There are many ways that I could expound on a title like The Jekyl & Hyde Italians. I could easily take up the themes of taxes, laws, manners, or religious practices and we’d have some funny & shocking posts. However, my main description is of the Religious-Secularism that pulls at them from all sides. I actually feel sadness for the Italians and their deep, deep struggle to see the Truth of Biblical Faith which reigns over secularism and through healthy religion.

The Great Divide

Simply, Italians from the day they’re born are confronted and confused with a terrible dichotomy or division to life.

On one side, the Roman Empire tells them that God created the universe in 6 days and is the Source of our origins.^{[1] 1} This is what the family for generations has had to follow and believe. To deny this is to refute Grandma and discredit the priest. This is their values side of what they know.

On the other side, the Italian (European) public education system pounds naturalistic Darwinism into them from a young age. This theory basically says that chance and natural laws come together and form the origin (and meaninglessness) of life. There-is-no-God atheism is the stew they’re boiling in from Monday through Saturday. This is the idea of science or facts that they know.

What we have then is the common Italian who walks around as secular as can be, living for the pleasure of the moment (or the moments to come), and thoroughly confused as to where they came from and where they’re going.

Here’s the Hard Work

I think one of our greatest tasks as Bible-believing and practicing Christians in Italy is to help Italians to see that God is the source & designer of life, that He does have a plan for life ([2] Ephesians 1:7-10), that He is know-able, and that they are responsible to Him for what they do with that life.

1. of course, they don’t give the Italian the “why” and they say that God is not know-able apart from them and their mediation [[8] back]