Changes in religious groups and the consequences

Several new studies on religion and faith have been in the news lately.  Increasing numbers of Americans claim no religion, the numbers of Christians in America are decreasing while the number of Muslims is increasing.  These statistics have consequences. Everyone who reads this blog knows the situation in Europe, specifically the UK, where sharia law is nor acceptable.  Here in the United States sharia finance has been growing at a frightening pace. 

A Hometown Bank Heeds a Call to Serve Its Islamic Clients (NYT)  

Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times

Stephen L. Ranzini, seated, president of University Bank in Ann Arbor, Mich., with Amjad Quadri, a bank vice president

Until a stranger without an appointment showed up one day in late 2001, Stephen L. Ranzini was feeling rather pleased with himself. University Bank here, which he led as president, had just won a national award for community service. The honor attested to Mr. Ranzini’s success in working with local black ministers and a nonprofit agency to increase home-ownership in African-American neighborhoods.

Then, disturbing the aura of satisfaction, a well-dressed man arrived and insisted on seeing the president. “If your bank is so outstanding for community service,” the visitor said, as Mr. Ranzini recently recalled, “how come you’re not servicing my community?”

What community, the banker asked, would that be?

“I’m a Muslim,” the man responded.

Mr. Ranzini started to explain that University Bank already had plenty of Muslim customers, hardly a surprise in a college town in the area of southeast Michigan with the largest concentration of Arab-Americans in the United States.

That answer did not satisfy the visitor. Those Muslims, he said, were paying or earning interest.

“So what?” Mr. Ranzini said. Wasn’t interest sort of the whole point of what banks did?

Over the next 10 minutes, Mr. Ranzini, a Roman Catholic executive who had grown up in the vanilla suburbs of New Jersey, started an education that would ultimately transform an otherwise conventional hometown bank into a national leader in the growing specialty of Islamic finance. This year, the bank won an award from the American Bankers Association largely for its service to Muslim clients.  (continue at NYT)

More Americans Say They Have NO Religion, (AP)

Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious ...

Nondenominational Identification Increases Washington Post

Most religious groups in USA have lost ground, survey finds USA Today

More Americans say they have no religion KRIS-TV

Survey results: http://www.americanreligionsurvey-aris.org/  (hat tip Michael)

Fewer Christians and More Muslims in America, (Bob McCarty Writes)

Americans are slowly becoming less Christian and more Muslim, according to the just-released update to the American Religious Identification Survey conducted by the Program on Public Values at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

Specifically, the percentage of Christians in America, which declined in the 1990s from 86.2 percent to 76.7 percent, has now edged down to 76 percent.  Conversely, the Muslim proportion of the population continues to grow, from .3 percent in 1990 to .5 percent in 2001 to .6 percent in 2008. [snip]

To view the pdf version of the survey findings, click here.  (continue reading at Bob McCarty Writes)

Dr. Phyllis Chesler writes:

But Britain has still been at this longer and so far, is more Islamified and pro-Sharia than America. Indeed, Britain is about to hold a conference on March 25th, at the University of London’s School of Economics, in which known terrorists will be speaking about “political Islam.” Senior British civil servants and police officers will pony up at hefty fee (nearly two thousand pounds) to attend the event which is meant to “improve” their “understanding of radicalism.”

Frank J. Gaffney says:

As the Free World increasingly engages in submission to Shariah, it appears the special U.S. tie to the U.K. that served to block the global ambitions of successive totalitarian ideologies will no longer operate. Under President Obama, the question increasingly is:  Will the U.S. perform that vital role alone, or succumb as Britain is doing to what Islam scholar Robert Spencer calls the "Stealth Jihad" now being mounted against every freedom-loving country?

Americans turning from faith will weaken this nation.  What is the answer?  Many people return, or turn, to God when they are confronted with some tragedy.  Let's hope it doesn't take a national tragedy to turn these trends around.

See my previous post on religion and faith here.

Comments

[nancz]

i hate to say it, but it will take a tragedy for people to turn back to the Lord. unfortunate, but s.o.p.

as for me and my house...

[Debbie]

Thanks everybody, and thanks for the links. I'll check them out.

Also thanks for putting up with TypePad while they revamp their comment options.

(I hate typepapd)

[MK]

It's the same everywhere in the western world, christianity is dropping, while islam is growing. It's a result of the leftist infiltration in our society, they work to push the church away from the public space and succeed in pushing it out of the private space as well. Then the resulting void has to be filled, in steps Islam. Thanks to a compliant, dishonest media, most won't know the truth about Islam and will sign up thinking it's a utopia on earth or something.

[Chicagoray]

Lets indeed hope but as you said it'll take a 912 to wake up that group again and this guy won't handle the aftermath like Bush did.

I have a post today about the In God We Trustphrase that is a poll on MSNBC with 12 million responses/ http://tiny.cc/T9yLM

He's already crumbling under pressure since he's never run a business much less a Superpower.(ps I like the colors);>)

[Steve Harkonnen]

Well, if churches around my area weren't so stuck up in what you wear to church, and if they would quit worrying about hearing coins in their collection tin, then maybe more people would show up and there'd be a better turnout.

This is the underlying reason I cannot deal with man-made religion. I still read my Bible and even participate in an online biblical discussion group on facebook.

[Debbie]

Bob: I would love to change the colors, but I don't have many choices with the cheap version of TypePad I have. The other choices really suck. I'm afraid I'm stuck with this one.

[Leticia]

The Muslims are relentless in their mission to irradicate the Jews and Christians and what better way to infiltrate then by legitimate businesses?

Remember the spider and the fly?

[Bob McCarty]

Debbie,

Great reports. Disturbing content. Related: You might want to consider changing your site's background from being black (dark) to being white (light). Be the light, you know. Keep up the good work!

[Angel]

Let's hope it doesn't take a national tragedy to turn these trends around...it always does Debbie..so sad.:(