I read in today's Guardian newspaper the following: For the first time, in possibly a millennium, fewer
than half of all Britons call themselves Christian. This month's updating of the 2011 consensus
suggests that the latest figure is down from 60% to 51%, with predictions
that next year it will be in the 40s. No one yet knows it says what the pandemic has done to
religious faith but the trend across the western world is the same. At least in wealthier countries,
religion of any sort is becoming a minority practice. The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin
Welby is an ardent evangelical that means he wants to convert everyone to Christianity. His Anglican
Church has spent a phenomenal 240 million pounds since 2017 on a mission to "plant" new churches
apparently to no avail. And our writer links to another article published on November the 17th
last month entitled Archbishop: 'If Church is to die let it be an operatic death" and the article says
the Church of England is not on the way out the Archbishop of Canterbury declared yesterday
this was last month but conceded that next year will mark 70 unbroken years of annual decline
in the number of churchgoers with less than two percent of the population now attending church
regularly. Justin Welby's second in command a guy called Stephen Cottrell told General Synod
that's the parliament of the church, quote "Even if it doesn't, let our death be a grand operatic
death, let it be something fantastic, let's not crawl into a corner." Unquote. So you know let's
make talk about making a virtue out of necessity let's go out with a bang he seems to be saying
but Justin Welby the Archbishop of Canterbury told the Synod, quote, "We may often be foolish,
we are always sinful, but at every point including especially here we need to learn to listen to the
stranger on the shore." Quote unquote. Attendance at church services fell to an all-time low 690 000
in 2019 from almost 1.2 million in 1986. The decline according to the article is largely
caused by a lack of younger worshipers to fill the spaces left by older parishioners when they die.
The average age of a Church of England worshiper is 61, which is quite extraordinary! Now
what I was reading a Muslim writer on a related subject today and he says something
very interesting because Muslim populations in Europe are now quite substantial and in
many places, Britain, France and Germany, Islam is the second religion of those countries.
A writer says the following that Muslims can claim he says to belong here to Europe
to the real deep Europe. Secular politicians he says whatever their opportunistic
and desperate claims they are in many cases aliens, foreigners, recent immigrants, from Planet Atheism.
So he's saying these secularist politicians are not really from Europe they have no deep
roots here they don't belong to deep historic traditional Europe they come from Planet Atheism.
Contrast them and the hateful columnists with the Muslim men and women who have a family life
which recalls how Europe used to be. This is fascinating: he said figures now show
that more than half of the british people see family and friends less than once a month
while only 20 percent eat a meal at the family dining table at least once a week this
is certainly not the ishmaelite and hagarine way now that's our author's way of speaking of muslims
this is not the muslim way which assumes that three generations will live together
in every house and that everyone keeps up with the relatives muslims are socially conservative in
many ways that real europeans of a more european age would have recognized and honored he writes
thus we find the prophetic saying quote that the whole earth is made a mosque for me
to be true we experience a real belongingness here we profess so much of what always constituted the
deepest truth of european culture all humans irrespective of religious allegiance he says
have a capacity to recognize and yearn for the fitra and they should be able to see it in us
and here he quotes uh the 30th surah the 30th ayah which i'll read here in Abdel Haleem's translation:
'So [Prophet] as a man of pure faith, stand firm and true in your devotion to religion,
this is the natural disposition God instilled in mankind [this is the original pattern, the original
fitra of God] there is no altering God's creation. And this is the right religion, though most people
do not realize it.' That's Surah 30 30. Our writer continues: we should be confident that a real
uncompromising fitry islam will always gather an audience of respect for like a majestic tree it
puts down deep roots which reach beyond even the christian and jewish to the religion of abraham as
hanif so he was a monotheist in the quote there so this is a fascinating insight that muslims
although some particularly older generations may dress differently than other europeans do but in
terms of their enduring values the realities which they bear witness to their socially conservative
lifestyle their maintenance of family values and tradition and so on these these speak to
an older europe a europe of the deep past and so this is a healthy positive thing this is the fitra
being manifest in our midst and while society around us uh today seems to offer little more than
nihilism relativism and a very secularist militant liberalism which disintegrates society and leaves
us empty uh the second largest religion in europe continues to bear witness to these eternal truths
of our human nature and of faith so in the deepest sense muslims can claim he says that
they belong here to the real deep deeper europe because they bear witness to these realities
and secular politicians are there witnessing to a very recent and socially disintegrative
and nihilistic philosophy to such that one recent right-wing commentator spoke of the
suicide of europe and he uh this is Douglas Murray in his recent book is an atheist but
he laments the absence of faith and spoke of the suicide of europe because we no longer know
why we're here we no longer know what our purpose is we no longer have a sense of direction and
we have lost the sense of god so that's a fascinating insight i personally am very
unhappy that the churches are declining i want to see strong robust churches bearing witness to
traditional values into worship of god and so on despite whatever disagreements they may be with
their theology in certain matters nevertheless they are infinitely i think to be preferred
to an empty militant atheism which seeks to reduce us to nothing to an absence of meaning
and absence of god and absence of humanity even which is a necessary consequence of that
so there we are i just wanted to share those thoughts with you. Till next time.