Showing posts with label Clitheroe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Clitheroe. Show all posts

Monday, April 02, 2007

Grim Picture of Post-Christian Britain as Christianity Loses Its Grip and Islam Asserts Itself

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Sherez Arshad in front of the former Mount Zion Methodist Church, Clitheroe, which will soon become a mosque. Photo courtesy of New York Times

NEW YORK TIMES: CLITHEROE, England — On a chilly night this winter, this pristine town in some of Britain’s most untouched countryside voted to allow a former Christian church to become a mosque.

The narrow vote by the municipal authorities marked the end of a bitter struggle by the tiny Muslim population to establish a place of worship, one that will put a mosque in an imposing stone Methodist church that had been used as a factory since its congregation dwindled away 40 years ago.

The battle underscored Britain’s unease with its Muslim minority, and particularly the infiltration of terrorist cells among the faithful, whose devotion has challenged an increasingly secular Britain’s sense of itself.

Britain may continue to regard itself as a Christian nation. But practicing Muslims are likely to outnumber church-attending Christians in several decades, according to a recent survey by Christian Research, a group that specializes in documenting the status of Christianity in Britain. Old Church Becomes Mosque in Uneasy Britain by Jane Perlez

Mark Alexander