The Bishop of Stockholm (the national Church of Sweden) has proposed that a church near a seaport should remove all signs of Christianity so as to be more welcoming to Muslim seamen who want to pray there. The baptismal font is to be removed, along with the cross and the pews (prayer carpets to be used instead). The “church” is to become a “worship space,” more hospitable to non-Christian believers. Here’s the link:

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/10/05/worlds-first-lesbian-bishop-calls-church-remove-crosses-install-muslim-prayer-space/

The bishop, who is, as it happens, a lesbian with a wife who is a priest, and with whom she has an infant son, pointed out that airports and hospitals already have multi-faith prayer rooms and the measures she suggests would “bring the church up to speed.” She is concerned that non-Christians in Sweden may see the church there as “stingy.”

The link elaborates on the general de-Christianization of Europe, especially as it affects public health and safety in proliferating Muslim “no-go zones.” It’s almost as if the Church of Sweden is indeed in a rush to catch up with European cultural (rightly read as “Christian,” since that is the history of Europe) suicide. It’s a new history in the making and everyone wants to be on the right side of history.

This new Europe can be comprehended historically as a reaction to the horrors of rabid German nationalism, which caused World War II. Interdependence has been vigorously pursued as a guarantor of peace. The European Union has been welcomed, along with economic socialism, which is apparently working so well that the U.S. aims to replicate it.  Socially, charity has become national policy, rendering superfluous the Christianity which invented it. The state replaces the Church as benefactor. Legally, “human rights,” so long espoused by the Church, has become the national and international law of the land, though the doctrine has undermined the natural and moral laws on which it is based. It would seem that the Christian ideal of peace and brotherhood among and within nations has been realized. But that idyllic way of life comes at a price, and that price is the same Christianity which conceived it.

Diversity is praised (the word often employed is “celebrated”) as the expression of this interdependence, but in fact, it’s the one inadmissible factor. The massive complexity and intricacy of programmed interdependence cannot tolerate anything that could become a spur in its machinery. And here we arrive at the problem of religion.

The peaceful and prosperous interdependence so relentlessly pursued and cherished by secular Europe is endangered by two distinct approaches to religious belief: Most obvious are the radical Muslims who seek to establish world-wide sharia law, but Christians are also a threat because they call themselves Christians, and by that identity, exclude other religious identities. That makes them divisive, a dangerous regression to individualism. Moreover, they object on medieval moral grounds to uninhibited sex with free birth control and abortions (seen as a “right”), as well as other social issues. Christianity is perceived as an historical event, a religion based on the teachings of a spiritual leader 2,000 years ago during political unrest caused by [Zionist] Judea. His followers made him a god, and thereafter, missionaries were sent from Rome to repress and enslave happy pagans.

The new Europe proposes a new faith, one with no divisive label, but a comfortably amorphous “spirituality.” Essentially, one self-hypnotizes to “transcend” the physical senses so to arrive in a spiritual realm where there are no individual souls, just one collective soul of which we are all a part. There is no individuality, no religion; rather, we are all collective God. It’s a pleasant experience when endorphins kick in—almost as good as marijuana. And it’s such a beautiful abstraction, worthy of the advanced intellect of modern humanity. Best of all, it’s completely compatible with the interdependence which deliberately blurs all distinction, and on which everything and everyone now depends so completely.

This is the faith which the Swedish bishop perhaps holds most dear, a faith which suggests that one doesn’t have to give up ceremonial traditional garb (she wears a miter in the photograph), and one can keep all the harmless little customs like Christmas and weddings—they are things like a monarchy, a treasured relic of the past and a toy of celebrity worshippers. But one should not take such things too seriously (like a cross, for example), for when it comes to real faith, a prayer room is better than a church.