Europe has quietly buried a man who never lived. For a decade or so, ecclesiastical evangelism has been concerned about reaching the “post-Christian man.” Now church leaders are beginning to acknowledge that this man, like the Neanderthal man, has vanished. There are signs that he has been quietly buried in the study papers. And some churchmen now think that he never lived at all.
He had no name. Professor J. C. Hoekendijk, now with Union Theological Seminary, called him the “fourth man.” His great-grandfather had drifted away from the church, his grandfather hadn’t bothered about asking baptism for his children, and his father had shrugged his shoulders whenever the boy asked a question about God.
This “fourth man,” it was said, didn’t know what the word “sin” meant, nor what “salvation” and “righteousness” were. The Church couldn’t address him in traditional terms. And so ecclesiastical evangelism had to develop a completely new vocabulary. Evangelism had to be redefined. Some even went so far as to see no sense in any other form of evangelistic work; unless the Church was able to reach this man, it could never survive, they said.
But times are changing.
Recently the director of the study center for evangelism of the Reformed Church in the Netherlands confessed to me that he had never come across the post-Christian man. He was cautious enough to add, however, that perhaps he had been looking into the wrong corners.
The extremely influential Roman Catholic weekly De Nieuwe Linie—very progressive and often rather liberal—predicted not long ago that Protestant churches would soon be filled again. They had reached their lowest ebb, the article said, and had been shocked into the realization that they had to change or else they would never change the people. The paper didn’t seem so optimistic about the Roman Catholic Church and implied that it hadn’t adapted itself enough.
But the remarkable thing about the article was the completely different picture of the “fourth man” that it drew. He is not post-Christian, it said, but post-atheist. His great-grandfather had been an aggressive atheist, his grandfather had been an average one, and his father had laughingly said he had lost his “faith.” The fourth-generation atheist is left with a sense of utter emptiness. A young girl, converted in an evangelistic rally, said to her new pastor: “My people are old-fashioned; they don’t believe in God.”
There are several signs that Europe is changing. Some years ago Time magazine already noted that Sartre’s hopeless existentialism was being replaced by philosophies with a bit more expectation. In the Netherlands, church statistics prove that almost all Protestant churches have stopped their decline. Secular newspapers have discovered an interest in religion and publish features and facts. A new Dutch Roman Catholic cathechism (600 pages) sold 200,000 copies before it came off the press, and since then so many orders have come in that the publishers cannot keep up with the demand. Bookstores are putting clients on waiting lists. Even Volkswagen can’t claim that any more.
The French new-theology movement that turned to the Bible is making its influence felt in almost all Roman Catholic countries. And it is no longer just a feature of the priestly class; it is coming into fashion with the people of the pew.
When, after Billy Graham’s London crusade, converts were gathered into home Bible classes, this didn’t set a new trend; it only followed what was happening already. Scores of Bible classes are held in Dutch homes, and they often are composed of Protestants, Roman Catholics, and non-believers. One church member said to his pastor: “Please stay away. We can do better without you.”
The many reasons for this new phenomenon can be condensed into two major ones. The first is that the gains of materialism have proved that they do not satisfy. Immediately after the war, people clamored for material things. First it was food, then the refrigerator, afterwards television and the car; now it is the second house, a simple wooden shed on the shore or in a wooded area where wife and children can spend their increasing number of holidays. This post-war demand was natural. My wife had lived for half a year on tulip bulbs. And I can still taste the bitter sweetness of sugarbeets, which kept us alive during the last year of the war. Swedish bread, floating down on parachutes from the air during an immense rescue operation, looked heavenly to us. The first piece of chocolate an American soldier gave me turned into nectar in my mouth.
But man cannot live by bread alone forever. German doctors are said to have a pile of prescription notes on their desks with only three letters on them: F.D.H., meaning Fresse die Helfte (Eat half). The car we finally can afford has become a concern in the overcrowded narrow streets. A man said to me: “I live a fifteen-minute walk from my office; I have to park the car at a half hour’s distance.” Materialism is leaving a bitter taste in the mouth, a void in the heart, and a big bill on the desk—from the drugstore and doctor.
The second major reason for the change is entirely different. Science is undermining much of the philosophies and theologies of the past century. Dr. Hans Rohrbach said at the World Congress on Evangelism: “… for their own thinking still rests upon the scientific view of the world projected by classical physics in the nineteenth century, and they therefore believe they must reject all biblical statements that involve science.” But science has changed: “All categories of absoluteness or eternality are now stripped away from space, time, matter, and laws of nature. These were not really scientific facts, but were metaphysical interpretations which man superimposed upon the universe.”
Some years ago, at a discussion meeting during a conference of European churches in Denmark, a young atomic physicist said: “Bultmann has no answer for my problems, because he operates with a scientific view of the last century, which atomic science has disproved.” Dr. W. A. Visser ’t Hooft, then general secretary of the World Council of Churches, jumped up and said: “This we have to discuss. This is important.” During the discussion one of the Russian Orthodox priests said: “My friend is right. I have had contact with Russian physicists in high places, and they have confessed to me that Marxism lost its value to them for the very same reason. Science is an axe at the tree of Marxism.”
Atheism, materialism, Marxism—these have not been satisfying answers to the questions life asks. A well-known modern author, Harry Mulisch, who claims to be an atheist, said on a Dutch television program: “I must confess that I haven’t been able to think up one that really satisfies me.” A sense of emptiness fills the souls of many Europeans.
Some clamor for a new revolution. In Amsterdam young intellectual beatniks battle with the police. Young people in the political parties rebel against their leaders. Some put everything on the card of helping young nations, in the hope they will find Christ in the naked, the hungry, and the prisoners. Others expect everything from technology. But whether they take to the streets to march against apartheid and the war in Viet Nam, or pack their suitcases to serve in some faraway place, these young people are usually expressing their search for something to live for.
I have discovered a new longing for faith in the most unexpected people. But does this mean that Protestant churches can expect a return to the pews, as the Roman Catholic weekly prophesied?
To me the facts reveal that this is wishful thinking. True, the “fourth man” isn’t as far away from understanding the words of the Gospel as some had said. But he still looks upon the Church with the eyes of his great-grandfather. For him the Church very often is still the self-assured, old-fashioned, pompous, other-worldly, caste-minded institution his forefather left.
I see no signs yet of a mass return to the Church. But I do see great possibilities for Christians if they are willing to leave their self-chosen ghettos to go and live and work where the people are. If they do, the Church will change itself, and so the doorstep-fear of modern man may be overcome.
