By Jeffrey Walton, Juicy Ecumenism. (Image: the now time/Unsplash)
This past month I had the pleasure of two weeks of travel in France, my first visit there. While this wasn’t a work trip, French religiosity did pique my curiosity; enough so that I’ve been casually reading up on the subject since my return to Washington.
My new curiosity was well timed: new data has been released about both Protestants and Catholics in France, and what it reveals may have implications for American Christians ministering in a post-Christian (or is that potentially pre-Christian?) context.
Among many sights, I visited the restored and surprisingly bright Notre Dame de Paris, in addition to numerous churches in Bordeaux, Lyon, and Strasbourg (I also attended Sunday services at an age-diverse and multi-national Church of England parish in Lyon in which I met Chinese, Nigerian, and Iranian believers, alongside western expats).
Walking through Notre Dame on a weekday afternoon, I inquired if a significant number of seated people were awaiting mass to begin. No, I was told – they were waiting for confession. It was an unexpected sight of religious vitality.
Indeed, just this month France’s Roman Catholic Church announced the scheduled baptisms of more than 10,000 adults on Easter, the highest number of new members reported in over 20 years (a 45 percent increase in adult catechumens compared to last year, and the largest reported number since 2002, when the Catholic Church created the annual catechumenate survey). A tip of the hat to Michael Gryboski of The Christian Post who covers that here.
Separately, new data from the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP) shows that evangelicals now comprise a majority of French Protestants (thanks to Daniel Silliman of Christianity Today for spotlighting this), and that there is an influx of converts from non-Protestant backgrounds. About one-quarter of Protestants in France are converts.