A Little Late

I was listening to the radio today, as I do on the way to work usually, and I had the station turned to NPR, where I heard this interview. I was instantly reminded of an old professor of mine, Bill Jenkins, a man whom I would describe as an Anglophile. He often spoke to the class in reference to the poor state of Britain's morality and religious decay. Also today, I read on the online Guardian of the changing face of the British novel.

Those of you who like Neil Postman, Graham Greene, Dorothy Sayers, or any other British writer of the past century or who are interested in the demographic change that has become virtually global might begin to feel a bit of alarm at noticing the rapid rate of decline in people associating with any form of Christianity in Britain. The BBC did a piece on this back in 2000 called "The UK is 'Losing' its Religion".

In 2007, Vexen Crabtree wrote an article citing multiple statistical sources in which these statistics appear:

"66% of the UK population have no connection with any religion or church3.
18% of the British public say they are a practicing member of an organized religion4. "

Read the entire article here.

A bit selfishly, while being quite depressed by the situation as a whole, I was happy to note the thriving Orthodox community in Britain. The problem with that is the same as in America: while the Orthodox Church is growing in America, England, Australia, and other countries where it was relatively late in appearing, it is rapidly dissapearing in such "home countries" as Russia, Ukraine, and Greece.

While noting the worldwide rise of Islam, also pay very close attention to the terrifying numbers of Jedi Knights in Europe (390,000 in the UK alone!), with even the Pope partaking in this growing sect.