Comparing Mosque and Church in the UK | Paul Williams (2021-09-28) ​

0:00:02 i came across an interesting news item
0:00:05 on the bbc news website uh the headline
0:00:08 is young people more likely to pray than
0:00:11 over 55s according to a survey recently
0:00:16 and the article says young people in the
0:00:18 uk are twice as likely as older people
0:00:22 to pray regularly a new survey has found
0:00:26 some 51 percent of 18 to 34 year olds
0:00:30 polled by savanta comres
0:00:33 said they pray at least once a month
0:00:35 compared to just 24
0:00:38 of those aged 55 and over only a quarter
0:00:41 of older people even pray once a month
0:00:44 it also found 49
0:00:46 of the younger age group attend a place
0:00:49 of worship every month compared to just
0:00:51 16
0:00:53 of the over 55s
0:00:55 the associate director of cervantes said
0:00:57 the numbers could reflect the move to
0:01:00 online worship during the pandemic this
0:01:03 is very interesting how worship itself
0:01:04 has been changing because of this
0:01:07 chris hopkins this director added that
0:01:10 there were a few theories as to why
0:01:12 young people made up such a large
0:01:14 proportion of the religious landscape
0:01:17 firstly he said
0:01:18 as the demography of the uk changes
0:01:22 minority faiths do tend to have a larger
0:01:25 proportion of practicing young people
0:01:27 and therefore as the population of these
0:01:29 groups increases within the uk
0:01:32 so will the prayer habits of the
0:01:34 population at large
0:01:37 he also said that an important factor
0:01:40 was the impact of the pandemic has had
0:01:43 on the ability to engage with one's
0:01:45 faith with virtual prayers and services
0:01:48 being held online
0:01:50 it is possible that the pandemic opened
0:01:53 up more avenues to prayer to young
0:01:55 people and this is reflected
0:01:57 in the findings he said and then the
0:02:00 article which i'll link to below
0:02:02 has some examples of as a young muslim
0:02:04 woman of 23 from cardiff that she prays
0:02:08 every day and she says she found her
0:02:09 faith to give her solace in the pandemic
0:02:13 and she says interesting quote here
0:02:15 i know it's guaranteed that's her faith
0:02:18 and it's not going to change i know it's
0:02:19 going to be the place that provides
0:02:22 solace it's my grounding and my anchor
0:02:25 in life
0:02:27 um and that's interesting uh there was
0:02:30 the study uh polled
0:02:32 2075 british adults in august and seems
0:02:36 to contradict
0:02:38 the stereotypical view that religious
0:02:40 groups in the uk are overwhelmingly
0:02:43 elderly
0:02:45 now i'm not sure that's 100 true
0:02:47 i've been to many many churches in my
0:02:49 life both uh catholic and anglican and
0:02:52 evangelical
0:02:53 and they and most churches are
0:02:55 overwhelmingly uh i say full of old
0:02:57 people but there aren't many people that
0:02:59 go in those churches that there are
0:03:01 mostly uh 90
0:03:03 elderly people by which i mean in their
0:03:05 60s and 70s and so on there are a few
0:03:08 exceptions like htb and kensington big
0:03:11 exception but what struck me in the
0:03:13 mosques i've been to and i was in a
0:03:15 mosque last friday in shepherds bush and
0:03:18 it's basically packed it's full of young
0:03:21 men overwhelmingly young men i would say
0:03:23 i don't know 90 percent young men in
0:03:26 their teens 20s maybe even 30s
0:03:29 and they're all serious about their
0:03:31 faith they're committed
0:03:32 and they go they go to jumaa every
0:03:35 friday um and what a contrast there
0:03:39 between your typical mosque and your
0:03:42 typical church
0:03:43 and here we're seeing the future of
0:03:46 faith practice in the uk
0:03:48 played out and the direction of the
0:03:50 direction of growth on the one hand and
0:03:52 directional decline on the other is very
0:03:54 clear
0:03:56 back to the article
0:03:58 its founder richard gamble is the
0:04:00 founder of the charity that commissioned
0:04:02 this um survey said
0:04:05 the study challenged the perception that
0:04:08 the uk was a secular society
0:04:12 it is becoming increasingly clear that
0:04:14 there is actually a growing spirituality
0:04:17 in the nation he said
0:04:20 um that's absolutely true i i think i
0:04:22 think on the surface our society is
0:04:25 certainly militantly secular it's been
0:04:27 taken over by
0:04:28 some strange ideologies which i won't go
0:04:31 into but um but on the street level so
0:04:34 to speak and real people uh that there
0:04:36 is particularly younger people uh there
0:04:38 is certainly a seriousness about
0:04:41 spirituality about purpose meaning god
0:04:44 the divine
0:04:45 um which i personally found incredibly
0:04:48 uh refreshing and encouraging
0:04:51 for the future of the well-being of our
0:04:53 country and for people themselves is
0:04:55 older people uh much older people
0:04:56 particularly i see this in france as
0:04:58 well who are very reluctant to publicly
0:05:00 speak about uh faith at all
0:05:04 um the bbc uh article also says a
0:05:08 separate study by manchester
0:05:10 metropolitan university coming out this
0:05:13 week
0:05:14 suggests religious communities have
0:05:16 boomed in the pandemic with the move
0:05:19 online
0:05:21 so this is really interesting so there's
0:05:23 a shift here it seems and will this be
0:05:25 permanent this is the question i have
0:05:27 and i don't know it'd be permanent or
0:05:28 not but it could be because social media
0:05:31 now for good oriole is now so much a
0:05:34 part of
0:05:35 our lives that people may find it much
0:05:38 easier to express
0:05:39 their faith their prayer online than by
0:05:42 going to a church which is a building is
0:05:46 likely to be locked most of the week
0:05:48 they are ninety percent of them are
0:05:49 locked all the time apart from just an
0:05:51 hour on sunday perhaps
0:05:53 whereas online of course you can engage
0:05:55 with people and express your faith and
0:05:57 watch services and participate in
0:05:58 services any time of the day or night
0:06:00 globally
0:06:02 um
0:06:03 but also come back to mosques as well
0:06:04 you know uh the mosque i mean one near
0:06:06 here regions park mosque open every day
0:06:09 all day they have a cafe has a
0:06:11 restaurant it's a book shop has a huge
0:06:13 prayer room uh has other facilities for
0:06:15 men and women it has an office it has
0:06:17 everything
0:06:19 so it's a place it's a community
0:06:21 center it's not just a place of prayer
0:06:23 it's a community center
0:06:26 and where you can sit down relax as well
0:06:28 as meet with fellow believers and pray
0:06:31 and worship and so that's not the case
0:06:34 in my experience with churches at all
0:06:36 really uh that i think there may be one
0:06:38 or two exceptions i can think of in the
0:06:40 uk i say your average church is just
0:06:42 closed most of the time
0:06:44 your average church is not going to be a
0:06:46 welcoming place where you can sit out
0:06:47 and chill out before after a service or
0:06:50 you can you know it's a structured
0:06:52 hierarchical tight closed environment
0:06:55 and then you're in then you're out
0:06:57 now i'm not saying this to put down
0:06:58 those churches uh there could be
0:07:00 logistical and practical reasons why
0:07:01 they have to function in that limited
0:07:03 way
0:07:05 but in my experience muslims uh meet in
0:07:08 their in uh
0:07:10 not just in formal structures like
0:07:12 regions part mosque
0:07:14 they they meet in uh they rent out
0:07:17 places they rent out buildings rooms
0:07:19 they're meeting converted houses all
0:07:21 over the place
0:07:22 uh because there's an obligation to pray
0:07:25 to god of course uh and god for muslims
0:07:28 comes first not making money
0:07:31 or entertainment or whatever
0:07:34 anyway i thought that report was very
0:07:35 interesting and reasons for optimism
0:07:38 uh in our otherwise militantly secular
0:07:42 society uh where the concerns of the
0:07:44 dunya this world the near are total
0:07:48 uh and then we see these green shoots
0:07:50 coming out now where uh younger people
0:07:53 unlike us older people are
0:07:56 finding ways to express their faith
0:07:58 online
0:07:59 and in places like mosques which are
0:08:01 open and welcoming usually welcoming to
0:08:04 uh to people
0:08:06 anyway until next time