Since the last census in 2001, the number of Britons identifying themselves, however loosely, as Christians is down 13 percentage points to 59 per cent.(Thompson then points to a major cultural watershed line: "saddled with shrinking congregations and (so far) dreadful leadership from Archbishops Williams and Nichols, the Churches haven't a hope in hell of stopping gay marriage." Where, of course, the now increasingly likely homosexualist agenda of legalisation of the twisting of marriage out of Creation order, will not only undermine the primary support for social stability, marriage, but will be tantamount to the outlawing of robust, Bible-believing Christian faith. To which I say, we have been illegal before, and have been unjustly blamed for social ills to the point where many people thought it appropriate to light up their garden parties with Christians turned into living torches and onwards many did not think it an injustice to send Christians to face lions in the arena for popular entertainment.)
The number of respondents who say they have no religious faith is up 10 points to 25 per cent. Meanwhile, staggeringly, the Muslim population has grown from 1.55 million to 2.7 million, an increase of 1.15 million from 2001 to 2011.
The surge in Islamic belief is entirely a consequence of immigration. The spread of agnosticism and atheism is (though I haven't yet seen the breakdown by age) largely generational.
It cannot be said too often: the default position of people born since 1980 is agnosticism or atheism. [emphasis original] Meanwhile, as a commenter points out below, net migration from the UK consists largely of people who would probably have ticked the Christian or C of E box. That hadn't occurred to me, but it's an important factor.
See what I mean, regarding a de-christinising tidal wave from the north?
I think the pivotal observation above is:
It cannot be said too often: the default position of people born since 1980 is agnosticism or atheism.Let us ask, given the serious difficulties that evolutionary materialism-driven secular humanism has with:
- addressing the astonishing fine-tuning of our cosmos that facilitates Carbon Chemistry, aqueous medium, cell-based life
- getting to origin of life or of body plans per the functional complex information and organisation involved
- grounding the reliability credibility of the thinking, perceiving, conscious, knowing and reasoning mind as well as similarly grounding morals
- the balance of evidence concerning Jesus of Nazareth, his life, his passion and his resurrection [Cf., too, here, here, here in recent days at KF, here in context on worldviews, also the video on understanding ID here]
But, the trick of course, is that one needs to know about those issues and their import.
What has happened, is that instead the generation born since 1980, in the name of science as well as education and serious media, has by and large been presented time and again with a one-sided, propagandistic picture of serious worldview options. Where at the hands of the likes of a Dawkins et al, this has been compounded with denigratory or demonising caricatures of those options and those who adhere to them.
That is why we see as a typical sort of comment from one of those so indoctrinated, that chrisr imagines that:
Another big factor in the spread of atheism and agnosticism is the internet and the easy exchange of information - religions and other superstitions rely on 'faith', i.e. not questioning too deeply, and it is no coincidence that in developed countries the higher the level of education a person attains, the less likely they are to be religious. The more science shows us about the universe, the more fascinating it becomes, and the ramblings of 2000 year old middle eastern farmers seem less and less satisfying.Of course, just the opposite is going on, there is a failure to understand the severe limitations of evolutionary materialism driven secularism (not to mention its major unquestioned but controversial assumptions and implications . . . ), because of pervasive indoctrination.
(BTW, just as a test, how would you answer this man, helping him correct the many and major misunderstandings and errors implied by what he says? Can you soundly answer as to the reason for the faith commitment you have, per 1 Pet 3:15? Would the typical Christian off the street or taken from our church pews? If not, why not, given the apostolic mandate implied in that statement? What does this say about what has been going on in our churches? [DV, on the morrow, I will mark up this comment. In the meanwhile as homework, why not jot down your thoughts and points. Fulfilled here.])
Consequently, on the one hand we see the rise of radical, nihilistic might and manipulation make 'right secularisation of the culture, and on the other, the ingress of militant sub-cultures that deliberately isolate and hold in contempt the majority culture, being increasingly driven by a vision of settlement and subjugation.
We need to learn from this, and determine that we will take a firm stand now in our region, before it is too late.
And, in particular, we need to take back education and provide serious and impressive alternatives online and on air. Which of course brings us back to the need for that balancing AACCS as has been discussed.) END
