OPINION:
After the recent terrorist attacks in France and California, I re-read Bruce Bawer’s 2005 “While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying The West From Within.”
Mr. Bawer, a liberal, is forthright in his message concerning the threat he has witnessed evolving in Western Europe — and which began more than a decade ago. He gives a number of cultural reasons for this and discusses how the political correctness of European politicians, the media and academia (the “elitists”) has only exacerbated the problem.
One thing Mr. Bawer mentions stood out for me, and perhaps it should stand out for all Americans. Mr. Bawer writes that since World War II, the churches in Western Europe have stood mostly empty. Although not largely in favor of what he calls Protestant or Evangelical fundamentalism, Mr. Bawer concludes the following: “I was beginning to see that when Christian faith had departed, it had taken with it a sense of ultimate meaning and purpose — and left the Continent vulnerable to conquest by people with deeper faith and stronger convictions.”
What does such a revelation mean to those of us in the United States after the recent atrocities in Paris and San Bernardino?
BERNARD BUDNEY
Temecula, Calif.
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