Exploring Culture, Faith, and the Future of Europe.
Cultural Literacy & Spiritual Formation
- Starting Points
“Something huge and beautiful and awe-inspiring.” That is what one recent convert to Christianity was looking for. The Times called it a ‘full-fat’ faith. Not a faith which comes neatly packaged in five slogans. This is not nostalgia, this is hunger. Some doubt the motivation of recent converts, assuming that they are actually more interested… - Europe At Midnight After One Year
The last day of the year is a good moment to reflect on this project. When I started this in December 2024, I had a few ideas but no fixed plan. I used this year to experiment and to get feedback from readers. In this brief post, I’ll share what I did, my thoughts on… - O Advent
One of the musical treasures of the season of Advent is a series of seven antiphons known as the Great O Antiphons. Seven chants, seven prayers, seven expressions of longing and expectation. The first antiphon, O Sapientia (for December 17) is a call for Wisdom to appear. O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti, attingens… - Breakwater, or the art of conversation
One saturday morning in November, I gave a talk at the Breakwater conference. It was an event organised by the Dutch Estuary group. “Estuary is a place where people come for conversation. Honest conversation. Not ideological warfare, memes, and trolling, but mutually respectful attempts to understand one another, and to learn to appreciate different perspectives… - We’re not fiddling
Something James K.A. Smith wrote recently: There is something gloriously quixotic about devotion to the humanities today (disciplined attention to history, close reading of texts, pursuit of truth, all with a commitment to humanism). The hungry maw of the corporate, neoliberal university chews this up and laughs. But we’re not fiddling while Rome burns. We…
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Faith & culture in a post-secular world
Once, there was no ‘secular.’ The world was filled with the divine. And now, after modernity, we are ‘post-secular.’ Religion is back, but in a post-secular shape and within a multi-religious space. The world is filled with plenty of options. Like me, you have probably explored some of these:
- For some, religion serves only as a decorative element in their self-care toolkit.
- For others, the post-secular has opened the door to more substantial spiritual experiences, to spirits, and all things pagan, whether real or fake.
- Many younger Christians—both converts and rediscoverers—gravitate towards traditional, liturgical churches.
- Others are rediscovering the great classical works of philosophy and literature, which once formed the basis of what we call ‘culture,’ the culture of European Christianity.
How can we make sense of this? What does this mean for the future of Christianity in Europe? And what does this mean for our own faith?
Europe At Midnight begins with the conviction that we must take this post-secular, multi-religious, retro- and neo-pagan world seriously. At the same time, we are not yet done with Christianity and the culture it helped shape. The question is, how can there be a future for Christianity in Europe after the demise of Christian Europe?