Change of faith: Why young Brits turn from Christianity to Islam
The UK’s official religion is dwindling at a record speed, with the decline of the Church “approaching rock bottom,” experts warn. While Christian congregations age, most British mosques are bringing more and more young people on board.
Change of faith: Why young Brits turn from Christianity to Islam
By RT.com | Last updated: Sep 27, 2013 - 9:56:22 AM
Local Mosque in the Hyde Park area of Leeds, England. Photo: AP World Wide Photo
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Public mosque services attract thousands of British Muslims, but when you check out a church, there are hardly a dozen participants at Sunday morning worship, RT’s Polly Boiko reports from London.
“The decline of churches in the UK is long term, now it just happens to be approaching rock bottom. So 95 percent of people don’t attend church on an average Sunday. Christian worship is already the concern of a tiny minority of people,” Andrew Copson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, told RT.
“The decline of churches in the UK is long term, now it just happens to be approaching rock bottom. So 95 percent of people don’t attend church on an average Sunday. Christian worship is already the concern of a tiny minority of people,” Andrew Copson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, told RT.
“I think over time even the weak cultural identity that still seems to be associated with Christianity will banish away, probably all over Europe, not just in the UK,” Copson added.
The British Muslim population has surged dramatically over the past 15 years, increasing by 75 percent. According to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics, Muslims have the youngest age profile of the religious groups, with 48 percent (1.3 million) aged under 25.
“The passivity that Christianity promotes is perceived as alien and disconnected to Black youths growing up in often violent and challenging urban environments in Britain today,” the former chairman of Brixton Mosque, Abdul Haqq Baker, wrote in the Guardian. “ ‘Turning the other cheek’ invites potential ridicule and abuse, whereas resilience, strength and self-dignity evokes respect and, in some cases, fear from unwanted attention,” he said.
At some point in his life, Baker, raised as a Roman Catholic like his father, converted to Islam. Turning the other cheek has never been an option since then. The majority of young people he had interviewed converted from Christianity to Islam for similar reasons, he says.
“With my newfound faith, there existed religious guidelines that provided spiritual and behavioral codes of conduct. Role models such as Malcolm X only helped to reinforce the perception that Islam enabled the empowerment of one’s masculinity coupled with righteous and virtuous conduct as a strength, not a weakness,” the founder of Street UK, Strategy to Reach Empower and Educate Teenagers program, explained.
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Joining gangs has always been thought of as a safe option but it leafs to tragedy. Similarly with Islam. Jesus conquered death but Mohammed cannot save even himself.
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