In recent years, especially since 9/11, we have become used to hearing of the rise of Islam in the west and its possibly inevitable growth to majority status in some European countries. This is the story told by Mark Steyn in America Alone and by Bat Ye’or in Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis. However, a recent convert from Islam to Christianity, named Daniel, tells a different tale in this interview worth reading in its entirety: A Muslim Preacher Converts to Orthodoxy. Here’s one paragraph:
The presence of mosques in the UK is very weak. Most Muslims won’t ever go to a mosque. The young people have effectively left Islam, even if they say that they’re still Muslims. In the mosques they don’t find a common language with the Imams from Pakistan or Bangladesh. Young people can barely speak Urdu or Bengali but only English. Many are ashamed of Islam because of terrorism. Our inter-religious council investigated mosque attendance and we know what the real picture is and it is especially alarming for Islam, but it is to the advantage of certain people to present Islam as an immense force. If one takes the list of mosques in Muslim publications, for example, in West London, we find that there are twenty mosques and much free space in each of these mosques, even though the number of people of Muslim origins in London is such that they would need even more mosques if a majority went. In one large mosque in London there might be three hundred people for Friday prayers. Many mosques are just small halls that are only used on Friday. In general, believers are very rare in mosques and most are children who bring their parents. When they grow, they disappear. Christianity offers a free choice, thus it is much better adapted to life in a climate of tolerance, and Islam is unable to pass this test.
Might Christianity take root amongst such nominal Muslims? We cannot say at this point, but we do know that the predominant secularism of the west cannot satisfy over the long term. This provides a possibly unanticipated opening for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
March 7th, 2010 | 6:31 pm | #1
Theodore Dalrymple sees this secularization with much less optimistic eyes. For while he agrees it’s real
However, their nominal Islam gives them one great advantage that many are loath to give up:
(The full text, here, is worth reading.)
March 7th, 2010 | 7:25 pm | #2
Here is the frightening aspect of this reality. It is precisely from the “secularized” Muslim communities that radicals are able to move in and preach jihad and convince young men to embrace once more “true Islam” and that means warring for God and for all real/imagined injustices being experienced in various historically Islamic nations and peoples.
There is little comfort in this report, but rather, much to be concerned about. Radicalized Muslim young men are precisely those who are involved in jihadist movements who seek to destroy the West, its culture and its institutions.
March 7th, 2010 | 7:45 pm | #3
It should also be noted that most of the young Muslims that are not able to speak Arabic are the children of immigrants who came twenty/thirty years ago from a more secularized Middle East. To a large extent, since they came from upper class government families, they were already rather secularized.
Yemen, Iran, even Saddam’s Iraq were much more secularized than twenty years ago than they are today. When I lived in Yemen twenty years ago, I thought nothing of going down the street in a pair of shorts or going by myself to a restaurant. Today, I couldn’t do the first safely and would need a guard to even go out to dinner. My friends were almost all “secular” Muslims who went to school in England or Canada and maintained belief in God, but didn’t keep Ramadan, would drink alcohol, etc. My sister’s friends (6-7 years younger) who were more affected by the post-secular society in the Middle East are much more devout, and some are now radicals.
It’s these immigrants from the past twenty years in the Middle East that are just beginning to immigrate to Europe and who are not secularizing.
March 7th, 2010 | 10:30 pm | #4
Secular schmecular, violence schmiolence. Neither of these are the big threat. I’m concerned with plain old Godless heresy. That is what endangers the West.
The way this will finally pan out is like this- Muslims will eventually encounter real believing Christians in a free (no, let us say …) safe environment. Then they will hear of a God Who has descended to His creation, the God on the Cross. “And I, when I am lifted up, will draw all men unto myself.” Then, Muslims will turn to the Church and the wind will move from West to East, (or more likely from South to North in that there are more Christians in Africa than the U.S. but we’ll see).
March 8th, 2010 | 1:38 am | #5
Without doubting the truth of what’s being said there; just a few things to note.
1) There are some areas in the UK where Islam is dominant to the extent that Christian preachers and evangelists are told by (non-Muslim) police that it’s basically a no-go area for them. Thankfully, they often ignore such warnings.
2) Part of the Islamic strategy is to over-expand and claim cultural ownership of certain areas. Having an over-supply of Mosques for practicing Muslims suits this agenda.
3) Secularism destroyed a Christian (Trinitarian) culture here in the UK. Islamic (dull unitarian) culture doesn’t have a hope in the long-run, against institutions such as the secular education systems and the BBC.
4) Christianity is resurgent in the UK. Actual numbers are going down, but that’s purely the old, liberal, nominal folk (literally) dying out. Evangelicals and Pentecostals are growing. That is a bigger force even than secularism.
March 8th, 2010 | 9:13 am | #6
Anyone commenting on this thread actually know or have friendships with any actual Muslims?
I’m curious because my experience with Muslims from Asia, India and the Middle East through work looks a lot more like the cultural trend David has linked to than the, um, examples listed in the comments here.
March 8th, 2010 | 9:32 am | #7
My father’s best childhood friend was a Turkish Cypriot whom he was able to connect with again about five years ago after many decades without contact. He is nominally Muslim, while my dad grew up Orthodox Christian. But there was no felt cleavage between the two. His friend rarely attends the mosque and is rather nominal in his faith. This is not unusual for Turkish Cypriots, from what my father tells me.
March 8th, 2010 | 10:01 am | #8
Here is something from Canada’s most curmudgeonly journalist, David Warren: Church & Mosque & State. I found these paragraphs illuminating:
My father, who was born in Cyprus and lived side-by-side with Muslims, always told me that he thought Islam to be a Christian heresy and that its roots were Christian. Warren seems to confirm this view.
March 8th, 2010 | 12:56 pm | #9
Maybe it is just me but seeing the violence of Muslims against Christians in non-Western countries gives me some pause about this claim. The slaughter of 300 Christians in Nigeria over the weekend is just the latest example. And there are growing instances of “honor killings” in the West, even in America, to doubt this claim. I wonder the level of tolerance these nominal Muslims show the radicals they interact with? It seems having a propensity to tolerate such radicalism raises serious questions about one’s commitments. And what about the Western nationals leaving for jihad?
March 8th, 2010 | 1:15 pm | #10
“I wonder the level of tolerance these nominal Muslims show the radicals they interact with?”
My guess is that it’s a tolerance based on fear, genuine, legitimate fear.
Speak up *against* the violent radicals, and you and your family are the next targets to be killed.
March 8th, 2010 | 6:23 pm | #11
Frank,
Obviously you didn’t read my comment. Furthermore, I should mention that I currently live in a Muslim country…so yeah, I’ve got a pretty good idea how Muslims think and most of the current crop of young Muslims remain semi-devout or embrace radicalism when they are faced with secularism. I’ve met women who went from an ornate head covering to solid black fully covered simply as a way to rebel against the over-sexualization of women by the West.
March 8th, 2010 | 8:52 pm | #12
“Might Christianity take root amongst such nominal Muslims?”
Really only one way to find out, of course ;)
Great post!
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