Being Christian in Western Europe at the beginning of the 21st century #1

Today we do find a lot of people, in our regions, who say they are Christian and with that mostly mean Roman Catholic, but nearly never go to worship services like mass.

The majority of Europe’s Christians are non-practicing, but they differ from religiously unaffiliated people in their views on God, attitudes toward Muslims and immigrants, and opinions about religion’s role in society.

Western Europe, where Protestant Christianity originated and Catholicism has been based for most of its history, has become one of the world’s most secular regions. Although the vast majority of adults say they were baptized, today many do not describe themselves as Christians. Some say they gradually drifted away from religion, stopped believing in religious teachings, or were alienated by scandals or church positions on social issues, according to a major new Pew Research Center survey of religious beliefs and practices in Western Europe.

Yet most adults surveyed still do consider themselves Christians, even if they seldom go to church. Indeed, the survey shows that non-practicing Christians (defined, for the purposes of this report, as people who identify as Christians, but attend church services no more than a few times per year) make up the biggest share of the population across the region. In every country except Italy, they are more numerous than church-attending Christians (those who go to religious services at least once a month). In the United Kingdom, for example, there are roughly three times as many non-practicing Christians (55%) as there are church-attending Christians (18%) defined this way.

Non-practicing Christians also outnumber the religiously unaffiliated population (people who identify as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular,” sometimes called the “nones”) in most of the countries surveyed.¹ And, even after a recent surge in immigration from the Middle East and North Africa, there are many more non-practicing Christians in Western Europe than people of all other religions combined (Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc.).

The 10% for Belgium is more 8%, where the Roman Catholic Churches are less filled and of the protestant churches the Pentecostals get most people in  their church-services. Where we can find most people going to a religious service is by the Islamic community where the garage mosques and official mosques may count on a very good attendance on Friday night.

More Muslim children than Christian children growing up in our cities

England has to come to face what can be seen already in many cities at the continent.

• Statistics from 2011 Census show more Muslim children than Christian growing up in Birmingham 
• Of 278,623 youngsters, 97,099 were registered as Muslim compared with 93,828 as Christian  
• A similar trend has emerged in the cities of Bradford and Leicester
• Experts said more must be done to ensure that society does not become polarised along religious lines 

English: More crowds on Brick Lane (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This frightens many Christians. What I do find strange is that of those scared Christians nobody wonders why so many Caucasians coming form a Catholic or protestant family (Anglican, Church of England)  wanted to convert to a religion which was not for a long time originally present in their surroundings.

In England’s second* city of Birmingham, of 278,623 youngsters, 97,099 were registered as Muslim compared with 93,828 as Christian. The rest were of other faiths such as Hindu or Jewish, or none.

A similar trend has emerged in the cities of Bradford and Leicester, the towns of Luton, in Bedfordshire, and Slough in Berkshire, as well as the London boroughs Newham, Redbridge and Tower Hamlets, where nearly two-thirds of children are Islamic.

writes Paul Alexander in his article Children in many UK Towns and Cities now more likely to be Muslim rather than Christian. 

I do agree with Professor Ted Cantle, of the ICoCo Foundation who said:

‘What we are seeing are several trends running together. There is a long-term decline in support for the established religions, notably Christianity; continuing immigration from the Asian sub-continent; and higher fertility among the Muslim population, which has a considerably lower age profile.

But to me it is not only by deepening segregation exacerbated by the loss of white population from cities, which the professor and many white people say. It is not only in the cities where we can find more intensive concentration of black and minority ethnic groups as a result of replacement, that we do find Muslims. In Belgium for example there are a lot of Belgians, with Belgian Caucasian ancestors, who converted to the Islam.

It is far too easy to point the finger to a so called "pace of demographic change" and saying that the Government has no policy to combat segregation 

"because it inevitably reduces understanding and tolerance on both sides of the divide."

We should more come to see that we are going to a secularization because lots of people are not anymore interested in relgion and have no message in the god of others.

Why do not more people come to see that the churches in the West lost their flock? Churches are running, even so much that many churches already became closed and that in many villages there are not any more weekly services. For Sunday Mass people now have to go a few kilometres out of their doorstep, but this is perhaps demanded too much for them. So where is their connection with their faith and what do they want to do for their faith. The same can be said for their clergymen, are they really going out preaching, proclaiming the Word of God? How many Christians are willing to testify for their faith and do go out preaching the Gospel of the Good News?

Do Christians not have to see in their own bosom, to find that not many Christians really have a true faith?

There is still hope for the Christian community to have it back growing or not diminishing any more.

The figures show that Christianity is still the dominant religion in every local authority area in England and Wales, even in the most culturally diverse towns and cities.

Of the 45.5million participants, 27.9million subscribed to Christianity, compared with 1.8million Muslims, the second largest grouping.

However, among dependent children – defined as those aged up to 15, or between 16 and 18 and in education and still living at home – the gap is narrower.

Of 12.1million youngsters, 6.1million were Christian and 1million were Muslim. And in some places, the balance has now tipped towards Islam.

In Bradford, 52,135 children are Muslims (45 per cent) next to 47,144 Christians; in Leicester the figures are 22,693 and 18,190 respectively.

The widest gap is in Tower Hamlets where 62 per cent of children are Islamic, outnumbering Christians by 34,597 to 8,995.

writes Paul Alexander.

Sughra Ahmed, president of the Islamic Society of Britain, said:

‘Britain’s Muslims make up just 5 per cent of the population but have a younger demographic profile than other faiths, as these figures show. It matters to us all that this next generation of young British Muslims develops a clear and confident sense of their British identity alongside their Muslim faith. It’s important that schools teach all of our children the values of respect and tolerance.

For every Western country it is important that all children learn to respect all other cultures and religions.

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Note: *The Daily Mail, Sept. 15, 2014, denotes Birmingham as England’s “second city” but some estimates rank Birmingham as the third largest city by population, below Manchester and London.

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Related articles

• Children Now More Likely to be Muslim than Christian in Some British Cities (seattle.thedailydigest.org)
  There are now more Muslim children than Christian children growing up several British towns and cities. Figures from the 2011 census show that in places such as Birmingham, Bradford and Leicester, a child is more likely to be raised in Islam than Christianity as Britain's demographics radically change.
• Britain: Muslim Kids Outnumber Christian Kids in 2nd Largest City (cnsnews.com)
  A Sept. 15 report in the Daily Mail on the “changing face of Britain,” shows that in Birmingham, the second largest city in England by population, there are 93,828 children registered as Christian and 97,099 registered as Muslim, out of a total child population (age 18 and under) of 278,623.
• 'Trojan Horse 2' in London (schoolsimprovement.net)
  The Sunday Times is reporting that as many as a dozen schools in the east London borough of Tower Hamlets face investigation after claims they have fallen under the influence of Islamic fundamentalists…
  According to government sources, officials at the Department for Education (DfE) are concerned that the situation may be worse than that uncovered in the “Trojan Horse” scandal earlier this year, in which Islamic fundamentalists attempted to infiltrate secular schools in Birmingham. Emergency inspections of 21 schools in the city by the schools regulator Ofsted resulted in five schools being placed in special measures.
  “Tower Hamlets is expected to be the next Birmingham, but even worse, because the problems surrounding Muslim fundamentalists imposing their views on education seem to be more embedded,” said a senior Whitehall source.
  Both secular state schools and private Islamic schools are under suspicion, and there are concerns that non-Muslim teachers are staying silent for fear of losing their jobs.
  “The DfE will rely on whistleblowers to come forward about non-Muslim teachers being sidelined by Muslim fundamentalists in the borough,” the source said. “But potential whistleblowers fear they may be bullied, further sidelined or fired if they raise concerns.”
  
• The changing face of Britain: A child in Birmingham is now more likely to be a Muslim than Christian (dailymail.co.uk)
  
• "Christians flee Muslim-dominated areas for fear of being stoned to death" [Darleen Click] UPDATED (proteinwisdom.com)
  Christians with Middle Eastern backgrounds in Denmark experience harassment, verbal attacks and in some cases direct violence from Muslims. TV2 News has been in contact with a number of Christians here in Denmark who tell of violent experiences.
  
  Christians with Middle Eastern backgrounds in Denmark experience harassment, verbal attacks and in some cases direct violence from Muslims. TV2 News has been in contact with a number of Christians here in Denmark who tell of violent experiences. - See more at: http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=55193#sthash.DiVRmF25.dpuf
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  Christians with Middle Eastern backgrounds in Denmark experience harassment, verbal attacks and in some cases direct violence from Muslims. TV2 News has been in contact with a number of Christians here in Denmark who tell of violent experiences. - See more at: http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=55193#sthash.DiVRmF25.dpuf
• Islamist extremism spreads to London schools? (economictimes.indiatimes.com)
  Allegations about the imposition of extreme views in Tower Hamlets classrooms come as UK schools inspectorate Ofsted prepares to publish the findings of emergency inspections of 40 schools in England in the past fortnight.
  The prospect of a new Trojan Horse-style scandal in Tower Hamlets will alarm ministers.
  The original plot, first revealed by The Sunday Times, resulted in the removal of several head teachers and boards of governors in Birmingham.
  A report into the scandal by Peter Clarke, a former head of counter-terrorism at Scotland Yard, found evidence of a "sustained" attempt to impose hardline Muslim views, with female staff bullied and Christian assemblies scrapped.
  
• Into the blast furnace (voxday.blogspot.com)
  The UK's demographics are illustrating the truth of GK Chesterton's observations concerning the human disinclination to believe in nothing:
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  If he thinks segregation is a problem, just try desegregating those communities. Because communities that can't peacefully segregate will always eventually find another, less palatable means of doing so.
  
  Well done, secular Britain. Out of its desire to weaken Christianity's societal dominance, it imported Islam. That's like leaping out of the frying pan and into the blast furnace.
• Archbishop of the Anglican Church Says It's Acceptable to Have Doubt, and Still Be a Christian (nollywoodmagazine.com)
  Some are coming for his head but I totally agree with the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby who has said he sometimes has doubts in his belief in God.In an interview with BBC, Bristol the leader of the Church of England said he doubted in “lots of different ways”.
  
  Some are coming for his head but I totally agree with the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby who has said he sometimes has doubts in his belief in God.
  In an interview with BBC,  Bristol the leader of the Church of England said he doubted in “lots of different ways”.
  - See more at: http://www.nollywoodmagazine.com/2014/09/archbishop-of-the-anglican-church-says-its-acceptable-to-have-doubt-and-still-be-a-christian.html#sthash.8O3gHcp6.dpuf
  
  
  Some are coming for his head but I totally agree with the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby who has said he sometimes has doubts in his belief in God.
  In an interview with BBC,  Bristol the leader of the Church of England said he doubted in “lots of different ways”.
  - See more at: http://www.nollywoodmagazine.com/2014/09/archbishop-of-the-anglican-church-says-its-acceptable-to-have-doubt-and-still-be-a-christian.html#sthash.8O3gHcp6.dpuf
• Vicars 'Set to Report Confessed Crimes to Police' (ibtimes.co.uk)
• (Telegraph) Some Anglicans in the same-sex marriage debate sign 'love letter' to Bishops (kendallharmon.net)

Problems attracting and maintaining worshippers

 The urgency to reach people with the Gospel can,
if the church is not faithful and watchful,
tempt us to subvert the Gospel by redefining its terms.

 We are not honest if we do not admit that the current cultural context
raises the cost of declaring the Gospel on its own terms.

 

Jim Hinch writes:

The exteriors of Crystal Cathedral. Garden Grove, CA, USA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Just 10 years ago, evangelical Christianity appeared to be America’s dominant religious movement. Evangelicals, more theologically diverse and open to the secular world than their fundamentalist brethren, with whom they’re often confused, were on the march toward political power and cultural prominence. They had the largest churches, the most money, influential government lobbyists, and in the person of President George W. Bush, leadership of the free world itself. Indeed, even today most people continue to regard the United States as the great spiritual exception among developed nations: a country where advances in science and technology coexist with stubborn, and stubbornly conservative, religiosity. But the reality, largely unnoticed outside church circles, is that evangelicalism is not only in gradual decline but today stands poised at the edge of a demographic and cultural cliff.

The most recent Pew Research Center survey of the nation’s religious attitudes, taken in 2012, found that just 19 percent of Americans identified themselves as white evangelical Protestants—five years earlier, 21 percent of Americans did so. Slightly more (19.6 percent) self-identified as unaffiliated with any religion at all, the first time that group has surpassed evangelicals. (It should be noted that surveying Americans’ faith lives is notoriously difficult, since answers vary according to how questions are phrased, and respondents often exaggerate their level of religious commitment. Pew is a nonpartisan research organization with a track record of producing reliable, in-depth studies of religion. Other equally respected surveys—Gallup, the General Social Survey—have reached conclusions about Christianity’s status in present-day America that agree with Pew’s in some respects and diverge in others.)

Secularization alone is not to blame for this change in American religiosity. Even half of those Americans who claim no religious affiliation profess belief in God or claim some sort of spiritual orientation. Other faiths, like Islam, perhaps the country’s fastest-growing religion, have had no problem attracting and maintaining worshippers. No, evangelicalism’s dilemma stems more from a change in American Christianity itself, a sense of creeping exhaustion with the popularizing, simplifying impulse evangelical luminaries such as Schuller once rode to success.

California's Crystal Cathedral, now Christ Cathedral (Photo by Wikipedia user Nepenthes)

Continue reading: Where Are the People? -
Evangelical Christianity in America is losing its power—what happened to Orange County’s Crystal Cathedral shows why

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Related articles

• David Cameron says Christians should be 'more evangelical' (telegraph.co.uk)
  
  In his strongest intervention on religion to date, Mr Cameron said that in an increasingly "secular age" Christians need to be even "more confident" and "ambitious".
  He said that he has personally felt the "healing power" of the Church of England's pastoral care and highlighted its role in "improving our society and the education of our children".
• Cameron does God, but does Britain want him to? (newstatesman.com)
  At an Easter reception at Downing Street, he declared: "Jesus invented the Big Society 2,000 years ago" and spoke of him as "our saviour". He followed this up with a video message in which he said: "Easter is not just a time for Christians across our country to reflect, but a time for our whole country to reflect on what Christianity brings to Britain."
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  But while Cameron is now unequivocally "doing God" (almost certainly with an eye to those Conservatives alienated by his support for equal marriage), does Britain want him to? With apt timing, a new global study has found that little more than a third of people in Britain believe that religion has a positive role to play in our lives, compared to a global average of 59 per cent, while a quarter believe it has a negative impact.
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  As the 2013 British Social Attitudes Survey showed, this is, increasingly, a secular country, not a Christian one. Forty eight per cent of respondents stated that they did not belong to a religion, up from 32 per cent in 1983, and just 20 per cent described themselves as belonging to the Church of England, down from 40 per cent in 1983.
  This ambiguity points to the need for a clear separation between church and state. Religious believers who oppose such a move should look to the US, where faith has flourished despite the country's secular constitution (spoken of by Jefferson as "a wall of separation) .
  
• Left Behind? (dish.andrewsullivan.com)
  Even half of those Americans who claim no religious affiliation profess belief in God or claim some sort of spiritual orientation. Other faiths, like Islam, perhaps the country’s fastest-growing religion, have had no problem attracting and maintaining worshippers. No, evangelicalism’s dilemma stems more from a change in American Christianity itself, a sense of creeping exhaustion with the popularizing, simplifying impulse evangelical luminaries such as [televangelist Robert] Schuller once rode to success.
• Victim of the US's 'evangelical recession', California's Crystal Cathedral is now under Catholic control (freethinker.co.uk)
  The Crystal Cathedral – one of America’s largest and most celebrated ecclesiastical buildings – was replete with all the bells and whistles evangelicals in the US craved: livestock, silly costumes, lights, cameras, below-stage elevators, theatre-style seating, an indoor reflecting pool … and one mother of an organ, with 10,000 pipes.
  
  

  The cathedral’s enormous organ, pictured at a Yuletide past.
  But things have drastically changed. According to this fascinating American Scholar report by Jim Hinch, American evangelicals are outnumbered by people of no professed faith ­ –  and in June this year, Schuller’s evangelical Christian ministry, founded almost 60 years ago amid the suburbs of postwar Southern California, conducted its last worship service and filmed its last Hour of Power in the Crystal Cathedral.
  
  

  Robert H Schuller (Photo: Reuters).
  Hounded by creditors, the ministry declared bankruptcy in 2010. Last year Schuller resigned from the cathedral’s board, and the building was flogged for $58 million to Orange County’s Catholic diocese, which intends ripping out all the Disneyesque equipment and replacing it with the sort of crap Catholics regard as more palatable: a consecrated altar, bishop’s cathedra, baptismal font, and votive chapels dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe and other saints prominent in immigrant Catholics’ devotional lives. (There is a frightening number of immigrant Catlickers in the vicinity).
  The building is scheduled to reopen for Catholic worship in 2016.
  
• Whither the Prosperity Gospel? by Russell D. Moore (thewordonthewordoffaithinfoblog.com)
  A few months ago, the American Scholar published a cover story on the collapse of Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral. The article, by Jim Hinch, used the Cathedral as a parable for evangelicalism itself.
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  the question remains, where are all the people who once thronged the Crystal Cathedral. The Charlottesville correspondent explains to the American scholars: “They are at home, having their self-esteem puffed up by a new breed of prosperity-Gospel preacher, including Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, and T.D. Jakes.” This is exactly right. The prosperity gospel isn’t just another brand of evangelicalism. It isn’t “evangelical” at all because it’s rooted in a different gospel from the one preached and embodied by Jesus Christ. The prosperity gospel is far more akin to the ancient Canaanite fertility religions than it is to anything announced by Jesus, the prophets before him, or the apostles after him.
  
• From Crystal to Christ: A Once and Future Cathedral (firstthings.com)
  Garden Grove Community Church began in 1955 when Schuller rented for $10 per week the Orange Drive-In Theater, a well-chosen site near the just-opened Disneyland. Drive-in theaters were the rave across the country then. “Come as you are in the family car” was an early Schuller slogan. Schuller preached from the tarpaper rooftop of the snack bar while his wife Arvella played a portable organ. And come they did, not only to what was billed as the nation’s first walk-in/drive-in church, but also to Schuller’s expansive television ministry called “The Hour of Power.” In his prime on “The Hour of Power,” Robert Schuller was spectacular. He appeared each Sunday in flowing robes, with a booming resonant voice and sweeping gestures, while surrounded by fountains that splashed at a button’s push and a thousand-voice choir that sang some of the best religious music on television. At its height, “The Hour of Power” was the most watched religious television program in the world, seen by an estimated 30 million people on hundreds of stations around the globe.
  
• Is The United States Religiously Diverse? (themoderatevoice.com)
  I think grouping all so called Christian religions in the United States is a false equivalency.  An evangelical Christian church and a main stream Christian church are not the same religion.  A Pentecostal church and the Lutheran church are not the same religion.  It also does not take into account social issues.  It has been my observation that many in the United States attend attend church for social rather than religious reasons.  It is part of being part of society.  As an atheist I have been guilty of this at times of emotional stress.  As someone who has lived in Europe I know that 63% of the French may be socially Christian but not religiously Christian. Grouping all so called Christian religions together is not unlike grouping all Abrahamic  (Jewish, Christian an Muslim) religions together.  Some religious scholars think we are all actually Zoroastrians, the first monotheistic religion.
  
• World Vision and Evangelicalism: An Interview with David King (pietistschoolman.com)
  Last week the U.S. chapter of the international Christian humanitarian organization World Vision made headlines: first when president Rich Stearns confirmed to Christianity Today last Monday that the organization would employ Christians in same-sex marriages, only to reverse the decision two days later, in the wake of torrents of criticism from conservatives, some of whom threatened to withdraw their financial support from World Vision and its well-known child sponsorship program. Yesterday a Google executive resigned from the board of World Vision U.S. in protest, and Rachel Held Evans likely spoke for many progressive evangelicals when she wrote, “The response to World Vision revealed some major fault lines in the Church, and many of us who grew up evangelical interpreted all the gleeful ‘farewelling’ from evangelical leaders as our final kick out the door.”