Back in March of last year, Erico Matias Tavares , asked Iben Thranholm - one of Denmark’s most widely read columnists on such matters - if Denmark was on the brink?
Thranholm is a former editor and radio host at the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR), at which she created a religious news program that set a new standard for religious analysis in the newsroom. She has traveled extensively in the Middle East, Italy, the United States and Russia to carry out research and interviews. She has been awarded for her investigative research into Danish media coverage of religious issues.
Her response now seems prophetic..
IT: Yes, Denmark is on the brink. And Europe is on the brink. We completely lost our culture, our values and our moral compass. What used to be good is now evil and vice-versa.
You mentioned Denmark being the happiest country in the world but I am not sure that is true. We have high alcohol consumption and about half a million people on happy pills for a reason.
Channel 1, our main TV channel here, recently aired a documentary on three Danish girls who converted to Islam out of their own will, not because they got married or anything like that. They all had the same background, coming from broken homes, dealing with alcoholism and so forth – basically part of the legacy of the 1968 revolution we had across Europe. What these girls lacked was structure, and they found it in Islam because it regulates all aspects of your life: how you dress, what you eat, with whom you can socialize with, how to pray, how to interact as a wife and so on.
That is what the right-wing parties in Europe don’t understand. This is a spiritual battle. There is no political freedom without spiritual freedom. If you go around just forbidding things, like don’t wear the head cloth and so forth, it will not work. Our civilization will gradually disappear.
The only thing that can save Europe right now is a true spiritual, dare I say Christian, revival across the Continent. This played a significant role in the demise of communism in the Soviet Union and East Germany. The churches there provided hidden venues for people to congregate, express ideas and share their faith and hardships.
Since its inception Christianity was always about fighting evil with love, prayer and faith because these three are the key to freedom. And these are the values that the radical left and radical Islam do not tolerate, because of course both demand total obedience to the state and their conception of God, respectively.
ET: Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and your courage. You deserve to be in the cover of a magazine, not on some government blacklist. Wish you all the best.
IT: Thank you.