Pope Benedict XVI's recent message in Germany urged Europe to rethink the notion that secularism and economic progress is the answer to the European Union's future. As a matter of record, some EU parliamentarians have resisted the notion that Christianity should be in the EU charter as the primary religion, thinking this is a veiled strategy to make Catholicism the EU religion and give the Vatican greater influence within the EU.

Europe's dark history of church-state relations has not been forgotten. Still many Germans are now beginning to turn back to religion. "The recent shift of Jürgen Habermas, one of Germany's foremost philosophers, shows evidence of the potential for a rethinking of the public role of religion. A professed secularist who has spent nearly half a century arguing against religiously informed moral argument, he made some arresting statements in his 2004 essay, 'A Time of Transition'" (Christian Science Monitor, Sept. 15).

Remarkably, Habermas wrote that "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [from which to derive these]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter" (ibid.). To understand how a religious revival will play a dominant role in Europe's future, request or download your free copy of The Book of Revelation Unveiled. (Source: Christian Science Monitor.)