Hanne Nabintu Herland interviews Iben Tranholm on The Herland Report TV

The following brief but highly informative interview, titled, "Europe: Deep Spiritual Crisis," appeared earlier this year on Herland Report TV. The host, Hanne Nabintu Herland, a Norwegian historian of religions and a journalist, interviews Iben Thranholm, a Danish theologian and journalist.

Both women are to be commended for raising many important points — indeed, for getting to the heart of the West's problems, including vis-à-vis Islam — that are seldom acknowledged in American media, certainly not "mainstream" media. Moreover, as both come from Scandinavia, arguably the most "progressive" region in the world, they know what they speak of and offer a prognostication the U.S. can learn from.

The general theme of the episode is that Western values have become almost entirely materialistic in essence. Because pure materialism is ultimately dissatisfying — "man shall not live on bread alone" — more and more Western people are turning to any number of metaphysical ideologies, from Islam to paganism — anything, as long as it's not Christianity. Because many of these ideologies are intrinsically hostile to Christianity, Western culture, which was founded on Christian principles, has become suicidal — hence the current situation, especially in Europe.

As Thranholm explains:

"You cannot understand what is going on in this world only from a political point of view for the time being. I think we are in a huge spiritual warfare and not just a political struggle (...). It's really a problem, that it has become a taboo - that we cannot speak about religion because of this anti-religious ideology that claims that religion has no importance. So as long as we are in this spiritual crisis, I don't think we will be able to defeat Islam actually, because it takes a stronger faith to conquer islam, and the reason why they are so successful here is because we have this spiritual vacuum."

Disturbing statistics validate this latter point. "Thousands of Norwegians are rushing to Islam" every year, says Herland. "A flood of ethnic Scandinavians are becoming Muslim," precisely because Christianity has "evaporated."

It's especially refreshing to see that both women understand that whatever issues the West is having with Islam, these are almost entirely brought on by the West itself — a point I often make (here and here for example). As Thranholm, who refers to the current "anti-Christian ideology" in the West as "the second coming of Marxism," says, "a weak Christianity means a strong Islam."

The brief video follows and is well worth watching:

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Raymond Ibrahim, a Middle East and Islam specialist, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum. A widely published author, best known for The Al Qaeda Reader (Doubleday, 2007), he guest lectures at universities, including the National Defense Intelligence College, briefs governmental agencies, such as U.S. Strategic Command and the Defense Intelligence Agency, provides expert testimony for Islam-related lawsuits, and has testified before Congress regarding the conceptual failures that dominate American discourse concerning Islam and the worsening plight of Egypt's Christian Copts. Among other media, he has appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, C-SPAN, PBS, Reuters, Al-Jazeera, CBN, and NPR.

He is also the author of: Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians,
and the newest book: Sword and Scimitar, Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West.

(This short biography is taken mainly from Ibrahim's own web site: RaymondIbrahim.com)

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