France - with its burka ban, and strict separation of church and state - is the most militantly secular country in Europe. Many people regard religion with suspicion and even the six per cent who regularly go to church are often shy of using the J-word, let alone shaking their stuff in church to praise Him.
It's a difference in religious culture as wide as the Atlantic, which is maybe one reason gospel concerts here sometimes provoke intense reactions.
"I don't preach, but I speak 'Franglais' with the people and they help me with my French," says Jean, who hails from Queens in New York State. "I ask them if they understand and they say 'Yes!' And sometimes we all end up in tears. We end up touched by what comes through me and then, in essence, it touches them and then they give it back. We can have such a powerful time."...
However, since these gospel singers have really been in France for a long, long time it doesn't appear their method of presentation of the Gospel is very effective -- though one can also say perhaps not many of the elect are in France in the last several centuries?
Unfortunately also, they may be adding to the Charismatic Chaos in France as in other places as the Wikipedia article points to some of the growth of cults in France--Protestantism in France.
"She's full of stories about how the Holy Spirit works through this music - about French people in tears, French people feeling something, French people getting over their initial hostility to anyone or anything to do with religion. But sometimes, when they're booking her in to play somewhere, people ask her to tone down the God stuff."
The Holy Spirit in a nightclub??
France is a socialist country and it is described as secular. The two usually go together. But from comments like the above we can see that real Christian evangelism is certainly not what the article is dealing with. Why some kind of emotional response to entertainment can be identified with quote, "the God stuff" is absurd, yet isn't that exactly what we see in the Megachurches?
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