Bunker or Bakehouse

We first met in Pattaya in Thailand last year. I hasten to say we were not there for the reason most older European men seem to go to Thailand, but rather to attend the Assembly of the World Evangelical Alliance - I to network with mission colleagues, Anton to link up with those working on advocacy issues. Anton is a Dutch merchant banker turned missionary with family ties back into Indonesia. Today Anton was in my office and we shared a whole lot from publishing challenges to the state of European Christianity - and good German coffee too.

The core to our conversation was the attitude and worldview of younger (than us!) Christians in Europe. With so much talk of the 'Islamicisation of Europe', the rise of secularism, and the decline of faith communities, Anton's big questions was this. Are the current generation of Christians in Europe busy pulling down the hatches so they can survive in their holy bunker or are they getting out there into the bakehouse of civil society, politics, education, media with a 'yeast' that has the transforming power of the gospel? I'm not sure I agreed with him all the way but I share some of his concern about a 'loss of nerve' in contemporary European church. At least I think we agreed that it is not Islam that threatens Europe, the real threat is the withdrawal of Europe's Christians into their holy bunker, pockets still stuffed full of the yeast which was designed to be spread around the European bakehouse - hot and unconfortable as that might be.

But what to do? Anton has a few ideas so wait and see!