Here's a sad report on a Cold War legacy: the systematic destruction of a nation's religious memory.
The Czech capital is cluttered with churches. From humble parish chapels to the Gothic grandeur of St. Vitus Cathedral, the wonderment of Christian faith seems to ooze out of the city's every pore. But the churches are mostly empty, and the only wonder to most Czechs is why anyone at all bothers to go.Czechs are among Europe's most fervently secular people. According to a European Union survey published last year, only 19 percent of Czechs said they believed in God; most of the rest proclaim themselves atheists. Only the former Soviet republic of Estonia had a lower percentage of believers.
Lori Gregory grew up in Philadelphia and is a Christian missionary in the Czech Republic.... "When we bring up the subject (of faith), it's like asking if you believe in UFOs. That's what we're up against here," Gregory said. "In the States, you can assume most kids know why Christmas is celebrated. In the Czech Republic, kids think baby Jesus is like Cinderella or Shrek. ... They think it's all a fairy tale."
The Rev. Tomas Halik, a Roman Catholic priest and professor of philosophy at Prague's Charles University, is not surprised at this spiritual indifference. He believes Czechoslovakia's communist rulers and their masters in Moscow deliberately targeted the country for "an experiment in the total atheization of society."
The crackdown on the church and clergy was much harsher than in neighboring Poland, Hungary or even the Soviet Union, and the decades of repression did serious harm to the Czech religious identity, Halik said.
"Czech society is not really atheistic — it's worse. Czechs today hardly know anything about religion," he said.
How sad for them, and for God. This void will demand to be filled someday, somehow. Perhaps it will come via the right kind of Christian evangelism. That's if Islamism doesn't get there first.
Posted by Alan at May 20, 2006 07:36 PM