ISLAM IS BRITAIN'S FASTEST-GROWING RELIGION

Islam is Britain’s Fastest-Growing Religion

 

In 1900, almost 80% of the world’s Christians lived in Europe and North America. Today Christianity has declined in large parts of Europe, its traditional heartland, and is surging in Latin America, Africa and China. More than 60% of the world’s Christian population is now concentrated in Latin America, Africa and Asia. The share of Europe in the world’s Christian population has shrunk to about 26%.

The decline of Christianity in its European heartland is evidenced in the declining fertility rates and the fall in the Christian population, in the falling rates of church membership and attendance, in the diminishing recruitment of the clergy, in the growing loss of faith among European Christians, in the radical changes in codes of personal behaviour in respect of sexuality, birth control, abortion, marriage and living together without marrying. A series of  Eurobarometer surveys since 1970 in five key European countries (France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy) show that regular church attendance has fallen from about 40% three or four decades ago to less than 15% today. In Germany, between 1965 and 1999, the percentage of church-goers dropped from 75% to less than 30% and has now fallen to less than 15%. In 1851 about 60% of the population of England and Wales attended church services. By the end of the 20^th century, the figure fell to about 10%. According to the Church of England, 800,000 Christians attended a Sunday service in the UK in 2013, down from 160,000 in 1968. The available survey data suggest that there is a steady erosion of religious beliefs among Christians and a rapid decline in church membership and attendance. A number of surveys suggest an increasing loss of faith among Christians in several parts of Europe. Almost 40% of the French and 34% of Swedes deny the existence of God.

A rapid decline in church membership and attendance and the escalating costs of maintenance of churches have led to the closure of thousands of Protestant and Catholic churches across Europe. Thousands of churches in Germany, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and other European countries have been converted into restaurants, shopping centres, supermarkets, theatres, banks, offices, libraries, clubs and pubs. Dozens of churches have been sold to Muslims and Sikhs, who have converted them into their respective places of worship.  Between 1990 and 2010, 340 Protestant churches were closed down in Germany, and of those 46 were demolished. In Hamburg, a Protestant church building has been bought by the local Muslim community. It is estimated that out of about 45,000 churches in Germany, some 15,000 will soon be out of use. 

In the Netherlands, almost 60 churches are shut down, sold or demolished every year. There are about 47,000 churches in the UK and thousands of them have fallen into disrepair. Since 1960, nearly 10,000 churches have been closed down in the UK. Many of them have been converted into homes, offices and pubs or sold to Muslim worshippers. Methodist churches declined from 14,000 in 1932 to 6,000 today and closing down at the rate of 100 a year. The 18^th century Huguenot church in the East End of London became a Methodist chapel in 1819, a synagogue at the end of the 19^th century and a mosque in 1976.

                                            Fatih Camii Mosque in Amsterdam, formerly a

                                            Catholic church, which was sold to the local Turkish

                                            community.

In 2005, while lamenting the decline of churches in Europe and Australia, Pope Benedict said, “There is no longer evidence for a need for God, even less of Christ. The so-called traditional churches look like they are dying.” Lord William of Oystermouth, former Archbishop of Canterbury, said in 2013 that Britain was no longer a “nation of believers,” adding that it was now “a post-Christian country.”

The Church of England has lost nearly two million followers in the last two years.

The Church of England has been in decline for the past three decades. The proportion of Anglicans in the country was 40 per cent in 1983. According to a recent survey carried out by the NatCen’s British Social Attitudes Survey, a well-known poll of public opinion, the Church of England has lost nearly two million followers in the last two years. The percentage of people affiliated to the Church of England dropped from 21 per cent in 2012 to 17 per cent in 2014. The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, has warned that unless urgent action is taken the Anglican Church is “just one generation away from extinction.” According to the NatCen’s survey, nearly half (49 per cent) of Britons (24.7 million people) said they have no religious beliefs, compared with 31 per cent in 1983.   

Muslims in Britain

The global Muslim population is estimated to be around 1.85 billion today. According to the 2011 Pew Forum’s report, Europe is home to over 38 million Muslims, who make up more than 6 per cent of the continent’s population. The largest Muslim populations in Europe are found in France (over 6 million), Germany (over 4 million), UK (2.9 million) and Spain (1.6 million). The population of Muslims in the Russian Federation is over 20 million. Islam is spreading with amazing speed across several parts of Europe and the United States.

Islam is now Britain’s fastest-growing religion.

The 2011 census data showed that Islam was the fastest-growing religion in the UK and estimated the country’s Muslim population at 2.7 million (4.8 per cent of the population). The 2015 survey by NatCen shows that the number of Muslims in the UK during 2012-2014 grew by almost a million and that Muslims now make up over 5 per cent of Britain’s population.

A 2013 study by Faith Matters, an inter-faith think-tank, suggested that the number of Britons who have entered the fold of Islam is as high as 100,000, with 5,000 new conversions each year. A study carried out at Swansea University showed that in the past ten years, some 10,000 Britons have converted to Islam, and three-quarters of them were women. Of the 5,200 Britons who converted to Islam in 2010, more than half were white and nearly 75% of them were women. Despite the wide prevalence of the stereotype that Islam is oppressive to women, a quarter of female converts were attracted to Islam mainly because they felt it treated women with honour and dignity.

White Europeans who have converted to Islam include many prominent persons and intellectuals, including Martin Lings, a former Keeper of Oriental Manuscripts at the British Museum, Yusuf Islam, the former pop singer Kete Stevens, Timothy J. Winter, an Oxford scholar, Yahya Birt, the son of BBC’s former chief, Joe Ahmad Dobson, the son of a former cabinet minister in Britain, Lauren Booth, the sister-in-law of former British prime minister Tony Blair, Yuonne Ridley, a British journalist who embraced Islam in 2003 after being held captive by the Taliban in Afghanistan, and Angela Collins Telles, an American woman who travelled across Egypt and Syria and was impressed by the people’s generosity and kindness there.

Germany’s Highest Court Lifts Ban on Headscarves

Lauren Booth, sister-in-law of Britain’s former prime minister Tony Blair