Tel-Chai Nation

Damian Thompson of the UK Telegraph makes clear the sad facts about the religious state of affairs in Britain:

Poor Rowan Williams: wrong to the end. Christianity is not "fading away" in Britain, he says. Yes it is, as the census figures clearly illustrate.

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.

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.

In France, even if most residents aren't the most observantly religious, plenty have still identified themselves as Roman Catholic by default. The UK is clearly a very different scenario in some ways.

I'm not sure if immigration is the sole factor in the rise of Islam in Britain though - if you know where to look, you'll find plenty of homegrown Islamists there too.

As for Rowan Williams, I seem to remember that he was the one who welcomed sharia in the UK, and repeated this dhimmi act at least one more time later on. I figure he's making this flawed claim about Christianity's role in Britain just to ease concerns about the rise of Islam in the same country. Alas, he isn't accomplishing anything.

Update: here's another report on the decline of Christianity in Britain from the Wash. Post/Religion News Service.

Labels: Christianity, dhimmitude, immigration, islam, londonistan