00:00This is apropos. Well since the US Vice President described the slain conservative
00:08influencer as a martyr for Christianity, admirers of Charlie Kirk have been suggesting that
00:14his assassination will galvanize throngs of people to become more engaged in evangelical
00:20and Catholic churches. Evocations of Kirk-inspired religious fervour surfaced almost immediately
00:26after his death as Siobhan Silk reports.
00:34Evangelical Christian leaders pray for then presidential candidate Donald Trump, a man
00:39they see as a saviour.
00:41We believe you're a vessel. You're a chosen vessel.
00:45It's a symbiotic relationship.
00:49Christians get out and vote just this time. It'll be fixed. It'll be fine.
00:56You won't have to vote anymore my beautiful Christians.
00:58The Christian vote was essential in getting him back into the White House and he's rewarded
01:03them with victories like the overturning of abortion rights. Now contraception, same-sex
01:08marriage and no-fault divorce are in their sights as is shifting funding from public schools
01:13to Christian schools, part of a mission to end one of the fundamental principles of the
01:17United States, the separation of church and state. Evangelical Christians are deeply embedded
01:24in the second Trump administration including his cabinet. This is a culmination of a decades-long
01:29strategy that dates back to the 1980s when the original megachurch pastor Jerry Falwell founded
01:35the Moral Majority, a now-defunct conservative movement that for the first time put social and
01:40moral issues at the heart of US politics and helped put true believers at the heart of US power.
01:46The Evangelical Christian lobby has also been winning the hearts and minds of ordinary people
01:52with notable success in one particular demographic, disaffected young white men. They've been recruited
01:59en masse by a new breed of influencers and podcasters like the late Charlie Kirk, credited with turning a
02:04new generation towards Christian nationalism, a way of ensuring its continued survival. These methods have
02:11been making inroads in other countries, like Brazil, where far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro,
02:17now convicted of attempting a coup, sought and won the support of a rapidly growing Evangelical base,
02:23predicted to soon outnumber Catholics. But though Bolsonaro is gone for now,
02:28Evangelical Christians continue to have an outsized influence on politics. 40% of members of Congress are
02:35part of the Evangelical Parliamentary Front, the so-called Bible Block. Even in France, where
02:42traditionally only a fraction of the population practices a religion, Evangelical churches are
02:47growing. And in a country that prides itself on its secularism, conservative Christians are now
02:56trying to influence politics, with the National Council of French Evangelicals sending lobbyists into the
03:02halls of power. That's mirrored in the EU. Groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom are active in
03:09Brussels. It's an American Christian advocacy group that was instrumental in using US courts to
03:15overturn abortion rights, and now well-funded and determined it's attempting the same tactics in Europe.
03:21At the European Court of Human Rights.
03:25To discuss, we are joined now by Gagné André, Professor and Chair of the Department of Theological
03:30Studies at Concordia University. Thanks so much for being with us on the programme. Firstly,
03:36let's start with the basics. Evangelicism. What exactly is it? It's a very large umbrella term, isn't it, Gagné?
03:42Yes, yes, it is a very, very large term that engulfs a lot of different various types of religious
03:51expressions, especially, you know, expressions like Baptists or Pentecostals and so on. And when we think
03:59about Evangelicals, essentially we can reduce it to about four things. The emphasis on the Bible,
04:07the Bible is the Word of God, the emphasis on the necessity of conversion, experiencing new birth,
04:15the idea of the message of Jesus' death on the cross, and of course the idea of activism, meaning
04:23sharing one's faith and participating in promoting the Christian message. So essentially that is what
04:30constitutes Evangelicalism, but it's a very, very large umbrella term that regroups various
04:37types of religious denominations and congregations. And we largely associate it, of course, with the
04:44US, but how big is the movement here in Europe, do you know? Yes, you're right. The reflex is to
04:53associate it with the US. There's 23% of the people in the US, about 80 million people out of a population
05:02close to 350 million, close to 350 million in the US that belong or have a claim to be Evangelical.
05:10In Europe, however, the numbers are quite less. In fact, evangelicals only represent about 2.5%
05:21of the population. That's about 22 to 23 million Evangelicals. And you have Evangelicals, of course,
05:29in various countries. Like in France, there's about a million. In the UK, around maybe 5 million. In
05:38Germany, about 2 million. And in other countries, even less. So the proportions are not comparable
05:47to what we see, for example, in the US and in Brazil.
05:51And is it having an increasing role in politics, though, here in Europe? And if so, why?
06:01It has up to a certain extent. Of course, when you talk about Evangelicals, they do have
06:06certain concerns. And some of those concerns often are reflected in ideas that parallel a bit what we
06:14see in the US. What stems a lot in the US is this idea, for example, of religious freedom. Sometimes
06:21Evangelicals feel that their religious freedom, even in the context of Europe, they have less religious
06:30freedom. Some of them, at least that's what they encounter. So it's normal for them to want to have
06:38sometimes a voice. And they do. We can't neglect the fact that Evangelicals remain, for most of them,
06:47people that have conservative values in relation, or at least that really differ from what we see
06:55in a secular society. Of course, they value traditional family, issues around abortion. They're
07:03against abortion. They're all pro-life issues around gender roles, and so on. So when they do have
07:10opportunities to speak out their mind, they will take those opportunities. Because for them, they are
07:18people that get involved in elections, and they feel that they should have a voice. At the same time,
07:26due to the small proportion of Evangelicals in Europe, the impact is not really, really significant,
07:37due to the fact that, of course, a lot of European countries are quite secular. At the same time, you'll
07:45have other countries in Eastern Europe, for example, that are more traditionalist Catholics,
07:53that some of those values sometimes align with those of Evangelicals. And sometimes,
07:58what they will do is they will get together, cooperate on certain issues, so that they can have
08:06one voice and share the things that are important to them. And even if these things, they can bring them
08:15into the public and political arena, if they have the opportunity to do so, they will do so. At the same
08:22time, what's very important, and this is important to stress, a lot of Evangelicals, and most of them,
08:29I would say, in Europe, do not want to associate or be associated with what the brand of Evangelicalism
08:38that we see in the U.S., the type of Christian nationalist agenda that is pushed. Many of them
08:45actually want to distance themselves and don't want to be identified as Evangelicals that share
08:54a similar agenda as that of the U.S. But of course, again, some of their values, up to a certain extent,
09:01are social conservative.
09:03Yeah. Does it play out more subtly than perhaps here in Europe? Because we saw during the referendum
09:09campaigns in Ireland, when it came to same-sex marriage and abortion, that influence was creeping
09:15into some of the debate that we were seeing around those issues.
09:18Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes, it's more subtle, and they will play on some of these issues. But again,
09:27to have a direct impact on policies, it would be much more difficult for them. At the same time,
09:33it's very interesting. When you look at the situation of the European Union, you have a party
09:39that is called the European Conservatives and Reformists that is currently the fourth largest group
09:47in the European Parliament. And they constitute a group of individuals that do value traditional
09:56types of social conservative values that are very, very close to the values of people that we would
10:04label as being the Christian right in the U.S. They value the churches as being important institutions
10:12in Europe, and that should remain. And they very much push the idea that there needs to be
10:18religious freedom in Europe. That means that people are allowed to express their ideas. They are allowed to
10:28have views that are not necessarily aligning themselves with the views of a secularist Europe. So again,
10:39you will see this played out, but in more subtle ways, because they don't have the demographics that are
10:48present, of course, in the U.S.
10:50And would you agree, in the U.S. particularly, that this is kind of winning over a lot of those young,
10:56white, male, disaffected young people, men particularly?
11:01Absolutely. You're absolutely right. And we've seen it with the phenomenon, Charlie Kirk, the impact that
11:10his death has had on a lot of young people. He was, of course, very influential on college campuses,
11:20in over 3,000 campuses across the nation, and really engaging in this idea of debate and open
11:28discussion. That's what at least he tried to say, or the way he promoted his events as being open,
11:37open the bank, but we can maybe question that to a certain extent. But yes, there's a generation of
11:46young people sometimes that feel they have lost their way somehow, and it gives them a sense of purpose,
11:53a sense of belonging. You see, when we talk about evangelicalism, and maybe it's important to say this,
12:00at the moment, the growth of evangelicalism globally is more in the global south countries.
12:07The exception is really in global north countries is really the U.S. In Europe, the growth is not as
12:15phenomenal. So it's global south countries. And at the same time, the types of evangelical churches that
12:23grow more significantly are those that I call Pentecostal, neo-charismatic types of evangelical
12:31groups, where it's all about experiencing the divine. It's experiential Christianity. It's being part of
12:39something. It's having God transform our lives. It's this idea of a religion of the heart versus a dogmatic
12:48religion that has no life. So that's very attractive for a lot of people that are looking for meaning
12:55and looking for a way to actually make a difference in the world. And that's why it attracts a lot of
13:01young people.
13:02Ganyu, Andre, we'll have to leave it there for now. Thank you so much for being with us on the
13:06program this evening. Well, that's it from us. Stay with us, though, for more wild news here on France 24.
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