What is Christianity like in Europe?

[abaris]

The European Christians or ex-Christians I've met on forums often seem to be fundamentalist/evangelicals.

Then you certainly don't get the right impression. Evengelicals are the fringe of the fringe in European countries. They don't count. Most people would identify as either catholic or protestant. Protestant meaning mainstream protestatism, not in any way fundamentalist. Neither catholicism nor mainstream protestanism in their large majority, take the bible literally. They don't reject evolution of believe in Adam and Eve to have been real persons. Both denominations, at least in Western Europe, don't have much influence in politics either. The people are largely secular and according to a pretty recent international poll, 58 percent of my country (Austria) identified as not being religious at all. Yet 63 percent still belong to the catholic church, which can only be explained by the church being rather a tradition than a matter of faith.

The most important difference between Europe and the States when it comes to religion, is the fact, that religion usually isn't a topic at all. Even with close aquaintances you hardly ever talk about it. It's also not a matter of public debate. Well, usually, of course the news report when the pope said something important, they also report on religious leaders of other faiths making remarks regarding everyday life, but it's not that important. Also politicians don't bring their religion or lack thereoff into public debate. If someone would constantly ramble about the necessity of bringing something biblical into the law, they simply wouldn't be elected. There are outspoken christian parties in the political spectrum, but they don't make it into the parliaments, since the majority of the people don't want what they're selling.

To give you another view on the matter, our president calls himself an agnostic. And he got elected twice in a landslide. His office is no way as powerful as the American president or the French one, but he's still the head od state, expected to represent the republic abroad. The former mayor of Berlin was very open about him being gay. Also the former mayor of Hamburg was openly gay. A christian democrat. The former german secretary of foreign affairs was also openly gay. So you see, religious sentiment or open bigotry doesn't play a role.