Europe: Death Throes or Birth Pangs?

Are the “Dark Ages” creeping up on Europe once again? The news and opinion pages are full of dire headlines. Some are taking the demise of a unified Europe as an impending inevitability. But is that really what comes next? Or is there more to the story?

The newspapers warn of terrible times ahead for Europe. Last Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal brought a sad story—“Greek Crisis Exacts the Cruelest Toll”—discussing the spike in suicides related to economic woes in Greece, and describing one man’s story in heartbreaking detail. Earlier, the same paper asked, “What Comes After ‘Europe’?” summarizing its own answer to the question:  “The riots of Athens will become those of Milan, Madrid and Marseilles. Border checkpoints will return. Currencies will be resurrected, then devalued.”  

These writers are among the many who are writing about the demise of the European Union as if it were a foregone conclusion.  As author Bret Stephens, points out:

“America will survive this because America is a state. But as Bismarck once remarked, ‘Whoever speaks of Europe is wrong. Europe is a geographical expression.’ The ‘fiscal union’ that’s being mooted will never come to pass: German voters won’t stand for it, and neither will any other country that wants to retain fiscal independence—which is to say, the core attribute of democratic sovereignty.

“What comes next is the explosion of the European project.”

However, there is another way to understand the current economic and political turmoil.  What some interpret as the death throes of a continental superpower-wannabe—an entity that had overreached in hubris and arrogance—may not be death throes at all.  They may be birth pangs.

As long-time observers of the goings-on in Brussels have often noted, Europe’s bureaucrats, politicians and influence-peddlers always seem to come to the same conclusion: the solution to Europe’s problems is always more Europe! When unification causes difficulties, their solution is simple: more unification!

It is not a new phenomenon to see difficult times in Europe give rise to a powerful leader with the will and the power to unify much of the continent.  Though it may seem tactless to mention, only the foolish fail to consider that Germany’s crushing economic woes during the Weimar Republic after World War I were instrumental as a catalyst for the rise of Hitler’s “Third Reich.”

Rahm Emanuel, former Chief of Staff to President Obama, infamously said of the unfolding U.S. financial crisis: “You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid” (New York Times, November 6, 2008).  As today’s European Union heads into the greatest crisis of its life, many across Europe will see in that crisis the opportunities of a lifetime. The current turmoil will allow Europe’s power brokers and politicians to craft the next chapters of their continent’s story to suit their own ambitions.

But students of the Bible have the opportunity to know the end of that story in advance.

Bible prophecy has much to say about the final state of things in Europe.  In His Word, God paints a picture of Europe’s destiny that does not depend on the whims of politicians or the latest economic panics. It is a picture of a continent’s rise to a position of unheard-of power and global domination. And it is a picture of the demise and devastation of the United States and the nations of the former British Commonwealth.

So, do not confuse Europe’s birth pangs for death throes.  And do not wait for the headlines to catch up to the Bible!  As the story of Europe’s race toward its destiny unfolds, skip to the last chapters ahead of time and read the end before it happens.  View our Tomorrow’s World telecast “America’s Fall: Europe’s Rise” and read our article, “From ‘Brits’ to BRICs.”  You will see that the “end” of Europe being discussed by analysts is, truly, only the beginning.