European desecularization in the 21st century

Austria's census data permits demographers to perform analysis which indicates the secular population plateauing by 2050, or as early as 2021.

Concerning the future of religion/secularism in Europe, professor Eric Kaufmann wrote:

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We have performed these unprecedented analyses on several cases. Austria offers us a window into what the future holds. Its census question on religious affiliation permits us to perform cohort component projections, which show the secular population plateauing by 2050, or as early as 2021 if secularism fails to attract lapsed Christians and new Muslim immigrants at the same rate as it has in the past. (Goujon, Skirbekk et al. 2006). This task will arguably become far more difficult as the supply of nominal Christians dries up while more secularisation-resistant Muslims and committed rump Christians comprise an increasing share of the population.

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Concerning the future of evangelical Protestantism in Europe, in a paper entitled Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?: Demography and Politics in the Twenty-First Century, Kaufmann wrote:

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What of European Christianity? The conventional wisdom holds it to be in free fall, especially in Western Europe. (Bruce 2002) This is undoubtedly correct for Catholic Europe, while Protestant Europe already has low levels of religious practice. Yet closer scrutiny reveals an increasingly lively and demographically growing Christian remnant. Several studies have examined the connection between religiosity - whether defined as attendance, belief or affiliation - and fertility in Europe. Most find a statistically significant effect even when controlling for age, education, income, marital status and other factors... Moving to the wider spectrum of European Christianity, we find that fertility is indeed much higher among European women who are religious... Today, most of those who remain religious in Europe wear their beliefs lightly, but conservative Christianity is hardly a spent force. Data on conservative Christians is difficult to come by since many new churches keep few official records. Reports from the World Christian Database, which meticulously tracks reports from church bodies, indicates that 4.1 percent of Europeans (including Russians) were evangelical Christians in 2005. This figure rises to 4.9 percent in northern, western and southern Europe. Most religious conservatives are charismatics, working within mainstream denominations like Catholicism or Lutheranism to ‘renew’ the faith along more conservative lines. There is also an important minority of Pentecostals, who account for .5% of Europe’s population. Together, charismatics and Pentecostals account for close to 5 % of Europe’s population. The proportion of conservative Christians has been rising, however: some estimate that the trajectory of conservative Christian growth has outpaced that of Islam in Europe. (Jenkins 2007: 75). In many European countries, the proportion of conservative Christians is close to the number who are recorded as attending church weekly. This would suggest an increasingly devout Christian remnant is emerging in western Europe which is more resistant to secularization. This shows up in France, Britain and Scandinavia (less Finland), the most secular countries where we have 1981, 1990 and 2000 EVS and 2004 ESS data on religiosity... Currently there are more evangelical Christians than Muslims in Europe. (Jenkins 2007: 75) In Eastern Europe, as outside the western world, Pentecostalism is a sociological and not a demographic phenomenon. In Western Europe, by contrast, demography is central to evangelicalism’s growth, especially in urban areas. Alas, immigration brings two foreign imports, Islam and Christianity, to secular Europe.

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Atheists in the Western World have historically not engaged in personal evangelism as far as racial minorities in their countries (see: Western atheism and race and Atheism and apathy).

Yale Daily News reported in an article entitled White Europeans: An endangered species? that "Without a major shift in the current fertility trends, industrialized Europe will see its native population decline by about three-fourths over the 21st century." See also: Decline of global atheism and Global Christianity

Future of Islam in Europe and the desecularization of Europe

According to Pew Forum, by 2030 Muslims are projected to make up 8% of Europe’s population.

According to Pew Forum:

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In recent decades, the Muslim share of the population throughout Europe grew about 1 percentage point a decade, from 4% in 1990 to 6% in 2010. This pattern is expected to continue through 2030, when Muslims are projected to make up 8% of Europe’s population.

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Professor Philip Jenkins at Penn State University projects that by 2100, Muslims will be about 25% of Europe's population. Jenkins indicates that this figure does not take account divergent birthrates amongst Europe's various immigrant Christians.

In April of 2010, Eric Kaufmann indicated concerning the future of Islam in Europe:

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I address this in some detail in the book, as well is in a recent article in the April issue of Prospect magazine here in Britain. The short answer is that I don’t foresee a Muslim-majority Europe in this century or in the next. Why? Mainly because Muslim birthrates are plunging both in Europe and the Muslim world. Already, Iran, Tunisia, Turkey, Azerbaijan and several other Muslim countries have replacement-level fertility or below. In the UK, Bangladeshi and Pakistani fertility has halved in a generation and is now under 3 children per woman. This means their long-term growth will begin to tail off. The other part of the equation is the rise of non-Muslim immigrant groups (African and West Indian Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and other Eastern faiths) who are also increasing and therefore making Europe more plural and, in the process, rendering it harder for Muslims to increase their share of the population. That said, Muslim membership retention and in-group marriage is exceptionally high (over 90 per cent) and they are a much younger population than the host society. So they are on course for steady growth. My colleagues and I expect their fertility to fall to host levels by 2030, but they will still make up 5-15 per cent of most West European countries by 2050 and 10-25 per cent by 2100. This is a major change from the 2-6 per cent levels of today

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Investor's Business Daily on the flood of Muslim immigrants to Europe

Investor's Business Daily wrote in 2015 concerning a flood of Muslim immigrants to the European Union:

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The European Union is bracing for as many as 800,000 mostly Muslim refugees arriving from the chaos in the Middle East this year, mainly Syria, Iraq and Eritrea. And it may be just the beginning. Can the EU withstand such a religio-demographic earthquake? Its failure to enforce any concept of borders isn't a good sign.... Assimilation offers little hope. Parts of France — especially its notorious banlieues outside major cities like Paris — are virtual no-go zones. London's are little better. Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavia all have large, unassimilated Muslim populations. Those populations are growing. Europe isn't. As far back as 2011, the Pew Forum noted that Europe's Muslim population was expected to almost double from 30 million in 1990 to 57 million in 2030. That's surely now an underestimate. Add to this the inevitability of jihadists slipping across porous EU borders, and Europe is in deep trouble. Anger is welling up, and nationalist parties are spreading across the Continent. As 20th century history showed, Europe doesn't react well to social upheaval. Can Europe survive the coming storm? Doubtful.

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Religious immigrants and Europe

Legal and illegal immigration of religious immigrants to Western World nations is a source of desecularization - particularly Europe (see: Secular Europe and Multiculturism and European desecularization). Aging European nations frequently seek workers for their businesses and to help support aging pensioners.

As far as illegal immigration to Europe, The American Interest website declares:

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Securing Europe’s vast land and sea borders—a task greater than that faced by the United States along its border with Mexico—is proving exceptionally challenging for the European Union (EU).... Traffickers use small boats to reduce the chances of being picked up by patrol boats’ radars; migrants are often dropped off on stretches of inaccessible coastline, or left to drift ashore. In the case of illegal land crossings, small trucks are used to penetrate the most porous parts of eastern or southern Europe’s borders. Penalties for this are low or non-existent all around Europe, and traffickers are rarely caught anyway. Smuggling people across Europe has become easier and more profitable than anything other criminal activity, including drugs.

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