If you’re anything like me, you pay attention when an e-mail is marked “URGENT!!”
The particular e-mail I have in mind carried a subject line that was direct and equally attention-grabbing: “Christian nationalism is coming for Europe.”
The content was a single link, to an article written by United States journalist Katherine Stewart for The New Republic on the rise of the Christian Right in the United Kingdom. In it, Stewart tells of how she believes a form of hyper-patriarchal, homophobic and nationalistic Christianity often associated with evangelicals in the US is gaining a beachhead in the UK. The developments there, she writes, “are like a window on the American past.
“This is how things must have looked before the antidemocratic reaction really took hold,” she wrote.
As a correspondent covering European Christians and as a scholar teaching religion in Germany, I’ve tracked some of the developments, institutions and movements Stewart cites. While rumors of the Christian right’s rise in Europe need to be taken seriously, it is also vitally important that the careful observer of religion take note of some of the complexities that have shaped the Christian right’s contours in ways distinct from, if related to, the forms we see taking hold in the U.S.
What is shared between these disparate groups and factions are warnings about the dangers of Islamism and refugees, perceived threats to Christians and the West from the LGBTQIA+ community, the rejection of abortion, the preference for a patriarchal family model and a commitment to Christianity playing a special role in national culture and politics.
Undergirding these ideas is a core fear of secularization and a desire to re-Christianize the continent.
Though processes of secularization are well underway in North America, its effects are already more pervasive and profound in Europe. For the Christian right, the decline of Christianity has left society susceptible to what they see as moral decay, increasing uncertainty about security and the future, rising anti-social behavior and threats to their understanding of free speech and the freedom of religion.
To that end, they have organized around certain legislative measures and legal challenges to defend what they see as their right to free speech, especially around issues of sexuality. High profile cases like that of Finnish politician Päivi Räsänen and Bishop Juhana Pohjola or German pastor Olaf Latzel have drawn attention to how the Christian right sees an opportunity amidst the paperwork of legal challenges.
For example, the U.S. law firm Alliance Defending Freedom opened an international branch in Vienna, from where it conducts legal cases before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Also in Strasbourg are the offices of the European Centre for Law and Justice, which is essentially the European arm of the American Center for Law and Justice, which brings its politically conservative, Christian-based legal interpretations to the Council of Europe and European Commission.
According to the authors of The Christian Right in Europe: Movements, Networks, and Denominations, there are “numerous examples of European organizations with ties to or roots in the American Christian Right. A prominent case discussed in the book is the World Congress of Families, which is an international conference that promotes Christian right values internationally — including opposition to divorce, birth control, same-sex marriage, and abortion.
“[A]cross Europe,” the authors write, “there is a relatively coherent Christian-Right blueprint: the stress on rights, the organizational form of grassroots NGOs, the use of lobbying and strategic litigation…and the targeting of international organizations and high-level court cases.”
Secular, or nominally Christian, parties have significantly influenced political institutions across the continent and have been able to seed their ideology into the mainstream, attracting broad support among a variety of constituencies frustrated with the status quo.
Capitalizing on the crumbling of the Christian consensus in Europe, some of these parties have strategically adopted and adapted Christian symbols and language to do so. Playing on fears of secularization and immigration, as well as the moral decay that the Christian right feels has taken hold, these parties portray a Christian Europe under threat from both moral liberalization and Islam.
Perhaps more than other countries, Poland exemplifies some of these trends with the rise of The Law and Justice Party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, or PiS), which was in power from 2015 to 2023. PiS “maintained close ties with conservative Catholic groups, seeking to restrict abortion and opposing LGBTQ+ rights, particularly with the Institute for Legal Culture Ordo Iuris, an ultra-conservative think tank established in 2013,” wrote Gionathan Lo Mascolo and Kristina Stoeckl for Canopy Forum.
But those trends can also be seen in Hungary, Slovakia, or even Spain, where an evangelical party—Fiel—emerged ahead of the European Union elections in June 2024 with the motto, “united in values, guided by faith.” The party’s president, Salvador Martí, appealed to supporters with a particular plea to help him get the continent’s first-every evangelical representative elected to the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium.
Despite these trends, and the rumors of the Christian right’s rapid rise in Europe, the situation is both distinct from, nor nearly as large as, that of the Christian right in places like the US or Brazil.
First, the Christian right has a more complex set of priorities in Europe and aren’t simply a carbon copy of their American counterparts, expressing opinions, or adopting practices, that do not match the tenor of the Christian right in the U.S.
For example, European Christians, of all stripes and backgrounds, have been generally welcoming to migrants even as they express anti-Muslim sentiment. Though they may emphasize evangelism, their welcoming posture to newcomers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East has been genuine — and mutually transformative. Not only have large numbers of migrants and asylum seekers joined churches and/or converted to Christianity, but the churches themselves have taken on the character, and leadership, of the newcomers.
Since the unprecedented migratory movements that shook Europe in 2015 and 2016, an increasing number of Christian organizations have had to reshape their institutions and rethink the identity of Christianity from below — with studies finding that asylum seekers, economic migrants and internally displaced persons can make up to half of local church communities.
Similar notes could be made regarding European evangelicals’ commitment to the environment and addressing the crisis of climate change. Otherwise, conservative congregations and church groups have hired creation care coordinators, organized climate actions or planted pocket gardens.
Second, for a sense of continuity, it is important to remember Europe’s long relationship with various forms of what we might call “Christian nationalism.” Though that terminology carries a certain connotation and reverberates with a particular resonance in this present political moment, it is important to remember that both in the past — and the present — Christian nationalism has, for lack of a better phrasing, been the name of the game in Europe. Multiple countries still have formal state-church relationships and Christianity enjoys a banal privilege in politics and society in numerous nations.
But in terms of rupture, it is important to note the intensive transnational interactions between European organizations and international social movements — in the US and beyond — are adapting their shared ideology to the historical, political and cultural realities of Europe. That is relatively new and notable.
Third, and finally, for all the above, the Christian right in Europe is not nearly as big as you think (or perhaps fear) and nowhere near as powerful or influential as its US counterpart. Though its supporters may influence public policy through strategic partnerships — or through the exploitation of its symbols and concerns by shrewd political parties — the movement remains marginal.
As noted by the authors of the aforementioned book The Christian Right in Europe, thanks to their outsized presence in social media, whether as the unintentional consequence of their desire to be visible, and vocal, online or through intentionally “fake organizational activity,” they have fostered “the false impression of a spontaneous grassroots movement.”
The end effect, the authors wrote, is that while Christian right groups are “by and large, minorities in their respective national contexts,” their specter may loom larger than any lived realities on the ground.
The particular e-mail I have in mind carried a subject line that was direct and equally attention-grabbing: “Christian nationalism is coming for Europe.”
The content was a single link, to an article written by United States journalist Katherine Stewart for The New Republic on the rise of the Christian Right in the United Kingdom. In it, Stewart tells of how she believes a form of hyper-patriarchal, homophobic and nationalistic Christianity often associated with evangelicals in the US is gaining a beachhead in the UK. The developments there, she writes, “are like a window on the American past.
“This is how things must have looked before the antidemocratic reaction really took hold,” she wrote.
As a correspondent covering European Christians and as a scholar teaching religion in Germany, I’ve tracked some of the developments, institutions and movements Stewart cites. While rumors of the Christian right’s rise in Europe need to be taken seriously, it is also vitally important that the careful observer of religion take note of some of the complexities that have shaped the Christian right’s contours in ways distinct from, if related to, the forms we see taking hold in the U.S.
Nebulous but networked
Europe’s Christian right, which is perhaps best be defined by its ideas rather than institutions, is a nebulous network without a specified structure that spans denominations and nations across Europe. Regardless of national context, personal history or denomination, I encountered remarkably similar narratives shared by preachers, pastors and activists both in churches and online.What is shared between these disparate groups and factions are warnings about the dangers of Islamism and refugees, perceived threats to Christians and the West from the LGBTQIA+ community, the rejection of abortion, the preference for a patriarchal family model and a commitment to Christianity playing a special role in national culture and politics.
Undergirding these ideas is a core fear of secularization and a desire to re-Christianize the continent.
Though processes of secularization are well underway in North America, its effects are already more pervasive and profound in Europe. For the Christian right, the decline of Christianity has left society susceptible to what they see as moral decay, increasing uncertainty about security and the future, rising anti-social behavior and threats to their understanding of free speech and the freedom of religion.
To that end, they have organized around certain legislative measures and legal challenges to defend what they see as their right to free speech, especially around issues of sexuality. High profile cases like that of Finnish politician Päivi Räsänen and Bishop Juhana Pohjola or German pastor Olaf Latzel have drawn attention to how the Christian right sees an opportunity amidst the paperwork of legal challenges.
For example, the U.S. law firm Alliance Defending Freedom opened an international branch in Vienna, from where it conducts legal cases before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Also in Strasbourg are the offices of the European Centre for Law and Justice, which is essentially the European arm of the American Center for Law and Justice, which brings its politically conservative, Christian-based legal interpretations to the Council of Europe and European Commission.
According to the authors of The Christian Right in Europe: Movements, Networks, and Denominations, there are “numerous examples of European organizations with ties to or roots in the American Christian Right. A prominent case discussed in the book is the World Congress of Families, which is an international conference that promotes Christian right values internationally — including opposition to divorce, birth control, same-sex marriage, and abortion.
“[A]cross Europe,” the authors write, “there is a relatively coherent Christian-Right blueprint: the stress on rights, the organizational form of grassroots NGOs, the use of lobbying and strategic litigation…and the targeting of international organizations and high-level court cases.”
Joining the party
Multiple examples in the book also point to the consistent closeness of the Christian right to certain European political parties.Secular, or nominally Christian, parties have significantly influenced political institutions across the continent and have been able to seed their ideology into the mainstream, attracting broad support among a variety of constituencies frustrated with the status quo.
Capitalizing on the crumbling of the Christian consensus in Europe, some of these parties have strategically adopted and adapted Christian symbols and language to do so. Playing on fears of secularization and immigration, as well as the moral decay that the Christian right feels has taken hold, these parties portray a Christian Europe under threat from both moral liberalization and Islam.
Perhaps more than other countries, Poland exemplifies some of these trends with the rise of The Law and Justice Party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, or PiS), which was in power from 2015 to 2023. PiS “maintained close ties with conservative Catholic groups, seeking to restrict abortion and opposing LGBTQ+ rights, particularly with the Institute for Legal Culture Ordo Iuris, an ultra-conservative think tank established in 2013,” wrote Gionathan Lo Mascolo and Kristina Stoeckl for Canopy Forum.
But those trends can also be seen in Hungary, Slovakia, or even Spain, where an evangelical party—Fiel—emerged ahead of the European Union elections in June 2024 with the motto, “united in values, guided by faith.” The party’s president, Salvador Martí, appealed to supporters with a particular plea to help him get the continent’s first-every evangelical representative elected to the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium.
No carbon copy of American Christian nationalism
Despite these trends, and the rumors of the Christian right’s rapid rise in Europe, the situation is both distinct from, nor nearly as large as, that of the Christian right in places like the US or Brazil.
First, the Christian right has a more complex set of priorities in Europe and aren’t simply a carbon copy of their American counterparts, expressing opinions, or adopting practices, that do not match the tenor of the Christian right in the U.S.
For example, European Christians, of all stripes and backgrounds, have been generally welcoming to migrants even as they express anti-Muslim sentiment. Though they may emphasize evangelism, their welcoming posture to newcomers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East has been genuine — and mutually transformative. Not only have large numbers of migrants and asylum seekers joined churches and/or converted to Christianity, but the churches themselves have taken on the character, and leadership, of the newcomers.
Since the unprecedented migratory movements that shook Europe in 2015 and 2016, an increasing number of Christian organizations have had to reshape their institutions and rethink the identity of Christianity from below — with studies finding that asylum seekers, economic migrants and internally displaced persons can make up to half of local church communities.
Similar notes could be made regarding European evangelicals’ commitment to the environment and addressing the crisis of climate change. Otherwise, conservative congregations and church groups have hired creation care coordinators, organized climate actions or planted pocket gardens.
Second, for a sense of continuity, it is important to remember Europe’s long relationship with various forms of what we might call “Christian nationalism.” Though that terminology carries a certain connotation and reverberates with a particular resonance in this present political moment, it is important to remember that both in the past — and the present — Christian nationalism has, for lack of a better phrasing, been the name of the game in Europe. Multiple countries still have formal state-church relationships and Christianity enjoys a banal privilege in politics and society in numerous nations.
But in terms of rupture, it is important to note the intensive transnational interactions between European organizations and international social movements — in the US and beyond — are adapting their shared ideology to the historical, political and cultural realities of Europe. That is relatively new and notable.
Third, and finally, for all the above, the Christian right in Europe is not nearly as big as you think (or perhaps fear) and nowhere near as powerful or influential as its US counterpart. Though its supporters may influence public policy through strategic partnerships — or through the exploitation of its symbols and concerns by shrewd political parties — the movement remains marginal.
As noted by the authors of the aforementioned book The Christian Right in Europe, thanks to their outsized presence in social media, whether as the unintentional consequence of their desire to be visible, and vocal, online or through intentionally “fake organizational activity,” they have fostered “the false impression of a spontaneous grassroots movement.”
The end effect, the authors wrote, is that while Christian right groups are “by and large, minorities in their respective national contexts,” their specter may loom larger than any lived realities on the ground.
6/4/2025 5:48:01 PM
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