Religious immigrants will alter the religious landscape of Europe

In 2011, a paper was published entitled The End of Secularization in Europe?:
A Socio-Demographic Perspective. The authors of the paper were: Eric Kaufmann -
Birkbeck College, University of London; Anne Goujon - World Population Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA); Vegard Skirbekk
World Population Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).

An excerpt from the paper by Kaufmann, Goujon and Skirbekk can be found below:

Conservative Protestants, a much larger group than the Mormons, also benefit from relatively high fertility. Hout et al. (2001) find that three-quarters of the growth of conservative Protestant denominations against their liberal counterparts is due to
fertility advantage rather than conversion.

In Europe, there has been less attention paid to fertility differences between denominations. However, several studies have discovered that immigrants to Europe tend to be more religious than the host population and — especially if Muslim—tend to retain their religiosity (Van Tubergen 2006). Though some indicators point to modest religious decline toward the host society mean, other trends suggest that immigrants become more, rather than less, religious the longer they reside in the host society (Van Tubergen 2007).  All of which indicates that religious decline may fail at the aggregate level even if it is occurring at the individual level (Kaufmann 2006, 2010). This article thereby investigates the hypothesis that a combination of higher religious fertility, immigration, and slowing rates of religious apostasy will eventually produce a reversal in the decline of the religious population of Western Europe.

In addition, The Birkbeck College, University of London professor Eric Kaufmann using a multitude of demographic studies argues in an academic paper entitled Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? Demography and Politics in the Twenty-First Century the decline of atheism in terms of its global adherents is an established trend that will persist for the foreseeable future and the rate of decline will accelerate and affect the Western World. See: Why are the years 2012 and 2020 key years for Christian creationists and pro-lifers?

Bible believing Christianity could conceivably increase their retention rate

Christian apologetics is the field of study which focuses on defending the Christian faith through evidence and sound arguments. In recent times, there is a growing interest in Christian apologetics within Christendom. For example, Ratio Christi is a global movement that equips university students and faculty to give historical, philosophical, and scientific reasons for following Jesus Christ. It is a fairly new organization is spreading on U.S campuses and established a few foreign chapters as well.

In May of 2011, the Christian apologetics organization Stand to Reason wrote:

Ratio Christi, a fairly new apologetics organization that is seeking to change the intellectual atmosphere at universities by bringing Christianity into public, academic discussion. Their goal is to start on-campus apologetics clubs at 500 universities in the next five years. This is where you come in--because it’s also Ratio Christi’s goal to connect each of these clubs with a person who has been trained in apologetics (but who probably has a different day job) to act as chapter director.

Ratio Christi helps each chapter organize one or two campus-wide events a year by connecting them with speakers and debaters like William Lane Craig and Gary Habermas, helping them find the funding, etc. But after the event has come and gone, the lay apologist is still there to lead discussions and interact with the Christians, skeptics, atheists, and seekers who may never have realized that Christianity has a weighty intellectual tradition behind it.

Low retention rates for atheists in America

The Christian Post just published an article titled Study: Atheists Have Lowest 'Retention Rate' Compared to Religious Groups and the article gives two key clues to putting atheism through the meat grinder and speeding up its global decline.

The Christian Post article provides this key information:

Only about 30 percent of those who grow up in an atheist household remain atheists as adults. This "retention rate" was the lowest among the 20 separate categories in the study.

"What these findings reflect is that in the U.S. atheists are for the most part 'made' as adults after being raised in another faith. It appears to be much more challenging to raise one's child as an atheist and have them maintain this identity in their life," Dr. Mark Gray wrote at CARA's blog....

Baptists had the highest retention rate of the Protestant Christian categories at 60 percent, followed by Lutheran (59 percent) and Pentecostal (50 percent).

In addition, according to recent research by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, in the United States, a majority of those surveyed who were raised in atheist/agnostic households, or where there was no specific religious attachment, later chose to join a religious faith (see: Defectors to faith mark a growing trend and Faith in Flux Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S.).

Also, in communist China, Christianity is experiencing dramatic growth which could reduce the world atheist population dramatically. See: China: World's largest atheist population about to see a big decline

Plus, Christianity is on the upswing in atheistic Japan - especially among the youth (see: Christianity on the upswing in Japan).

Related posts

Collection of articles on European creationism

Decline of global atheism/agnosticism and the rise of global Christianity and creationism

Our group's plan, strategy and tactics for advancing the Question Evolution! Campaign

Christian apologetics videos









Related resources:

Question Evolution! Campaign

15 questions for evolutionists

Responses to the 15 Questions: part 1 - Questions 1-3

Responses to the 15 Questions: part 2 - Questions 4–8

Responses to the 15 Questions: part 2 - Questions 9-15

Refuting evolution