Mosques on the Mainland and Beyond

My grandmother was a second generation American. Her parents, my great-grandparents, emigrated from Russia about a century ago. They joined millions of other immigrants who sought a more promising life through the “golden door” that Emma Lazarus had romanticized just a few years before. Although my grandmother also spoke Yiddish, the primary language she spoke—and the one she taught her children—was good ol’ American English. My recent ancestors had little difficulty integrating with American society, with my father and both of my aunts all marrying outside of their particular ethnic group.

Not so in modern Europe, according to renowned historian Walter Laqueur. In his most recent work, The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for an Old Continent, Laqueur explores the emerging Islamic subculture of the nations that comprise the European Union, offering a compelling look at the state of “Old Europe,” as it’s been termed, as well as its foreseeable future in the coming decades. Laqueur, a native of Europe, writes from the perspective of one intricately acquainted with cities that have become the landing place for millions of Muslim immigrants. His analysis is a mosaic of demographic snapshots that offer a telling survey of the everyday existence of European Muslims, especially those residing in the UK, Germany, and France.

Although it is a secular work, Last Days speaks to evangelical Christian concerns on several levels, the first of which is the missional nature of the believer’s responsibility before God. From Pentecost to the present, God’s people have taken the gospel to foreign peoples in distant lands. Indeed, the apostle Paul is often extolled as a man who knew his audience, whether he was speaking to Jews in a Thessalonian synagogue or dialoguing with pantheistic philosophers on Mars Hill. The works of Christian sociologists like David Hesselgrave have assisted more recent missionaries in their endeavor to most accurately understand the culture to which God has called them. Walter Laqueur offers a similar service to believers in Last Days, telling us “how it is” in Europe among the emerging Muslim population centers there. And the picture is anything but pretty.

Laqueur describes the gangs of youthful Muslim males that “linger about aimlessly and often engage in petty crime” (p46) as well as the inequality that Muslim girls suffer, especially on an educational level. He also cites disturbing statistics on the various Muslim populations around Europe. For instance, a whopping 54% of Bangladeshi and Pakistani families in Great Britain receive “income support” from the government. And in Denmark, 40% of the country’s social services recipients are of Muslim origin whereas the Muslim population only accounts for 5% of the country’s residents.

Although the United States was beyond the scope of his work, the growing Muslim population has piqued the interest of many of us who live in that country. From a statistical vantage point, it doesn’t appear that Americans will deal with the social issues among the growing Muslim American population in the United States that Europeans are currently facing now. Muslim Americans, for the most part, earn well more than the nation’s annual income of just over $42,000. However, the fact that the Muslim population in North America is growing should turn the heads of Americans, especially believers who seek to share the good news with those who have never heard it before or who may be resistant to it.

The United States has already been left scratching its head over Muslims more than once in recent years. For example, Muslim employees at a Target department store were redeployed from their position as checkout cashiers when they refused to handle goods considered “unclean” by Islamic religious dogma. While Americans are not faced with the same issues that Europeans are in how to approach their new neighbors, they may be some day as the population of Islamic people groups in the United States continues to grow each year.

Christians interested in political affairs will also benefit from Laqueur’s analysis in Last Days. He makes it clear that the Western approach to diplomacy is either taken advantage of by Muslims (as in the case of the number of perfectly healthy Muslims who are on the dole but could working to support their families) or that it is disregarded outright by the younger generation of Muslims who have grown up under the current European political regime. Laqueur notes that German teachers who have taken a decidedly “antiauthoritarian” approach to interacting with their students are often met with defiance from the Muslim children in their classes. Laqueur suggests that a “less antiauthoritarian” approach may be in order. And for those of us Americans concerned about the future of our nation, a similar attitude could be key in maintaining healthy relationships with Islamic states like Iran.

The Last Days of Europe, although not written by a Christian, offers keen insight into how we as God’s people should look at the changing world around us. Instead of being caught empty handed in the torrent of a new society, believers who consider Walter Laqueur’s wisdom in Last Days may take the first steps to positively affecting the new Europe and the rest of the Islamic world with the transforming gospel of Jesus Christ.