Here is a long article on the decline of religion in Europe. A few points….
They emphasize the greater decline of Protestantism without being explicit (note the excess of Catholic statistics, I suspect the Protestant ones would be very low)
They note the prevalence of non-whites in many of the more dynamic churches
Europeans have not turned into secular rationalists, but just become turned off to their historic organized religions
This article is framed in the current context of the tensions in the Anglican Communion over homosexuality. Conservatives regularly look to the African churches to buttress their traditional morality and social teaching. But should they? Note:
Pastor Ashimolowo, a Nigerian immigrant, started Kingsway 11 years ago, and it now claims about 10,000 members in East London, along with thousands more elsewhere. Many are from Africa, or their parents were.
….
Worshipers often speak in tongues and take part in faith healings, practices that have begun to crop up as well in more traditional settings, like a United Reformed congregation in East London.
While Western conservatives want to take the church back a few decades or maintain the status quo, I suspect the new blood in Christianity is a shift back centuries to an era of magical thinking. See my post Next Christianity for my cynical take of the “browning” of Christianity.
The general tone of the article reminds me somewhat of the last days of Greco-Roman paganism, where the people were ripe for a new religious dispensation and no longer believed in their old gods (or so the monks tell us!). It has been 1400 years since the rise of Islam, perhaps it’s time for another world religion, this time coming out of Europe?
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