Muslim Demographics

From different sources last week, I received emails alerting me to a must-see YouTube clip on Muslim demographics, revealing current population trends that demonstrate conclusively that Europe is doomed to become Muslim.

At least, that's what the makers of the video conclude. Check it out yourself at www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3X5hIFXYU

Here's what one friend wrote to me and a few other contacts in Europe:
This video is sobering and evidently a current reality. It lasts 7.5 minutes and is an eye-opener. If it remains true, and population trends are difficult to reverse, we are on the road to a significant culture change with all kinds of implications for the West and the Body of Christ. 
The Europe mainland and US stats are especially shocking. Seems the Muslims are strong on "population evangelism." Hopefully they will discover that Christ, not Mohammed, is the answer. Interesting to try to imagine what the culture will be like for our grandkids....
Let me hear your take on this... BW

And here's what three of them replied:
1. These are alarmist statistics.  They do not take a number of important factors into account. When you factor in the number of immigrants who are Christian (and have developed some of the largest churches in Europe), and their birth rates (which are much the same as Muslim immigrants), and the fact that immigrant families do not continue to have more than five children per family, and that their children and grand children get more and more assimilated, then the picture is completely different.

There are recent studies in Holland that are much more thoughtful with their analysis and demonstrate that the Muslim population will not rise above 7% in that country, though these presentation suggests that Holland is on the brink of becoming Muslim.

Christians are re-engaging with the political processes in our nations, but we must do more and quickly.  It is true that we have lost a huge amount of ground to secular humanism and they could capitulate to Muslims, but the demographics in this presentation are unsupportable.  LG

2. The reality is that Islam is suffering attrition at an alarming rate in Arab lands. At the rate they are losing there will be hardly any Muslims there in the next 30-40 years. Christians the world over cannot counter by increasing the birth rate but they can certainly counter it by learning how to evangelize Muslims. Like everything else, if you have the right tools, techniques and the passion, making a Muslim a follower of Isa is the easiest thing in the world.

"Allah has revealed the ninety nine names to sons of man that they may worship him but the one name, the one hundredth name he has told revealed only to the camel; and the camel, he is not talking" (A Muslim Proverb)

The secret lies in the fact that their holy book Quran is just full of the one hundredth name: "Isa". The problem is the camel (Christian), he is not talking. The Islamic demographic bomb will soon backfire, as soon as Christians learn how to communicate, not argue, denigrate Mohammed and win debates. We need to learn to use the Quran as a bridge and win the sons of Ishmael to become the followers of Isa Al Masih.  Salaam,  VC

3. While I am very keen not to encourage complacency, three things need to be borne in mind.

First, you could have said all the same things about Catholicism in 19th century Europe and North America.  In Britain all those things were said, particularly in the light of Irish and to some extent Italian immigration - the basic demographics pointed to a Catholic takeover of Britain as part of a Popish plot.  

Second, Christians have been a tiny minority and hugely encircled by a very powerful Islam before, admittedly the difference in this case is that the growth is potentially internal and not purely external but it was huge pressure none the less.  

Third, significant numbers of Muslims can be won to Christ. Remember that there are more Christians migrating to the West than Muslims.  MR

4. My own response, before seeing that of the others, was:  Something is missing here: 50% of all EU migrants are already church members, from Latin America, Africa and Asia, and 30% are muslim, according to the Nova Research report, Mapping Migration-mapping churches' responses. (www.novaresearch.eu). Philip Jenkins, in God's Continent, believes Europe's pentecostals, charismatics and evangelicals will continue to double the number of Muslims for the next generation.

However, let's watch this space!

Till next week,

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