New research has revealed that a majority of young people in a dozen countries of Europe do not follow a religion…Young Muslims, at 6 per cent of the overall population in UK, are on the brink of overtaking those who consider themselves part of the country’s established church
This news should come as no surprise. The trend likely holds true for most of Europe as well, given the hijrah, as well as the glorification of Islam as the only religion that must not be criticized. The clueless leaders of the UK (and most of Europe) have welcomed in huge numbers of unvetted Muslim migrants from the Middle East and North Africa. Add to this, the allowance of Muslim Brotherhood groups to proliferate, and it is no wonder that Christianity is in decline. Soon open Christian persecution will follow, as Islamization advances. Already, a surge in violent Muslim anti-Semitism is driving Jews out of France in record numbers, and is also an rising problem in Germany.
“Islam poised to over take established Christianity in UK: report,” Express Tribune, March 21, 2018:
New research has revealed that a majority of young people in a dozen countries of Europe do not follow a religion, The Guardian reports.
Young Muslims, at 6 per cent of the overall population in UK, are on the brink of overtaking those who consider themselves part of the country’s established church, the report in the British paper has highlighted.
According to the findings of a survey, conducted on 16- to 29-year-olds, it was discovered that the Czech Republic is the least religious country in Europe, with 91 per cent of people in the defined age group saying they have no religious affiliation.
Between 70 per cent and 80 per cent of young adults in Estonia, Sweden and the Netherlands also categorise themselves as non-religious, the results indicate.
The most religious country, identified in the study, is Poland, where 17 per cent of young adults define themselves as non-religious, followed by Lithuania with 25 per cent.
In the United Kingdom, only 7 per cent of young adults identify as Chrsitian Anglican, fewer than the 10 per cent who categorise themselves as Christian Catholic.
Young Muslims, at 6 per cent, are on the brink of overtaking those who consider themselves part of the country’s established church, the report has said…..
Benedict says
“Report: Islam poised to overtake Christianity in the UK”
…………………..
Maybe because this is missing:
https://youtu.be/xOqIcumPmos -?
Just a hunch.
Gjallarhornet says
It like what Leonard Cohen said about the USA: “You wont like what comes after America”. The lefties will not like what comes after Christianity and takes it’s former place either. That is if they survive the islamic purge of them and their values.
CogitoErgoSum says
I recently discovered the music of Leonard Cohen. In my estimation he was and still is very under-appreciated. If Bob Dylan rated a Nobel Prize, I think Cohen deserved even more. The video below is related to your quote from Cohen regarding America.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axDoGt16O2I
BTW, my favorite Cohen songs are “By the Rivers Dark, “Darkness” and “You Want It Darker.” Hmmm …. yeah, I’m thinking about what comes after America ….. which reminds me of one more favorite Cohen song, “Here It Is.” (All these songs can be found on YouTube.)
gravenimage says
Yes–Leonard Cohen was brilliant. One of my favorites:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGorjBVag0I
mortimer says
The established churches in England and Scotland had better think hard about their positions and take evasive action before it is no longer possible.
JMB says
While the head offices of the established churches in the UK have spent most of their time since the 1960s arguing about apartheid, the rights of homosexuals,a boycott of Israel and more lately the rights of Muslims in society, they (the church leaders) have probably failed to notice that no one bothers to attend church any more. The very nominal Christians of the UK and most western nations would prefer to spend Sunday either shopping, going to the football or the pub. Of course Islam is going to fill this spiritual vacuum. I would even suggest that if the churches of the UK were still full every Sunday the politicians of the UK would have stopped the Muslim influx years ago.
LeftisruiningCanada says
As you say, the mainline denominations have very much turned themselves into social(ist) clubs intent mainly upon addressing and furthering the issues of the day.
They have largely abandoned preaching the Gospel in favor of what some have called “moralistic therapeutic deism”, which is merely watered down law telling us what we already know – be nice to one another.
Not only has this led to the Christians staying away, but the unbelievers too, since it isn’t anything that can’t be found in self help books or TV shows or other more interesting social circles.
This isn’t to say that there are not many good and thriving church groups in the UK. There are. But the country as a whole doesn’t regard Christianity as something meaningful anymore. It has lost it’s authority by trying to please people who only end up disdaining it more because of those very compromises.
The UK, like Canada, is now a soft socialist country, with the morality of anti-christianity enshrined as law and accepted as if it has always been so.
All glaring generalizations of course. Still, that’s how it appears in overview.
Noel says
Britain has been a soft socialist country for as long as I can remember. That’s the reason for and the thought behind the NHS and several other beneficial institutes. It was once our strength – that nobody starved regardless of which party took power.
Regarding “overtaking those who consider themselves part of the country’s established church”, the established church, CofE, is no more Christian than Roman Catholicism – meaning neither are Christian.
Churches in Britain are thriving, but no-one seems to count how many go to Baptist, Non-Conformist, Evangelical and all the other non-state Churches.
LeftisruiningCanada says
“Britain has been a soft socialist country for as long as I can remember.”
Sure, in some ways. Socialism however is of course traditionally opposed to anything non materialist. It has taken a few generations for this to manifest itself more widely. A few generations more, and it will be very interesting to see where things go.
“It was once our strength – that nobody starved regardless of which party took power.”
Of course people still starve. And freeze to death etc etc etc. The State is not all seeing, all knowing, the beneficent, and thanks to God it is not. But that is not the point. The point is whether we believe that a source of centralized power is better at solving problems than if that power is decentralized, and what balance works best between the two poles.
” CofE, is no more Christian than Roman Catholicism”
From my perspective as a reformed believer in Christ, the CoE is certainly more Christian than the Church of Rome. There are some soteriological issues with some branches of the Anglican communion, again from my perspective, but to simply declare an entire and complex institution of individuals as X or Y is probably a misstep. (I have done this with regards to islam of course, but usually that is simply a shorthand to avoid always having to explain everything in detail in each post).
Jay says
Actually more people in Europe are leaving Islam than converting to it. The numbers could be big since there is the Sharia penalty of death for leaving Islam.
Save Europe says
To be honest there aren’t many converting to Islam, and there certainly aren’t enough leaving it. Their birth rates and the numbers illegally entering the UK and mainland Europe are also the major problem.
Danforth says
Where do these numbers come from?
dumbledoresarmy says
Yep.
The thing that isn’t mentioned in the original ‘Guardian’ article at all, nor in the Express Tribune article that reproduces it verbatim, is… a funny little thing called the Apostasy Law of Islam. The bloke who did the study on religiosity – one ‘Bullivant’ – mentions the ‘high retention’ rate of Islam. but he offers nary a word about the apostasy law… you run a real – very real – risk of being KILLED, even in western europe, and certainly of being threatened, bullied, and physically attacked, if you are raised Muslim and then publicly *leave* that system for any other faith or for atheism.
I quote – “And we know the Muslim birthrate is higher than the general population, and they have much higher [religious] retention rates.”
Yeah, Mr Bullivant, and are you going to mention the Apostasy Law, and the crucial role that it might be playing in the “much higher retention rates” of Islam?
(Crickets).
Death Artifex says
The denominations that are orthodox and stand by biblical morals and ethics are thriving and growing, like oepus day in the Catholic tradition.
The abandonment of base natural law and biblical morals and ethics has gutted the congregations but the Christians arent gone, they are staying home. The actual beliefs that are orthadox are still the majority without anyone allowed to stand publicly like a politician or religious leader.
The sociologocal dellusion of society that the youth that we are at the pinnacle of knowledge, makes the millennials and the z gen so out of touch with reality.
The Soviet union was athiest and after it fell the Russian orthodox skyrocketted with uncompromising ethics and morals. This is the truth of the word of God, not the institutions built by man.
If and when the electricity gets turned off or there is a fiscal fiat collapse and the store shelves are empty, the return of reality will set in where soft sciences and ologies wont be applicable anymore. Natural consequence of no hard times for the general populations since wwii and the resulting great grandchildren have no idea what hunger, pain, sacrifice, and mass death looks like.
As they say … tthere are no athiests in the foxholes. The next world war will be a religiously defined war. The agnostics will pray like the rest and the athiests will die.
God Bless and Good Luck
Walter Sieruk says
Yes, the jihad-minded Muslims are always active and often scheming not only to have Islam with its Sharia law take over Britain but the entire continent of Europe .
Those jihadists /Muslims with their insidious Islamic scheming for the Islamic, subtle and not so subtle, conquest of Europe by every possible means, including the stealth and violent jihad which is, indeed, awful.
As explained by William Wagner in his book HOW ISLAM PLANS TO CHANGE THE WORLD .Which informs the reader n page 195 “Of all the continents of the world, Europe is probably the number one target by Muslim strategist who are seeking world dominance.”
Therefore, the Europeans would be wise to be on guard.
Cicero says
Unfortuntely it might be too late to be on guard.
The people have been slumbering.
They are now stirring and becoming awake.
However the governing classes are continuing their accommodation of Islamisation and Sharia. People are feeling a sense of powerlessness and impotent rage.
CogitoErgoSum says
Man has two natures. One is physical and the other is spiritual. Hunger and thirst are experienced by both sides and both require the proper nourishment to remain healthy.
mortimer says
The bishops of the Church of England should start evangelizing the Muslims in England.
CogitoErgoSum says
In the fictional Star Trek universe there is a Prime Directive that prohibits members of the Federation from interfering with the internal development of less advanced civilizations. I wonder if the bishops have a similar Prime Directive, even unto allowing a less advanced civilization on a planet to destroy another more advanced one on the same planet.
LeftisruiningCanada says
Good call. It would be so insensitive to disagree with someone else’s ‘path to God” after all.
CogitoErgoSum says
I wonder what they would consider their Prime Directive? Would it be, “Feed my lambs. Feed my Sheep?” O would it be, “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit?”
Perhaps Henry VIII changed their Prime Directive but what is it?
LeftisruiningCanada says
Seems to vary. Some the African bishops have been quite clearly unhappy with the direction other bishops have taken.
There will be splits and so on, each time another decision must be made between Christ’s way and the way of the world.
At least they haven’t gone full tilt for the whole ‘vision casting’ pastor thing so far!
Aaron says
Not a chance their so PC they couldn’t bring themselves to see the truth right in front of their noises
Cicero says
They will be slaughtered .
Walter Sieruk says
The Christian author, William Wagner,, in his book which is entitled HOW ISLAM PLANS TO CHANGE THE WORLD had explained on page 155 about a meeting that he had with a Muslim cleric , which reads “Several years ago one Imam told me that ,prior to 1990, the greatest enemy to Islam was Communism but now it is the Christian missions.” Further, on page 208 the Wagner had written about some zealous Muslims that “They have failed to stop Christian missions. They see Christian missions as their number one enemy.” On the very next page the reader is informed that “Christianity remains the number one buffer against Islam, a fact readily recognized by those who seek a world wild ummah.” [1]
Ummah – The community of all those who affirm Islam.
Jayell says
The thesis of this article presumes that the lack of adherence to an established religious dogma doesn’t count towards defining a society’s identity. This is wrong. The UK is essentially a post-Christian agnostic philanthropic society based on the fundamental principles of Christianity but.dispensing with the unnecessary liturgical gobbledegook. In other words, whether it’s admitted or not, ‘right-thinking’ people aim to follow what Jesus said but without the bowing and scraping. This is their identity, and it’s been like this at least since Victorian times, when only half the population actually went to church with any regularity. The only Brits who get conned into islam are the small minority with problems or a screw loose, or are stupid enough to get mixed up in a relationship with one of these repulsive savages. Everyone else is now totally p*ssed off with the ‘Religion of Prats’ that any semblance of tolerance towards this totally un-British sham will eventually completely evaporate, NOT the other way round
Cicero says
You are omitting the crucial role of demographics in influencing culture , identity and democracy.
Historian says
“The UK is essentially a post-Christian agnostic philanthropic society based on the fundamental principles of Christianity but.dispensing with the unnecessary liturgical gobbledegook. In other words, whether it’s admitted or not, ‘right-thinking’ people aim to follow what Jesus said but without the bowing and scraping. This is their identity, and it’s been like this at least since Victorian times…”
So where were and are these “fundamental principles of Christianity” among the many, many pols, judges, workers, police, social workers, journalists and other onlookers as 1000s of GIRLS–mainly white working class with presumably nominal Christian ancestors–who did nothing, or worse actively PREVENTED those trying to help the girls rom being sexually trafficked, gang raped– even murdered in a few cases–by mainly non-Christian, indeed mainly Muslim, men? How is indifference, corruption, and cowardice and worse in the face of such extreme cruelty perpetuated largely by non-Christians part of the “fundamental principles of Christianity”and the attempt to follow what “Jesus said” by today’s Britons? Where did “Jesus” ever suggest that to it’s better to enable mass rape, sexual trafficking, even murder rather than have any one discover that so many men of a particular religion or ethnicity were involved in these crimes?
“Fundamental principles of Christianity”? Aiming to “follow what Jesus said..” What malarkey. The one police chaplain in the Telford case apparently was FORCED to resign by the police itself for daring to bring up some of the problems. How does that show British police’s desire to follow the “fundamental principles of Christianity?” If British are such philanthropic society imbued with the “fundamental principles of Christianity” why so many Britons’ staggeringly cruel treatment of those girls, and eagerness to silence anyone pointing out what the problems were and still are?
Which raises another question. What the — has the C of E, or for that matter any other churches done about the biggest human rights abuse in Britain in the last decade or so? What have they actually said or done to help victims and confront the criminals and their political, legal, constabulary, and “social work” enablers? It seems that they were and still are just as cowardly and un-Christian as the rest of Britain.
pat mott says
When everyone wakes up to the horrors of Islam possibly this will finally be the end of religion!
Cicero says
The end of religion perhaps but the rise of spirituality
gravenimage says
Why would a recognition that Islam is an evil religion lead to the end of all religion?
That is like saying that realizing that some ideas are evil should lead to the rejection of all ideas.
MFritz says
And our liberal Western civilisation will simply “disappear” with the Christian faith. Not because they are one and the same.
No, because of the “culture” following it, which does NOT tolerate any other culture and/or faith in its wake.
No Muzzies Here says
The UK government is well aware of this, and is willingly favoring non-Christians over Christians, since the non-Christians will be a continuing source of votes as the Christians fade away through birth control and abortion.
Save Europe says
Mostly very true, but it’s also because 75 percent of Muslim women in the UK do not work, whilst 55-60 percent of the men don’t either – they claim full welfare and then just breed copiously. That’s a massive factor.
dumbledoresarmy says
Also, the *apostasy law* – the fact that any ‘cradle Muslim’ who is caught leaving Islam for any other faith or for nonreligion, is liable to be very badly treated, even *killed*, by their former coreligionists, including their nearest-and-dearest – is a *huge* factor in the high ‘retention rate’ of Islam.
Christian and Jewish parents will feel *sad* if their children leave the family’s faith.. but they won’t chuck them out into the street (if the child is still in the family home) nor will they attempt to kill them or try to get someone else to kill them. Whereas Patrick Sookhdeo, for example, raised in a Muslim family in the UK, was *thrown out into the street* by his parents the instant they discovered he had converted to Christianity. And *that* was pretty mild compared to what happened to ‘Hannah Shah’, author of The Imam’s Daughter. She fled her home initially, as a teenager, because her Muslim imam father had been a/ beating her regularly and b/ **raping her regularly** since she was *six*. But when she *did* leave home, she was drawn to Christianity… and converted. Unwisely, she mentioned to her family that she was being baptised. Her father **sent a mob of men with axes to attack the house in which she was then living**. Luckily they did not succeed in breaking in. She didn’t call the police, at the time, because she took it for granted that they wouldn’t believe her… that is what she told Andrew Norfolk who, some years ago, did an article on apostates from Islam, in the UK, and how they were living in hiding, terrorised by … Muslims.
Eric jones says
We must feed our bodies. We must also feed our souls. I have found nothing better than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Pastors should openly reach out to the public. Pastors should stop driving men out of the church.
Eric
762x51FMJ says
Rabies is transmitted by the bite of a diseased dog, a vaccine is available.
Islam is a learned behavior.
It is a form of public psychosis.
LeftisruiningCanada says
Though sadly the only people who ever ‘survive’ a rabies infection end up comatose.
At least some ex muslims become very active for good once the madness has departed.
762x51FMJ says
I took a rabies shot just to be safe
Before I read the Qur’an.
LeftisruiningCanada says
Prevention > Cure without doubt 😉
St. Manuel II Palaiologos says
The West turned away from the living Christ a millennium ago, and now they’re reaping their due results.
dumbledoresarmy says
Nonsense.
If you mean by that observation -a millennium ago! – that western Christians – first, the Latin/ Catholic church and then the Protestant churches – are not Christians and have never been ‘properly’ Christian since 1018 then I think you are wrong.
You are also sowing division; you are doing the Muslims’ work for them, splitting the camp of the infidels.
PS – A millennium ago – AD 1018 – was just prior to the launching of the Crusades which, for all their follies and failures, were at least an *attempt* at self-defence against the Jihad.
A bit later on those very same Western Christians that you profess to despise, whom you sweepingly dismiss as not Christian (i.e. as evil heretics?) were those who liberated themselves from Islam, in Spain, Portugal, Malta, southern Italy.
*Western Christians*, whom you despise, heroically and bravely fought off Islam at Otranto in 1488, at Malta in 1565; at Lepanto in 1571; and most famously of all, at Vienna in 1683, which paved the way for, among other things, the liberation of *eastern* Christians such as those resident in Greece and Bulgaria. And people from Western Christian nations *did* go – even as individuals! – to help the Christian Greeks fight the Muslim Turks.
So please do not sneer at, despise and reject your western brethren of slightly-differing traditions, let alone wish upon them the horrors of Islamic conquest. Why would you want your brethren – yes, your brethren – to suffer what many eastern Christians suffered? That sort of mindset is very far from Christian: it’s resentment, contempt, and gloating.
DO NOT wish Islamic conquest upon the West. Pray instead for rediscovery of the Gospels amongst the young.. and the middle-aged.
Ecosse1314 says
Very very true. There is a nasty strain on this site of born again Christians who wish to disparage the RC church and its history. They truly believe that they and only they discovered the truth in the Reformation
Historian says
You are way off base. The commentator, whose penname is a Byzantine emperor who specifically criticized traditional Islamic ideas of jihad–so Orthodox NOT “born again” or any other form of Christianity that is the product of the Reformation–tried to make the (very weak) point that NO Western Christians since the first millennium has been following Christ.So that would be a claim that includes “born-again” and other “Protestant” Christians i.e. those following post-Reformation versions of Christianity.
And it isn’t only Protestants gratuitously dissing Roman Catholicism on this site, but the other way as well.
All such interconfessional quibbling needs to be put aside for the sake of confronting the more serious problem of traditional Islam vis a vis the West. John Quincy Adams and Manuel II Palaiologos were both more clear-eyed about the problem of traditional Islam vis a vis Christians–and by extension the West– than Jorge Bergoglio is.
gravenimage says
Good post, DDA.
Ibrahim itace muhammed says
majority in the West are not satisfied with mithraist Christianity because of those pagan doctrines líke Godman and begotten son of God. They look for alternative. the alternative is islam. Hence, people are trooping to join Islam that Will make the West à muslim majority
CogitoErgoSum says
Illegal immigration, financial support from the infidels, rape and murder work pretty well too.
dumbledoresarmy says
And the apostasy law that means that those who foolishly convert to Islam (often after having been given an entirely false and superficial view of what it is all about), *and* those who are ‘cradle Muslims’, cannot leave it without risking *getting killed*.
Save Europe says
Absolute nonsense you cretin!!! The reason is that Muslims breed like rabbits, and are illegally entering the UK. Very few people are foolish enough to convert to a misogynistic, evil Death Cult.
LeftisruiningCanada says
Who wouldn’t be satisfied with following a child raping, slave taking, desert raider?
Karen says
Not to mention all the head chopping. That’s my favorite.
LeftisruiningCanada says
Oh yeah, awesome. And imagine, you’d never have to feel compelled to tell the truth to someone who is less islamic than you are. Fantastic! And the slaves, all those slaves you could one day hope to take.
The benefits really are obvious for anyone to see.
dumbledoresarmy says
Some are. Those who are *already* inclined to evil. As John Quincy Adams observed, the essence of Mohammed’s teaching was “violence and lust, to exalt the brutal over the spiritual side of man’s nature”. Islam appeals to everything that is most base and evil in the . all too fallible – human psyche. Mohammed’s first ‘companions’ were caravan raiders. No surprise that Muslim ‘prison dawa’ gets a rich crop of converts from among rapists, armed robbers, murderers… It tells them that everything they already lust to do, and enjoy doing, is *good* and pleasing to ‘allah’, so long as they do it to the dirty kuffar, who are lawful Prey animals..
LeftisruiningCanada says
all true
Baucent says
trooping to join Islam? Where is the evidence?
Julius Legatus says
You again? Boy you live in a dream world. You exude arrogance. Islam has ensured its primary position as the most despised ideology in the globe, especially in UK and Europe. You have no idea the monster, Islamic behaviour has created- grooming gangs, insidious violence, and utterly illogical unjustified sense of superiority. Islam will never sit well or actually survive in UK without massive persecution and wild mobs like those in Pakistan. Frankly if I were a Moslem I would be far more cautious in such wanton glibness. Feel the cold clammy winds of resentment- deep resentment wafting on the breeze. It ain’t over yet Sir…not by a long chalk.You do not understand humanity. I do not want war and I am an ordained priest but I fear a monster is in the wind- a huge unstoppable rejection of the political class and its ridiculous prancing clients like Islam. Islam has “cooked its goose”. If this offend you then tough!
Chand says
Christians are not interested not because of ‘pagan’ doctrines but because scientific materialism has permanently eroded and hollowed out the unproven claims of organized religions.
Islam too will not be able to withstand the blows of scientific materialism and it will erode away in the future too.
It is the ‘universal acid’ that eats away at all erroneous thinking from the past.
Ibrahim itace muhammed says
chand, i can observe that the deeper a muslim goes into scientific materialism the deeper the degree of his satisfaction with Islam. t is now that muslims are becoming advanced in Sciences that they are becoming more practicing muslims.
Ecosse1314 says
Tell us again how Mohamhead forecasted the moon landings
LeftisruiningCanada says
The guy apparently couldn’t even forecast where his semen would end up, let alone anything else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfDYzY-shBA
Chand says
Every human being might have some personal relationship with the Divine. Or he/she might not. I was talking about organized religions, including Christianity and Islam. Science might not, of course, erode a person’s own spiritual life or faith.
Karen says
Allah is the pagan Arabian moon god that predated Islam. Look it up.
gravenimage says
Ibrahim itace muhammed wrote:
majority in the West are not satisfied with mithraist Christianity because of those pagan doctrines líke Godman and begotten son of God. They look for alternative. the alternative is islam. Hence, people are trooping to join Islam that Will make the West à muslim majority
………………………
Ibrahim itace muhammed has made this ludicrous claim many times before, but it is quite false. In fact, there are more Muslims in the West leaving Islam than there are Kuffar converting to that foul creed.
The entire net growth of Islam in the West has been from the Muslim invasion.
gravenimage says
Ibrahim itace muhammed keeps making this ludicrous claim, completely ignoring the fact that far more Muslims in the West are *leaving* Islam than are Infidels converting to it.
dumbledoresarmy says
From the article – ” In the United Kingdom, only 7 per cent of young adults identify as Chrsitian Anglican, fewer than the 10 per cent who categorise themselves as Christian Catholic.
Young Muslims, at 6 per cent, are on the brink of overtaking those who consider themselves part of the country’s established church..”.
The Guardian, of course, hates and despises Christianity, and is grovellingly Islamophile. So one should beware of ‘spin’.
The *total* number of active Christians, as opposed to the total number of Muslims, is what matters.
These stats tell us that *17* percent of young adults are active churchgoing Christians… whether Anglican or Catholic. And 17 percent is a lot more than 7 percent.. especially when one factors in (as the Guardian carefully does NOT) the fact that Christianity doesn’t have a lethal ‘apostasy law’ whereas Islam *does*… i.e. … how many of those young Muslims would be going along to mosque **if there were no lethal apostasy law hanging over their heads**?
The figures quoted by the ‘Guardian’ do not tell us what percentage of young Britons attend churches of *other* descriptions; since ‘Anglican’ and ‘Catholic’ are not the only show in town; there are the various free churches, Pentecostals and such, besides the Presbyterians in Scotland and ‘chapel’ in Wales.
And the Guardian would never in a million years mention the *apostates* from Islam, both those who have – **despite the appalling risk involved** – joined… the Christian church, and those who now live as atheists. Both groups – the Christian ex-Muslims, the atheist ex-Muslims – tend to… live in hiding under changed names. The story of one such apostate is told in a book called “The Imam’s Daughter’, by one Hannah Shah (nom de plume). She is now an active, practising Christian… yes, within that much-despised and much-caricatured Anglican Church, which like all churches in the world is a mixed bag – and married to a church-going young man of indigenous British ancestry.
There is a whole ‘underground network’ of apostates, both for those who have turned Christian, and those who have become atheists.
If there were more public, official, and consistent encouragement and protection for *apostates* from Islam, what would the statistics look like, I wonder?
LeftisruiningCanada says
Great response DDA.
It’s almost as if they are licking the hand that feeds them.
dumbledoresarmy says
Well: every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we pray *Thy Kingdom come”.
Let us pray it *with intent*.
The “Thy Kingdom Come” project is, I think, potentially very significant. It is about praying, intentionally, for God to transform hearts; to reveal himself, to save people.
Back in the 15th century, Pope Calixtus instituted the ‘Turkish bell’, summoning the faithful to pray, in the face of the onslaught that was coming from the Ottoman Muslim turks.
And.. who knows? …I don’t know how *widely*, how consistently, Catholic Christians obeyed that summons but.. just perhaps.. it was a factor in the cascade of victories that would follow over the next two centuries, that despite the terrible blow of the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the period 1453-1683 saw, overall, a *massive* pushback against Islam and a removal of the Ummah from numerous originally-Christian regions that it had occupied and oppressed.
Here (from wiki, with some parenthetical comment by myself) is one account of Calixtus’ attempts to rally the faithful against the Jihad.
“..Not quite two years after the fall of Constantinople, he was chiefly concerned with the organisation of Christian Europe against an invasion by the Turks (that is, an invasion by Muslims – dda).
‘An extensive building program under way in Rome was cancelled, and the money funnelled toward a crusade. Papal Nuncios were dispatched to all the countries of Europe to beseech the princes to join once more in an effort to check the danger of a Turkish invasion. Missionaries were sent to England, France, Germany, Hungary, Portugal and Aragon to preach the Crusaade **and to engage the prayers of the faithful for the success of the enterprise** (my emphasis – dda).
“It was by order of Calixtus III that the bells were rung at midday to remind the faithful that they should pray for the welfare of the crusaders** (my emphasis – and this was in addition to the practice of the ringing of the Angelus – dda).
“The princes of Europe were slow in responding to the call of the pope, largely due to national rivalries (this is one of the reasons why the eventual turning-of-the-tide at Vienna in 1683 can surely be regarded as a near-miracle, given the chronic disunity of ‘Christendom’ whether between East and West or within West and East! – dda)…
“Forces led by John Hunyadi (Hungarian: Hunyadi Janos) Captain-General of Hungary, met the [Muslim] Turks and defeated them at Belgrade, 22 July 1456…
“On 29 June 1456 Calixtus III ordered the church bells to be rung at noon… as a call to prayer for the welfare of those defending Belgrade.
“To commemorate the victory, Calixtus III ordered the Feast of the Transfiguration to be held annually on 6 August..” (how many in the western churches now know that the current date on which we – Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans – celebrate the Transfiguration of our Lord, was chosen to commemorate.. a victory against the Jihad? – dda).
Memo to any jihadwatchers here who are a/ Christian and b/ lucky enough to have parish priests/ clergy (of whatever tradition) who are *aware* of the Jihad and awake up to the Meaning and Menace posed by Islam… perhaps you can tell your clergyperson about the ‘Turkish Bell’ and ask that, if your church has a bell or bells, that custom can be revived.
*Especially* if you live within Western Europe, on the continent or in Britain. Ring – not the ‘Turkish bell’ but… ‘the Jihad alarm bell’, and this is to be a reminder to pray for 1/ the exposure and utter defeat of every form of Jihad (including ‘demographic’ jihad, immigration-jihad, jihad-of-the-purse [use of petrodollars for bribery and buying-up influence and territory], jihad-of-the-pen [propaganda, Islamopuffery, Muslim theatre of victimhood paraded in our media]; 2/ the relief and deliverance of all non-Muslims – whether Christian or non-Christian – who suffer as de-facto dhimmis in Muslim-dominated lands or regions and 3/ **the conversion of Muslims to Christ**.
And whether your parish church/ priest is awake up or not… there is nothing to prevent every Christian jihadwatcher from … praying this very same set of prayers at midday, *anyway*; honouring and extending the vision of Calixtus, his attempts to rally and energise the faithful. If you are a Catholic, you can in addition recite the Rosary, “with intent’. If you are Protestant, recite a Psalm or two in addition.
Pray for the removal of the proto-dhimmi and/ or traitorous – or even ‘closet-Muslim’ mindset that binds and blinds many persons in authority – both religious and secular – within the non-Islamic world… whether in ‘the West’ or beyond it. Pray for *deliverance*. “For He has shattered the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron in sunder”.
Pray.. and it may come to praying *and fasting* (but without the empty parade of ‘public piety’ that the Mohammedans indulge in… Christians who decide to *fast* as they pray for defeat of Jihad and deliverance of those that Muslims are attacking and oppressing, will do it ‘in secret’, and not parade their action all over the place).
I would encourage our *Jewish* brethren here present, posting or lurking, to pray ‘beside us’; to get out the Tehillim and recite, seeking the deliverance of the House of Israel from genocidal Muslim jihad, and seeking deliverance for others similarly assailed.
Nothing scares Muslims sh*tless more than when Christians and Jews… pray for the same thing! Muslims are *terrified* of our prayers… that is why they attack and destroy our places of worship; why they desecrated the Hagia Sophia; why they squat on the Temple Mount and throw screaming tantrums- and rocks – if they even suspect that any Christian or Jewish visitor to that spot might be *praying*.
*That* tells us that we – we who believe – MUST pray and persevere in prayer and refuse to give up and refuse to despair. It doesn’t mean that we ought not to do *other* things, what are called ‘practical things’. Ora et labora, thus runs the old monastic motto. But we who do pray *must* pray whatever else we are doing.
Richard Courtemanche says
Of course, who’s stopping it!
gravenimage says
Report: Islam poised to overtake Christianity in the UK
………………..
This is–as some posters have noted–quite deceptive. It does not include all Christians, but just Anglicans, and focuses entirely on young people.
Christians and Jews tend to become more devout as they get older–you do not find the same pattern with Mohammedans.
The invasion of Muslims into the UK *is* alarming, and I do not want to minimize that–but the constant claims that Islam has almost won in the West are frequently overstated.
The fact is that over 59% of Britons are Christian, and over a quarter have no religion. Those who practice Islam make up 4.4% of the population. Still disturbing–but hardly the near majority this article implies.
LeftisruiningCanada says
And, if it were possible, let’s see how the mosque attendance figures are if we could eliminate every shred of peer pressure, social expectation and outright threats.
With Christians in the UK there really is no compulsion in religion.
gravenimage says
Also true, LeftisruiningCanada.
dumbledoresarmy says
I wouldn’t write the church off just yet. And I wouldn’t advise the triumphant atheists – and the foolish Islamophiles – at the ‘Guardian’ to crow too loudly; it might have an effect opposite to what they intend.
The Taize and L’Abri movements both seem to be going strong: offering hospitality and spiritual nourishment to all kinds of ‘seekers’ in the 18-30s age-group, and sowing the seed unceasingly.
And in the UK the dusty old Prayer Book (1662) is being rediscovered by individuals, priests and congregations, with surprising results.
https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2018/2-february/features/features/church-and-youth-the-shock-of-the-old
Church and youth: the shock of the old
“…Home was not a place bursting with the cultural accoutrements of religion: I was not sung to sleep with Matt Redman songs, nor introduced to Thomas Aquinas alongside Topsy and Tim.
“There was, however, an old Book of Common Prayer that sat on the bookshelf where my parents kept books thought not to be of any great interest to us children.
“It was, if I remember, sandwiched between the Daily Telegraph’s Second Book of Obituaries, and D. H. Lawrence’s Women in Love. It had belonged to a long-dead great-aunt, and was replete with prayers for Queen Mary.
“Intrigued by that old-book smell, and in lieu of anything else, I began to pray occasionally, using the offices of morning and evening prayer.
“THE imagery of the psalms, the honesty of the confession, and the twin jewels of the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis all captivated me.
“When I revealed to someone much older than myself at church that I had explored private prayer using it, however, I was met with an unexpected response: “Oh, you can’t be using that,” followed by a litany of the Prayer Book’s shortcomings, crowned with the criticism — levelled without a hint of irony — that “young people just don’t understand it.”
“**Few things are more likely to work with a 16-year-old boy than reverse psychology** (my emphasis – dda); so I became determined to explore further…”**
And here is something else, that meshes very closely with the above article (by one of those ‘barely-churched’ individuals who just happened, one day, to pick up the Book of Common Prayer and… fell in love with God).
https://stephenmcalpine.com/2017/05/12/millennial-evangelicals-and-church/
Millennial Evangelicals and Church.
Those crowing over the decline of faith amongst ‘young people’ had better beware of being *too categorical* and too openly gloating… because they might well *awaken* curiosity amongst some of those very same young people.
To make nonreligion conventional, fashionable and *easy* might well end up backfiring. After all – how do you rebel against your casually nonreligious parents? Some foolish young people are converting to Islam.. but might not others decide to rediscover the faith of their greatgrandparents?
I have a zealously antitheist brother. He is now, with some consternation, watching as his nine-year-old daughter – unbaptised, and kept sedulously from any contact with Christianity, apart from a family funeral he couldn’t possibly avoid – discovers, and *devours* C S Lewis’s ‘Narnia’ books…
Some twenty years ago I attended an evangelical Anglican church in an inner-city suburb of a big city in Australia. There were two people in that church who had been raised by openly, actively atheist/ antitheist parents. Parents who were *flabbergasted* when one of those people, as a middle-school child, discovered a Bible in a forgotten bookshelf and demanded to know what was in it; or, in the other case, made friends with active Christians while at University and… converted. Talk about chickens discovering they have hatched an emu egg!
LeftisruiningCanada says
+1
gravenimage says
Thank you, DDA!