WEBVTT

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This is Apropos

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Well, since the U.S. Vice President described
the slain conservative influencer as a martyr

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for Christianity, admirers of Charlie Kirk
have been suggesting that his assassination

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will galvanize throngs of people to become more
engaged in evangelical and Catholic churches

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Evocations of Kirk-inspired religious fervor surfaced
almost immediately after his death, as Siobhan Silk reports

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Thank you for protecting him. Evangelical Christian
leaders pray for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump

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a man they see as a saviour. We believe
you're a vessel. You're a chosen vessel

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It's a symbiotic relationship. Christians,
get out and vote just this time

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It'll be fixed. It'll be fine. You won't have
to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians

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The Christian vote was essential in getting him back into the White House
and he's rewarded them with victories like the overturning of abortion rights

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Now contraception, same-sex marriage and no-fault divorce are in their
sights, as is shifting funding from public schools to Christian schools

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part of a mission to end one of the
fundamental principles of the United States

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the separation of church and state. Evangelical Christians
are deeply embedded in the second Trump administration

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including his cabinet. This is a culmination of a
decades-long strategy that dates back to the 1980s

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when the original megachurch pastor Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority, a now-defunct
conservative movement that for the first time put social and moral issues at the heart of U.S. politics

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and helped put true believers at the heart of U.S. power. The Evangelical
Christian Lobby has also been winning the hearts and minds of ordinary people

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with notable success in one particular demographic, disaffected young white men.
They've been recruited en masse by a new breed of influencers and podcasters

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like the late Charlie Kirk, credited with turning a new generation
towards Christian nationalism, a way of ensuring its continued survival

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These methods have been making inroads in other countries like Brazil, where
far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro, now convicted of attempting a coup

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sought and won the support of a rapidly growing
evangelical base, predicted to soon outnumber Catholics

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But though Bolsonaro is gone for now, evangelical Christians
continue to have an outsized influence on politics

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40% of members of Congress are part of
the Evangelical Parliamentary Front

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the so-called Bible block. Even in France, where
traditionally only a fraction of the population

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practices a religion, evangelical churches are growing.
And in a country that prides itself on its secularism

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conservative Christians are now trying to influence
politics, with the National Council of French Evangelicals

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sending lobbyists into the halls of
power. That's mirrored in the EU

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Groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom are active
in Brussels. It's an American Christian advocacy group

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that was instrumental in using U courts to overturn abortion rights
and now well and determined it attempting the same tactics in Europe

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To discuss, we are joined now by Gagné André, Professor and Chair
of the Department of Theological Studies at Concordia University

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Thanks so much for being with us on the programme. Firstly,
let's start with the basics. Evangelicism, what exactly is it

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It's a very large umbrella term, isn't it, Gagné? Yes, yes, it is a very, very large term that engulfs a lot of different
various types of religious expressions, especially, you know, expressions like Baptists or Pentecostals and so on

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And when we think about evangelicals, essentially,
we can reduce it to about four things

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the emphasis on the Bible, the Bible is the word of
God, the emphasis on the necessity of conversion

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experiencing new birth, the idea of the message
of Jesus's death on the cross, and of course

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the idea of activism, meaning sharing one's faith
and participating in promoting the Christian

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message. So essentially, that is what constitutes
evangelicalism, but it's a very, very large

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umbrella term that regroups various types of religious denominations and congregations. And
we largely associate it, of course, with the U.S., but how big is the movement here in Europe

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do you know? Yes, you're right. The reflex is to
associate it with the U.S. There's 23 percent

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of the people in the U.S., about 80 million
people out of a population close to 350 million

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in the U.S. that belong or have a claim to be
evangelical. In Europe, however, the numbers

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are quite less. In fact, it only represents,
evangelicals only represent about 2.5

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of the population. That's about 22 to 23 million
evangelicals. And you have evangelicals, of course

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in various countries, like in France, there's
about a million. In the UK, around maybe five

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million. In Germany, about two million. And in
other countries, even less. So the proportions

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are not comparable to what we see,
for example, in the US and in Brazil

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And is it having an increasing role in
politics, though, here in Europe? And if so, why

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It has up to a certain extent. Of course, when
you talk about evangelicals, they do have

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certain concerns. And some of those concerns
often are reflected in ideas that, you know

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parallel a bit what we see in the US. What
stems a lot in the US is this idea, for example

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of religious freedom. Sometimes evangelicals feel that
their religious freedom, even in the context of Europe

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they have less religious freedom. Some of them at least that what they encounter So it normal for them to
want to have sometimes a voice and they do We can neglect the fact that evangelicals remain for most of them

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people that have conservative values in relation,
or at least in, that really differ from what we see

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in a secular society. Of course, they value
traditional family, issues around abortion

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they're against abortion, they're all pro-life,
issues around gender roles and so on. So

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when they do have opportunities to speak out
their mind, they will take those opportunities

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because for them, they are people that get
involved in elections and they feel that they

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should have a voice. At the same time, due to
the small proportion of evangelicals in Europe

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the impact is not really, really significant due
to the fact that, of course, a lot of European

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countries are quite secular. At the same time,
you'll have other countries in Eastern Europe

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for example, that are more traditionalist
Catholics, that some of those values sometimes

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align with those of evangelicals. And sometimes
what they will do is they will get together

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cooperate on certain issues so that they can
have one voice and share the things that are

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important to them. And even if these things, they
can bring them into the public and political arena

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if they have the opportunity
to do so, they will do so

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At the same time, what's very important,
and this is important to stress

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a lot of evangelicals, and most
of them, I would say, in Europe

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do not want to associate or be associated
with the brand of evangelicalism

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that we see in the U.S., the type
of Christian nationalist agenda

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that is pushed. Many of them actually want to distance themselves and don't want
to be identified as evangelicals that share a similar agenda as that of the US

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But of course, again, some of their values up
to a certain extent are social conservative

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Yeah. Does it play out more subtly
than perhaps here in Europe

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because we saw during the referendum campaigns in
Ireland when it came to same-sex marriage and abortion

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that influence was creeping into some of the
debate that we were seeing around those issues

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Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes, it's more subtle
and they will play on some of these issues

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But again, to have a direct impact on policies,
it would be much more difficult for them

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At the same time, it's very interesting. When
you look at the situation of the European Union

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you have a party that is called the European Conservatives
and Reformists that is currently the fourth largest group

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in the European Parliament. And they constitute a group of individuals that do value traditional types of social
conservative values that are very very close to the values of people that we would label as being the Christian right

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in the U.S. They value the churches as being
important institutions in Europe, and that should

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remain. And they very much push the idea that
there needs to be religious freedom in Europe

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That means that people are allowed to express
their ideas. They are allowed to have views that

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are not necessarily aligning themselves with
the views of a secularist Europe. So again

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you will see this played out, but in more subtle ways, because they
don't have the demographics that are present, of course, in the US

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And would you agree, in the US particularly, that this is kind of winning over
a lot of those young, white, male, disaffected young people, men particularly

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Absolutely. You're absolutely right. And we've seen it with the phenomenon,
Charlie Kirk, the impact that his death has had on a lot of young people

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He was, of course, very influential on college campuses, in over 3,000 campuses
across the nation, and really engaging in this idea of debate and open discussion

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That's what at least he tried to say or the way
he promoted his events as being open the bank

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But that we can we can maybe
question that to a certain extent

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But, yes, there's there's a generation of young people
sometimes that feel they have lost their way somehow

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And it gives them a sense of
purpose, a sense of belonging

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You see, when we talk about evangelicalism, and maybe it's important to say this, at
the moment, the growth of evangelicalism globally is more in the global South countries

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The exception is really in global
North countries is really the U.S

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In Europe, the growth is not as
phenomenal. So it's global South countries

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And at the same time, the types of evangelical churches that grow more significantly are those that I call
Pentecostal, neo-charismatic types of evangelical groups, where it's all about experiencing the divine

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It's experiential Christianity. It's being part
of something. It's having God transform our lives

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It's this idea of a religion of the heart
versus a dogmatic religion that has no life

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So that's very attractive for a lot of
people that are looking for meaning

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and looking for a way to actually
make a difference in the world

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And that's why it attracts a lot of young people.
Ghani, Andre, we'll have to leave it there for now

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And thank you so much for being with us on the
programme this evening. Well, that's it from us

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Thank you for having me. Stay with us,
though, for more wild news here on France 24