The paradigm shift seems to be happening at great speed. Europe and the United States are rethinking their relationship at a forced pace and evangelicals in the old continent are observing the changes with concern.

The day after the much-discussed Munich Security Conference, leaders from France, Germany, UK, Italy, Spain, Poland and others met urgently in Paris to seek solutions to the challenge posed by the negotiations that the new Trump administration would begin a few hours later with Russia in Riyadh.

Ukrainian evangelicals have expressed that they do not trust that an agreement with Russia will bring peace.

Kukharchuk: US should stand with “the Bible Belt of Europe”

But Ruslan Kukharchuk, a journalist and leader of the civil movement ‘United Together for the Family’ says that there are reasons for the new US administration to seek the good of Ukraine.

“US Vice President J.D. Vance in Munich complained to the leaders of the European Union that they talk about democratic values but in fact they have abandoned them: they fine people for praying, block social media and courts cancel election results”.

However, Kukharchuk tells Evangelical Focus, the new US government “should not repeat the same mistake: not having the right actions behind the right beliefs. Ukraine - unlike many European countries - is the country where LGBT flags are still not flown on government buildings, where people are not fined for praying, where courts do not cancel the results of parliamentary and presidential elections”.

The analyst from Ukraine goes further. “Ukraine is the Bible Belt of Europe”, he says, because it is “home to the largest church communities in Europe (for example, Baptists and Greek Catholics). And there are even more Orthodox Christians in Ukraine than in Russia”.

With this reality in mind, “the United States and the conservative White House administration should truly stand up for Ukraine – the Bible Belt of Europe”, says Kukharchuk. “Instead of seeking friendship with Russia, which is killing Christians in Ukraine, or China, which is banning its citizens from attending churches”.

Jim Memory: A “seismic” realignment

Meanwhile, in Western Europe, other evangelical leaders seem to be a little more pessimistic about the current state of US-European friendship.

“With the fall of the Berlin Wall, November 1989 was a month that moved the geopolitical tectonic plates of Europe. February 2025, which has seen a fundamental realignment of transatlantic relations since the start of the second Trump presidency in the USA, may prove to be even more seismic”, says Jim Memory, co-leader of the Lausanne Movement Europe.

The latest pronouncements of Vance and Trump, he tells Evangelical Focus, “suggest a break in the trust and fundamental assumptions that have prevailed since the end of World War Two”.

The political and economic impact of this realignment “could be enormous: increased defence spending, economic consequences from raised tariffs on European exports to the US, and of course, the potential involvement of European armies in the defence of Ukraine”. 

The future of mission relationships

The general context of growing coldness could also affect relations between Christians on either side of the Atlantic.

The Lausanne Movement leader has recently underlined the need for Christians in Europe and the US to listen and  “understand each other”.

“Yet European evangelicals, who have for so long depended on support from US evangelical ministries and resources, must also face up to this new world”, he adds. 

They “may need to increase their funding locally or see their ministries collapse if US churches and ministries turn away from Europe”.