'About the decline, the statistics are unequivocal. But beneath and beyond that has been a strategic retreat into isolation where the spirit seems to be wilting. It has taken the form of a mood swing in which people have been preoccupied with taking stock, with the setting sun and lengthening shadows, with memorial armbands, with shades of gray, with requiem. As Sir Edward Grey declared, brooding on the clouds of his time, the lamps have gone out all over Europe. The religious imagination seems to have been hit with a bout of melancholy as it labors with strains of "Abide with me, fast falls the eventide" and "The Day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended, / the darkness falls as Thy behest." It's the solemn vespers without the Gloria, and is a far cry from the confident, robust tones of "Onward, Christian soldiers," "The Son of God forth to war," or "Stand up, stand up for Jesus!" A dark, ominous drumbeat seems to rumble through the music of the filial hymn "God of our fathers, known of old ... lest we forget, lest we forget." It's as if Europeans have the Nunc Dimittis constantly on their lips, and so regret having to celebrate Christmas or Easter. Maybe too much history is a bad thing.'
Lamin Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel beyond the West, p. 29.
