Deifying the State: Thinking about Europe and America

My laptop is at 20% battery, I have no way to charge it, and I’m sitting in a boiling hot hotel in Zürich, Switzerland: so let’s have a quick talk about God and the state. I’m not one to be afraid of the welfare state. I think Christian charity requires us to give. If that giving happens to be through the state, then so be it. But my time in Europe has made me a little more reserved about relying on the state. Since I got here, I’ve seen church plazas used as markets, many people call themselves “skeptical” about God, and a general distaste for all things spiritual (except for maybe some Westernized quasi-yoga). At the same time, I’ve seen unending praise for the state and for the idea of a state-assisted, state-run economy. Of course, I’ve heard the old dictum that the welfare state replaces religion and that that is part of why liberty protects religious faith. I’d always considered that to be a little crazy, but now I’m coming to think that Big Brother might rear his ugly head in ways I’d never imagined.

For example, I’ve seen one church wedding since I arrived here. I was honestly amazed. Up to that point in the four cities I’d visited on this trip, I’d never seen a church being used for anything besides time-keeping or tourism. At the same time, I once sat through a class in Germany where the teacher put down homeschooling and displayed great skepticism about any form of religiosity while praising state-run healthcare and everything about the Bundesrepublik.

Now, correlation is not causation, but I’m beginning to think that when the state provides so much, it might impact belief. Of course, other factors come into play and I haven’t the time to discuss the various and interrelated reasons that this phenomenon may be occurring, but suffice it to say that this trip to Europe has my piqued my interest in the idea that America has somehow managed to preserve a religious faith in its emphasis on liberty. I’ll admit, I’m the first one to make claims about how our culture is eating away at every important virtue Western society has ever cultivated, but clearly we’ve managed to preserve something Europe hasn’t. For one thing we’ve kept our faith (for now); for another thing, we have air-conditioning, something they seem to have never discovered.