‘AN EMERGENCY’
This is an emergency!
It’s time to move now … quickly!
So starts the chorus to the first track on Godfrey Birtill’s album Dread God. I share the conviction. For Christianity in Europe and the West, this is a critical time. But what to do? What’s wrong? We don’t seem to know – at least, not with any clarity.
BACKGROUND
I’ve written this book to try to sketch out what’s been going on in the West since the Christian message came to Europe – the continent which would eventually take it to the ends of the earth. When I started, my original concern was to brief those who want to pray for Europe, and want to help others to pray. If you’re going to intercede for something or somebody, it usually helps to have some background. But then I realised that many pastors too don’t know as much as they usefully might about the context in which they minister. If the point of Christian preaching and teaching is to apply the principles of the faith to contemporary life, we who are preachers and teachers need to understand the world around us as much as we understand the gospel. Finally, some time later, it dawned on me that, because the Western world derives from Europe, and Europe is part of the West, I ought to be writing about the West as well as Europe.