The fertility rate in secular and theistic evolutionism Spain was 1.39 births per woman in 2010 which is well below the 2.1 replacement level of births. As a result, Spain has been to open to immigration.
In Latin America, where many immigrants to Spain come from, evangelicalism is growing fast. See: Rise of young earth creationism in Mexico and Creationism is growing in Brazil and spilling into its neighbors
If evangelicalism, can rapidly grown in Mexico and Latin America as a whole, it can also occur in Spain where there are a lot of nominal Roman Catholics given the right conditions. See: Social unrest and Europe and the future of European creationism and Rise of young earth creationism in Mexico
Operation World reports:
Current efforts to spread Biblical Christianity and biblical creation belief in SpainReligion
Largest Religion: Christian
Religion Pop % Ann Gr Christians 35,055,968 77.13 0.1 Evangelicals 461,998 1.0 3.4
Answer to Prayer
Evangelical growth has followed this freedom, largely because of immigration. Most evangelicals in Spain are immigrants. Latin American, Romanian and African believers flood into Spain, bringing their dynamic faith in Jesus with them. Their arrival swelled the number of evangelicals from under 40,000 (0.1%) in 1960 to over 450,000 (1%), meeting in nearly 3,000 churches in 2010.
There are a number of groups working to grow biblical Christianity in Spain and our Question Evolution! Campaign can work with to grow belief in biblical creation belief in Spain.
Our Question Evolution! Campaign has made it a priority to translate the campaign into Spanish and 8 other languages in terms of the 15 questions for evolutionists and other Question Evolution! materials such as booklets, books and videos. Soon a Question Evolution booklet and book for middle school students is coming out. See: Top 10 languages for turbocharging creation evangelism. Our Question Evolution! teams translating goals
Below are a few of the organizations working to grow biblical Christianity in Spain which I found via a quick internet search:
European Christian Mission - Spain
Spain and evangelism opportunities
La Siesta Evangelical Church, Torrevieja, Costa Blanca, Spain
Spain and immigration
On September 15, 2012, the pro-evolution website Wikipedia (which has seen declining visitors recently) reported:
As of 2010, there were over 6 million foreign-born residents in Spain, corresponding to 14% of the total population. Of these, 4.1 million (8.9% of the total population) were born outside the European Union and 2.3 million (5.1%) were born in another EU Member State.
Because of its location in the Iberian Peninsula, the territory comprising modern Spain has always been at the crossroads of human migration, having harboured many waves of historical immigration. The Spanish Empire, one of the first global empires and one of the largest in the world, spanned all inhabited continents and throughout the years people from these lands emigrated to Spain in varying numbers.
In migration terms and after centuries of net emigration, Spain has recently experienced large-scale immigration for the first time in modern history. According to the Spanish government, there were 5,598,691 foreign residents in January 2010. Of these, well over one million and a half were from Latin America (especially from Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil), three quarters of a million were Moroccan, while immigrants and expatriates from the European Union amounted more than two million (especially from Romania, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Bulgaria). Chinese are estimated to number 145,425, while South East Asian groups such as Filipinos—whose country was a former Spanish possession—created a small community in Spain. Immigrants from several sub-Saharan African countries have also settled in Spain as contract workers, although they represent only 4.08% of all the foreign residents in the country.
The population of Spain doubled during the 20th century due to the spectacular demographic boom in the 1960s and early 1970s. The birth rate then plunged by the 1980s, and Spain's population became stagnant, its demographics showing one of the lowest sub-replacement fertility rate in the world.
The Birkbeck College, University of London professor Eric Kaufmann using a multitude of demographic studies argues in an academic paper entitled Shall the Righteous 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?
Kaufmann's research and the research of others supports the idea that the decline of atheism/agnosticism in terms of its global adherents is an established trend that will persist for the foreseeable future and the rate of decline will accelerate. Kaufmann told a secular audience in Austalia: "The trends that are happening worldwide inevitably in an age of globalization are going to affect us."
Michael Blume, a researcher at the University of Jena in Germany, wrote "Most societies or communities that have espoused atheistic beliefs have not survived more than a century." Blume also indicated concerning concerning his research on this matter: "What I found was the complete lack of a single case of a secular population, community or movement that would just manage to retain replacement level."
Future of biblical creation belief in Spain
As noted above, there are efforts to grow evangelicalism in Spain through evangelism.
Also, history teaches that evangelicalism could grow in Spain due to their higher birth rates and due to evangelism. In Latin America for example, evangelism has been very effective. See: Rise of young earth creationism in Mexico
In addition, Spain is undergoing serious financial problems and many times people turn to God into times of crises. Mexico, is experiencing a lot of economic and political turmoil and evangelicalism is rapidly growing in Mexico.
Could a higher fertility rate of religious evangelicals cause evangelicalism to grow in Spain?
In March of 2010, Eric Kaufmann wrote in Prospect Magazine:
More recently, conservative American Protestants have increased from a 40 per cent minority of white Protestants born in 1900 to a two-thirds majority among those born in 1975. The slight fertility advantage of conservative over liberal Protestants accounts for three-quarters of the rise.In 2011, the Oxford University journal Sociology of Religion published an article by Eric Kaufmann, Anne Goujon and Vegard Skirbekk entitled The End of Secularization in Europe?: A Socio-Demographic Perspective which declared:
“Silent” demographic effects can be profound in the long term. For example, Rodney Stark shows how early Christians’ favorable fertility and mortality rates when compared with Hellenistic pagans may have helped fuel a 40 percent growth rate in the Christian population of the Roman Empire over several centuries. This helped give rise to a population increase from 40 converts in 30 AD to 6 million by the year 300 leading to a “tipping point” which
helped Christianity become institutionalized within the Empire (Stark 1996).
Related posts
The future of European Darwinism and atheism is bleak
Globally the worldviews of atheism and non-religious (agnostic) are declining while global Christianity is exploding in adherents
Global resurgence of religion and the failure of the seculization theory model
A collection of our articles on European creationism
Our group's plan, strategy and tactics for advancing the Question Evolution! Campaign
Other 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
15 Questions that evolutionists STILL cannot answer
Decline of atheism video
Eric Kaufmann: Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? - Australian public television
Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?
As someone who spends some three months a year in Spain, I can say this is all so much hot air. When I first started spending time in Spain, in the 70s, it was still a fairly devout Catholic country. Now, its secular beyond recognition. Yes, there are some evangelical churches but they are a whisper compared to the heavy sigh of the deflating Catholic church and the roar of secularism.
ReplyDeleteReg,
DeleteA few questions:
1, Why do you think a secular population with a 1.39 level of births per woman or lower is sustainable in the long term in order to keep the secular population afloat?
2. As far as the material I cited, is the scholarship of professor Eric Kaufmann errant in terms of his conclusions? If so, why? Please fully support your conclusion.
3. Are you disputing the current number of evangelicals in Spain that was given? If so, why?
4. Michael Blume, a researcher at the University of Jena in Germany, wrote "Most societies or communities that have espoused atheistic beliefs have not survived more than a century." Blume also indicated concerning concerning his research on this matter: "What I found was the complete lack of a single case of a secular population, community or movement that would just manage to retain replacement level."
Is the scholarship of Michael Blume errant? If so, why? Please give me an example of a secular population which thrived for over 100 years in support of your objection.
Summation:
You see atheists/agnostics have a bad habit of declaring things hot air without adequately supporting their objections. I am afraid the comment that you posted is an example of this bad habit.
If I were an atheist or agnostic, that might be true. I'm a Catholic who spends three or so months a year in Spain and has done since 1976.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I'm game for your questions.
1. You assume a correlation between birth rates and the growth of a faith or worldview. I don't, so I can't comment beyond saying Spain, like Ireland, is seeing its immigration rates plummet and the rate of emigration among young people rising again.
2. Kaufman's ideas are about faith in general and not just about evangelical Christianity. The growth of, say, Islam in sub-saharan Africa is evident even from here. The growth will not be linear or even across faiths and regions.
3. I am not disputing any figures, internet or real world. I am saying that in Madrid, in Barcelona, in rural south eastern Spain, in the towns of Castilla-Leon, the evangelicals must be keeping a very low profile.
4. Michael Blume's paper was descriptive, not prescriptive. It tells us what happened and suggests why it might have happened but, as a philosopher, he is making no substantive predictions in a very different age.
I like your last paragraph, though.
Reg Cheeseman,
DeleteYou are not intellectually engaging with Professor Kaufmann's data and arguments. Simply saying you don't agree their is a correlation between the growth of a religion/worldview and the fertility rate of its adherents is not convincing.
As a result, I see it as a waste of time to engage in further discussion with you. You lack a respect for evidence and wish to engage in obstinacy.
Reg Cheeseman,
DeleteI created another article which is a collection of articles on the global resurgence of religion and the failure of the secularization theory model. I cited both Christian and secular sources.
Here is the article:
Global resurgence of religion and the failure of the seculization theory model
Thanks for these links.
DeleteI'll bear them in mind at the end of October, when I'm in Segovia and Avila again.
I would have to agree with Mr. Cheeseman in saying this IS a bunch of hot air and there are countless sources to prove it. Europe is by far the most secular region in the world, and the trend is only accelerating. Your efforts to evangelize there will be futile, you are better off in Asia, Africa, and Latin America which are still fairly religious. Churches in Europe are closing down every day, and the ones that are left are filled with gray haired people. When they die, who will replace them? Unlike most religions, secularism is not passed on through birth as you claim, and the <2.0 birth rate will not slow its spread, because its influence is like a pathogen that spreads through the entire population. Proportion, not population, always matters most. Even if the 1% of evangelicals have more children, their children will inevitably come under the influence of secularism. You act as though religion is a gene you can't change.
ReplyDeleteOther than that, the fastest growing religion in Europe is ISLAM due to immigration from Northern Africa and the Middle East, not Evangelicalism! Muslims now make up over 10% of the population in many European countries, evangelicals barely 1%.
"You see atheists/agnostics have a bad habit of declaring things hot air without adequately supporting their objections"
Check any religiosity poll in Europe! In particular, less than 15% of Spaniards attend church weekly according to a 2012 survey by El Centro de Investigaciones Sociologicas. Instead of making your own assumptions and extrapolations as you so often do, why not just check the hard facts? Or were these "facts" just fabricated by the liberal propaganda machine?
How do you plan to win over the region in the world where religion is already virtually dead? Why not focus your efforts on more religious countries like Asia and Africa where you still have a chance to evangelize? To me it's just common sense.
Europe has always been on the cutting edge in almost everything. This is the continent where many modern forms of math, science, technology, language, philosophy, religion, politics, and government were born and subsequently spread through the rest of the world. I can only predict based on this precedence that the secularism in Europe will only inevitably spread through the rest of the world in the coming centuries, unless the grassroots Question Evolution! campaign can help it! ;)
cadiomals,
DeleteYou are obviously engaging in the
fallacy of exclusion and not intellectually coming to grips with Professor Kaufmann's data and arguments. I cannot say that I am impressed by your cherry picking of data.
Furthermore, you are not tackling the data contained in these resources regarding the global rise of Christianity/creationism, the global decline of atheism and agnosticism, the failure of secularization theory and the global resurgence of religion:
Global decline of atheism and the rise of global creationism
Resources on the rise of global Christianity and creationism and the decline of global atheism and agnosticism plus the failure of secularization theory and the global resurgence of religion
cadiomals,
DeleteI created another article which is a collection of articles on the global resurgence of religion and the failure of the secularization theory model. I cited both Christian and secular sources.
Here is the article:
Global resurgence of religion and the failure of the seculization theory model
cadiomals,
DeletePlease read this article as a further elaboration of my point: 100 year cycle of social unrest in Europe and biblical creation belief gaining ground at http://questionevolution.blogspot.com/2012/09/100-year-cycle-of-social-unrest-in.html
Have you seen this?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ecmi.org/109887.ihtml
They agree with my original point and they are an evangelical mission group.
Reg Cheeseman,
DeleteI cited that article in my article. There is nothing in the article which rules out what I indicated in my article.
Also, rejecting Kaufmann's work without giving good reasons why is pointless if you want to have a dialogue. You are still being intellectually lazy. Your unwillingness/stubbornness to come to grips with Kaufmann's data/arguments is indicative of your slothfulness.
Also, a few more things:
1. Kaufmann's processes involving demographics and fertility rates often don't happen overnight in terms of tipping points. It is not like a microwave. That being said the fertility rate is Spain is very low.
2. According to the pro-evolution magazine Christianity Today about every 100 years major change happens in Europe due to social unrest. That doesn't sound unreasonable for them to say. See: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/novemberweb-only/145-11.0.html
Men do have a tendency to be more open to God's leading during times of crisis and the Eurozone financial crisis when it completely unfolds could be a MAJOR crisis.
3. Until you are willing to make reasoned arguments against the Kaufmann data/arguments I gave, I don't see how we are going to have a productive dialogue.
Reg Cheesman,
DeletePlease read this article as a further elaboration of my point: 100 year cycle of social unrest in Europe and biblical creation belief gaining ground at http://questionevolution.blogspot.com/2012/09/100-year-cycle-of-social-unrest-in.html
Thanks for taking the time to engage in dialogue. I do appreciate it.
ReplyDelete1. I am not rejecting Kaufmann's work. As I wrote earlier, I am rejecting your assumption that the growth in faith will be the same across different religions in different areas in the world. Nobody doubts the explosion of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa but even your own source says evangelism has a huge mountain to climb in Spain.
2. I enjoyed the article about 100 year cycles and two other Birkbeck College professors have come up with similar theories. Eric Hobsbawn has done work on the 60 year Kondratieff cycles, albeit from a Marxist perspective, and another prof in the early 90s, who's name escapes me now, was working on 80 year cycles. Both of them, however, qualify their work by saying the cycles are descriptive - they are trends, not scientific patterns.
Your comment about the Eurozone crisis in interesting. You do know the Eurozone crisis is a direct consequence of the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the US, don't you? What makes you think the consequences of the Eurozone crisis, which the ECB seems to be riding as well as the G20 nations are riding the glonal banking crisis, will be any worse? (You don't have to answer that - we are debating on many fronts already!).
3. See 1.
Reg cheesseman,
DeleteA few points:
1. You wrote: "You assume a correlation between birth rates and the growth of a faith or worldview. I don't..."
How is that not rejecting Kaufmann's work? You did reject Kaufmann's work without giving a rationale why.
2. Evangelism had a huge mountain in Roman Catholic Mexico.
Also, Spain in a nominally Roman Catholic with about 70% of the population self-identifying as Catholics in 2011.
Yet, this occurred:
"Currently, about 82.7 per cent of Mexicans consider themselves Catholic, down from 88 per cent in 2000 and 96 per cent in 1970. Evangelical protestant denominations are believed responsible for much of the drop. The trend appears to be favoring evangelicalism and could easily quickly accelerate." see: http://questionevolution.blogspot.com/2012/07/rise-of-biblical-creationism-in-mexico.html
I also cite:
A 2011 article in The Economist declares:
"The evangelical Protestantism preached within its walls (and on screens outside) has taken off in Central America. Estimates vary, but according to the State Department of the United States, barely 50% of Salvadorans now identify as Catholic, and in Honduras and Belize the share has dropped below half. Nicaragua is close behind." See: http://questionevolution.blogspot.com/2012/07/rise-of-biblical-creationism-in-mexico.html
As far as secular Spanairds:
In atheistic China, Christianity has seen an explosion plus a Georgetown study showed that merely 30% of American people raised atheist retained their atheism. See: http://questionevolution.blogspot.com/2012/06/down-with-evolutionary-belief-down-with.html
Given the right conditions, biblical Christianity can grow in Spain. Given an imploding economy and German resistance to bailing out Spain and Europe's deep seated economic problems, the right conditions could easily develop. See: http://questionevolution.blogspot.com/2012/09/100-year-cycle-of-social-unrest-in.html
Point #2 of yours:
No, I don't know that the Eurozone crisis is the direct result of the American sub-prime crisis. Economic external shocks are bound to hit countries in a global economy. It is a countries responsibility to have a resilient enough economy to weather storms. Countries with high personal savings rates, high productivity, low personal, company and country debt, and low government spending can weather storms.
Their are debtor countries in the world and creditor countries in the world. European countries with debt problems - it is their fault. European countries which were foolish enough to join the Eurozone and have their economies dragged down by slothful/unwise countries that is their fault. These problems are not America's fault and no amount of liberal shirking of responsibility is going to change that.
And if America eventually has problems with their approximate 17 trillion dollars of debt that will be their fault too. Not Europe's. Countries have to take responsibility for their decisions and not engage in liberal responsibility shirking. Problems are going to come in life. It a person's and countries job to effectively tackle those problems. Through the grace of God, hard/efficient work and thrift, economic problems can be tackled. It is not rocket science.
An addendum:
DeleteAs far as the depth of Eurozone crisis, I think that there is too much debt in Europe and some of their economies are not competitive. I would suggest following Jim Rogers (and like minded thinkers. He doesn't belong to any school of economic thought but the Austrian school of economics is the one he most adheres too) on the Eurozone crisis and looking at their total debt. There definitely were Austrian school of economic thought thinkers who predicted the 2008 crisis (Jim Rogers, Ron Paul, etc.).
See:
Total debt of European countries: http://www.gfmag.com/tools/global-database/economic-data/11855-total-debt-to-gdp.html#axzz26mijr0OC
Jim Rogers:
http://www.youtube.com/user/JimRogersChannel
http://jimrogers1.blogspot.com/
Another addendum:
DeleteAn aside, I don't belong to any particular school of economics, but the Austrian school of economics is the one I most clearly adhere too.
Jesus said, "The rulers of the gentiles lord it over them". Also, God was not in favor of Israel having its first king. Yet, the New Testament teaches to respect the rules of your government as long as they are not in conflict with God's commandments.
A best description of my economic/political views is that I am for limited government and that too there are too many oversized governments post WWI and WWII and post Karl Marx.
Lastly, although I do sometimes talk about economics/politics on this blog it is merely for two purposes:
1. Indicating that government supported evolutionism will be trimmed back
2. Countries/People with problems often turn to God (for example, Mexico see link above).
I really don't want to get involved with lengthy discussions on politics/economics. Although Christian creationists are often conservative in their politics/economics, there is definitely room for honest debate. Many bona fide Christians in various parts of the world are going to have different economic/political views.
I think it is fair to say that there are significant economic/political problems facing the West today and some belt tightening is going to occur on government evolutionism funding. Even the leftist/evolutionist PZ Myers wrote: "And the sad thing is — and you won’t hear me saying this very often — Ken Ham is right. Real museums are strapped for cash, and most of their money is going into curating scientific collections and paying scientists to do work for them, while atheist organizations are actually small time compared to the multi-million dollar operating budget of a commercial enterprise like the Creation “Museum” (see: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/06/17/creationism-is-a-marketing-game/)."
As more belt tightening occurs (and barring some radical technological breakthrough like a cheap new source of fuel, it will occur given the current amount of personal, company and government debt in many Western countries. See: http://www.gfmag.com/tools/global-database/economic-data/11855-total-debt-to-gdp.html#axzz26mijr0OC), government evolutionism funding will be further reduced (it will be "strapped for cash" as PZ Myers put it).
I also think it is fair to say that these problems will have a negative effect on the global economy. In addition, I think there is no disputing the fact that many people turn to God and/or religion in times of trouble.
We can safely agree on one thing. There are some great ideas there with the potential for long, long debate, but let's stick to the original issue.
ReplyDeleteKaufmann does not assume a uniform correlation over time across different religions in different areas, let alone assume its correlated to variables like birth rates. You do. As I said earlier, its your reading I disagree with, not his descriptive analysis.
The rest of your argument rests on that reading and, in the absence of any predictive capability in Kaufmann's work, you support your ideas with argument by analogy. Although elegant, and supported by an interesting and eclectic series of ideas from diverse sources, argument by analogy has never been a reliable tool for making decisions or predicting events.
Reg Cheeseman,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
"Kaufmann does not assume a uniform correlation over time across different religions in different areas, let alone assume its correlated to variables like birth rates. You do."
I don't recall saying this anywhere and you are certainly not quoting me. If you are correct, I certainly will not mind making corrections to various articles.
Also, if you look at these lista of countries and their fertility rates, assuming you have a cursory knowledge of these countries and/geographic regions, you will see a correlation between the religiosity of the countries and their rates of fertility with secular countries having low rates of fertility:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?v=25
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_tot_fer_rat-people-total-fertility-rate
I think it is best to agree to disagree at this point as I think you are still not addressing Kaufmann's material and barring the miraculous, I don't expect you to do so in the very near future.