I made a thread in the Future History section last month challenging you guys to devise a scenario where Europe has a Christian revival within this century. In the opening post I stated that I may create a sister thread to that. Well, here it is. With a POD no earlier than 1900, make a scenario where Europe is, on average, noticeably more religious than IOTL, somewhere on the level of OTL's Romania, Poland, Greece or the more religious parts of the United States. Or, at the very least, have a scenario where the highly religious (attending church at least weekly, praying and/or reading the Bible regularly, having more kids etc.) make up a sizable minority (1/4 to 1/3rd) of the population. Preferably achieve this while having Europe attain a similar standard of living to OTL. Some form of secularization is inevitable IMO due to things like evolution, but it didn't necessarily have to be as fast and overwhelming as it was in our world. Let the games begin.
AHC: Keep Europe Religious
- Thread starter Gabingston
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What happens when you butterfly away the social and cultural devastation that was the Great War?
Have the established churches somewhat more proactive in fixing the glaring faults in their systems. (Not talking about the religion in itself, the organisations build around it).
If the church is less rocked by skandals (golden bathtub, child abuse), arch conservatism and more willing to accord to a modern worldview... then less peple would look for alternatives and keep with them at least nominally. Sadly in many regards the churches are very... göacial in terms of modernising and stick to institutions established in the dark ages.
If you tell people that they don't belong, they will go elsewhere.
The church has alot of answers to peoples problems, but not all the answers fit a modern world view anymore. LGBT, immigration, feminism, egalitarism are here to stay, and the church would do well to accept that and chance their stance on these things. (looking especially, but not exclusively at the catholic church there).
If the church is less rocked by skandals (golden bathtub, child abuse), arch conservatism and more willing to accord to a modern worldview... then less peple would look for alternatives and keep with them at least nominally. Sadly in many regards the churches are very... göacial in terms of modernising and stick to institutions established in the dark ages.
If you tell people that they don't belong, they will go elsewhere.
The church has alot of answers to peoples problems, but not all the answers fit a modern world view anymore. LGBT, immigration, feminism, egalitarism are here to stay, and the church would do well to accept that and chance their stance on these things. (looking especially, but not exclusively at the catholic church there).
That's a common assumption I hear, but I can't say that I agree. For example, the fastest declining churches in the U.S. are liberal mainline Protestant churches, while conservative Evangelical churches are at least stable. Over in Europe, going liberal hasn't stopped the decline of the Church of England or the Scandinavian Lutheran churches.
Basically, you’d have to prevent European Protestant churches from going liberal and maybe even the Catholic Church not having Vatican 2. I don’t know how this would look in Protestant churches but with Catholicism I see it stabilizing a bit, and if there are catholic immigrants from Africa, it might be similar to the US in otl
I would say you need to prevent utilitarianism taking hold of public thought alongside full blown acceptance of capitalism.
Under an utilitarist framework, religious organisations don't offer anything secular organisations cannot (beyond Pascal's Wager, which isn't really a major plus anyways) and their maluses (bans on certain behaviors, dedicated time requests) become increasingly untenable in a capitalist system.
My suggested POD is no WW2, which would keep Western Europe from going that way; it used to be every bit as religious as others before, after all.
Under an utilitarist framework, religious organisations don't offer anything secular organisations cannot (beyond Pascal's Wager, which isn't really a major plus anyways) and their maluses (bans on certain behaviors, dedicated time requests) become increasingly untenable in a capitalist system.
My suggested POD is no WW2, which would keep Western Europe from going that way; it used to be every bit as religious as others before, after all.
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I'm going to say no Great War meaning no communism to affect religion in Europe as well as know WWII.
Those conflicts affect the decline of religion in Europe greatly and without those religion likely have more influence across Europe especially in the East
That's pretty much what happened IOTL.
If anything, being part of the establishment probably hurt those churches more than it helped - if you are anti-establishment, by extension, you become anti-established religion.
I'll echo other users and say that avoiding the World Wars is a great start. If nothing else, I'd expect people who are nominally religious to be far more common, with the vast majority of Europeans still identifying with their church even if they weren't devout believers. I can't help but feel that a large reason for the drop in religiosity in Europe was, among other things, a disillusionment brought about by an inability of people to reconcile their faith with the carnage of the wars. Allow Europe a far more peaceful 20th Century and I'd imagine you'd see far less cynicism towards religion.
I also think it would help to have powerful, influential states in Europe that champion religion and conservative values. A surviving Russian Empire would significantly raise Europe's average religiosity through the sheer mass of its demographics alone. Perhaps a renewed Dreikaiserbund of some sorts? Even if Germany, Austria, and Russia liberalize to varying extents politically, I'd still expect them to remain for the large part conservative in character. With these three more or less dominating Europe and the (presumably still rather religious) US growing more influential in the continent as well, I think you're well on your way to creating a Europe in which being religious (or at least nominally so) is the norm, and secular countries like France are seen as the outliers.
I also think it would help to have powerful, influential states in Europe that champion religion and conservative values. A surviving Russian Empire would significantly raise Europe's average religiosity through the sheer mass of its demographics alone. Perhaps a renewed Dreikaiserbund of some sorts? Even if Germany, Austria, and Russia liberalize to varying extents politically, I'd still expect them to remain for the large part conservative in character. With these three more or less dominating Europe and the (presumably still rather religious) US growing more influential in the continent as well, I think you're well on your way to creating a Europe in which being religious (or at least nominally so) is the norm, and secular countries like France are seen as the outliers.
Ukrainian Victory
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Maybe have Nazi Germany win WWII and then when it eventually falls, Europe, including Germany, experiences a religion revival since they look towards their churches in need of guidance after all of the totalitarianism, devastation, and misery that they have suffered?
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Given it's kind of difficult to discuss Catholicism in a modern context without political chat issues creeping in sooner or later, this thread might be best moved from where it is at the initial time of this post (Post-1900 Forum) down to the Political Chat Forum, perhaps?
That's a reasonable point, but I'm hoping it stays here, if only because I see this thread going downhill fast if it's moved to PolChat.
I don't really think so since they were plans of Nazis plan destroying religion after the War
Even if religion didn't got destroy, it's likely it will turn into Totalitarian type of religious
Why? For more than a thousand years it worked pretty well - even if there were conflicts between emperors and popes, relations always returned to peace. It is secularism that can (unfortunately), be a short attempt at normalcy due to a combination of unlikely events in the 19th and 20th centuries. Keep people uneducated (like the regression of schooling in the US during the 20th century), increase populist propaganda and create external foes (atheists, countries ruled by atheists in the past, secular countries etc).
Every religion is somewhat totalitarian - they tell you whom to marry, how to make sex, what to eat, when you can't work (i.e. Sundays, Fridays or Saturdays), and what to eat ("Christian" fastings or Lent). They just can't enforce these rules now, since it would make their believers leave churches.
It's why there were so many anti-clerical nationalist groups.
Obviously, this varied from place to place.