An interesting illustration of “Islamic demarcation” in Western societies is given by Z.
For example, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, who make up the lion’s share of Muslims in the UK, are twice as likely to earn a living by manual labor as white non-Muslim Britons and earn an average of a third less than them; in France, the unemployment rate among Muslims is twice as high as the national average.
In Germany, Turkish immigrants, a quarter of whom are under the age of 30, are perceived as “guests” even in the second generation, when they already speak German much better than Turkish. An interesting illustration of “Islamic demarcation” in Western societies is given by Z. Shore. For half a century, the Barbie doll has conquered 150 countries, and the annual income from its sale is one billion US dollars. Children grew up with this doll in almost all corners of the earth, of different races and skin tones. With one significant exception, which is the Islamic world. This world did not accept either Barbie or the attempt to reach the Islamic market by creating its counterpart, the Leila doll, both banned in Saudi Arabia, sellers fined for it, and dolls confiscated.
But for this consideration, it is important that the doll that Muslim parents are willing to give to their children was created in the West. It is in this space and in this atmosphere that global Islam is being formed, to some extent Western Islam. The West is not in the sense of liberalism, but given that it is increasingly based on the free choice of the individual. The religious forms that this Islam takes (second birth, emphasis on salvation, moral values, community of believers, marked anti-intellectualism, etc.) resonate with the forms of Christian revival, although this does not entail something similar to the Christian Reformation. Hence the success of Salafism among the second generation of Muslims in the West, that is, Muslims who were born in Western countries into immigrant families.
Salafism gives these Muslims a powerful meaning of “pure” Islam, Islam endowed with a deep moral meaning, global Islamic solidarity and devoid of the cultural and ethnic connotations that their parents endowed their faith with.
It is clear that in the modern world there are many phenomena, not every one of which becomes a trend. Therefore, we will talk only about the trends that can be verified. These are primarily those related to demographic trends. Incidentally, it was the forecasts of the 1950s and 1970s, which were based on trends in demographic change, that came true most at the beginning of the 21st century. Therefore, if we talk about trends that are based on demographic change, one of the most noticeable is the shift of Christianity to the south. In 1900, whites made up 81% of all Christians, and in 2000, whites made up 45% of Christians.
In 2005, the country with the largest Christian population was the United States, followed by Brazil, then China, and the fifth was Russia. If these trends, which exist now and existed in the second third of the twentieth century, continue, in 2025 Russia will move to 9th place in the number of Christians, and in 2050 will leave the ten countries with the largest Christian population, which will look like this: China, Brazil, Congo, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines, Ethiopia and Uganda. But, of course, it is not just about the mechanical displacement of Christians to the south, it is about the fact that this displacement greatly changes the faces of the followers of Christianity, that Christianity becomes more passionate and even more charged with conflict potential.
In his book The Next Christianity, F. Jenkins argues that Christianity was born as a non-Western religion and is now returning to its roots. Kinshasa, Buenos Aires, Addis Ababa and Manila were replaced by Rome, Athens, Paris, London and New York. The churches of the South are more traditionalist, conservative, apocalyptic than in the North. The southern churches reject northern liberal Christianity – their Christianity is more mystical, it emphasizes healing by faith and prophecy.
The rapid growth of conservative, militant Christianity in the Islamic context – in Nigeria, Indonesia, the Philippines lays the groundwork for a “clash of civilizations.” By the end of this century, at least 20 large countries will be finally outlined on the world map, where the ratio of Christians to Muslims will be approximately the same, and relative to 10 of them, it can be predicted that such a ratio will not be peaceful. The author of the forecast, however, hopes that it will not come true. At the same time, he hopes not for precautionary measures taken by governments and organizations, but for the renewal of religious spirituality. The fact that Christians will learn to dialogue with each other, that a common ecumenical vision will eventually overcome the narrow-confessional limitations.
Much depends on the responsibility of those who are called to develop global dialogue. Today, for example, the newly elected director of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, said that she did not believe in the conflict of civilizations. But the conflict of civilizations is not a miracle that can be believed or not. However, it is impossible to lull oneself by the fact that there is no such conflict, not to notice that the demarcation lines between religions are strengthening, that even within Christianity alienation is growing, buy an comparison essay online now and the word “ecumenism” is turning into an invective.
Religion is really the engine of dozens of conflicts in the modern world; According to conflictologists who determined the causes of 101 armed conflicts that unfolded in the world from 1989 to 1996, only 6 of them were interstate, all others were intra-state clashes, where religious or ethnic factors played a very important or even most important role …
This forces those involved in conflicts or very serious problems of terrorism to talk about the era of religious terrorism. Well-known researcher of religious conflicts David Rapoport argues that modern terrorism is evolving in waves and each wave covers about a generation. The first wave, the anarchist terror of the 1880s, followed by the anti-colonial wave of the 1920s, lasted for about 40 years; the third wave is liAtka began in the 1960s and slept until the end of the 2000s. Finally, a religious wave began in 1979 and, according to Rapoport, it will last until the mid-1920s.
Religious terror differs from secular terror and differs significantly. Secularists prefer to kill high-ranking officials, religious – seek acts with the maximum number of victims, secularists tend to reduce the number of casualties among the civilian population to the minimum necessary to maintain the organization, religious prefer the maximum number of victims – human life for them, including the lives of comrades. nothing. The laity attack symbolic objects – not only the symbols but also the number of victims are important for the religious ones.
Is humanity “doomed” to wait almost two decades for the “natural” extinction of the wave of “religious” terror? Can’t religious leaders hasten its decline? As F. Engels once noted, the era of terror cannot be equated with the domination of people who sow terror. On the contrary, it is the domination of people who are themselves mortally frightened. Terror is a largely futile atrocity perpetrated by people who themselves feel horror to appease themselves. Obviously, the world’s great spiritual traditions, which are based on the golden rule of universal ethics, may be most effective in curing this terrible disease.
As for the serious trends in Christianity, let’s pay attention to another: January 1, XX century. was the first day of the Pentecostal Church. January 1, 1901, is believed to be the first day of Pentecost when those gathered in Topeka, Kansas, spoke other languages.
At the end of the twentieth century. there were 524 million Pentecostals, charismatics, and all who belonged to this family. In this sense, they even cautiously talk about the “Pentecostalization” of Christianity, that is, that the influence of Pentecost on global Christianity is growing. Obviously, there is a certain reconfiguration within the world’s two billion Christians. The share of Catholics and Orthodox is declining despite the growing number of Catholics. But the number of Pentecostals, charismatic, neo-charismatic currents is growing rapidly. For example, in 2025 this growth will be about 4% compared to 2000.
Next, we must point to the rapid growth of the so-called “independent churches” of African, African-American and Afro-Latin American denominations. The identity of these churches is increasingly blurred, they are difficult to attribute with confidence to a particular Christian family; Christianity in them is intricately combined with local traditional beliefs.
The fact is that it is still difficult for our consciousness to comprehend all the diversity of the cultural face of Christianity, and Africans simply “do not fit” into the confessional framework created in the stream of European culture. In particular, African Catholics insist that “we Africans have our own philosophy of life and we are able to express the Christian message in our own terminology, which is not necessarily identical to the Aristotelian-Thomistic system.”
African Catholic bishops ask in the Holy See: how to live a man who believed in Jesus and eagerly followed him, but in his pre-Christian, “polytheistic” life acquired four wives who bore him a dozen children? Who should he leave in his house, and whom should he throw out the door? They are also convinced that the positive elements of African traditional beliefs, the culture of honoring ancestors, and the collective connection to space are not at all contrary to Christianity.
In turn, African Protestants sometimes cannot understand why their white fellow believers insist on literally reading some Bible passages, while others consider them only instructive. In particular, African envelopes sought to justify polygamy in the Old Testament, because in African societies, polygamy was a symbol of economic success and a tool for forming political alliances. Choosing monogamy often meant for neophytes the loss of social status, power, personal connections, and, of course, friendly family members.