evolution”, wrote Garry Wills, adjunct professor
of history at Northwestern University, in the New York Times. The
opposite is true in Western Europe.
Moral and ethical issues were important to 22 percent of the US-voters,
the highest percentage of all topics. Can you imagine Jaques Chirac,
Tony Blair or Gerhard Schroeder fighting their next elections on issues
such as abortion, same sex marriages and the family and not on the
economy, unemployment and social security? I can’t.
The European media have – for the most part – ridiculed the
“fundamentalists”, “pietists” and the “religious right”. They stare in
disbelief at the political influence of American evangelicals. If that
does not sound ironic from leftist circles proclaiming the one and only
social Gospel not so long ago.
The fact is: While Americans are re-discovering Christian values,
Europeans are discarding them. Only a couple of weeks ago the European
Parliament congratulated itself on toppling a designated EU
commissioner, because the Catholic politician had the nerve to call
homosexuality a sin.
It would be sad if the US-elections would foster anti-American
sentiments in Europe. Transatlantic voter bashers would not only lash
out at evangelicals in the USA but also in Europe. On second thoughts:
Would it really hurt so much, if European evangelicals were challenged
to stand up for Jesus?
Wolfgang Polzer (54), is senior news editor of the Evangelical News
Agency idea, Wetzlar (Germany), which he joined in 1981. His previous
work included four years in the editorial department of the Salvation
Army in Germany. In all, he has spent 27 years in Christian media.
Wolfgang can be contacted by e-mail at: Wolfgang.Polzer@idea.de.
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