Long considered an aggressively secular city, London has quietly become one of Britain's most Christian areas, going from the least observant region in Britain in 1979 to the second most observant today. Much of that resurgence in piety is the result of the city's expanding and devout immigrant population. But there is also a growing number of young, highly educated and moneyed Londoners who are turning to the church. Huge numbers (some 4,000) of these attend Holy Trinity Brompton, where Nicky Gumbel still presides over the Alpha course. The average age is 27, and judging by the offerings ($US7 million last year alone) many of these new Christians are well-heeled.
Read more about this surge of faith here.
It would be interesting to know where the stats for 'least observant' to 'second most observant' come from. Unfortunately the article doesn't give us any indication. In 2001, for the first time, the UK Census collected information about religious identity in England, Wales and Scotland. The subject had been included in previous Censuses in Northern Ireland.
Just over three-quarters of the UK population reported having a religion. More than seven out of ten people said that their religion was Christian (72 per cent). After Christianity, Islam was the most common faith with nearly 3 per cent describing their religion as Muslim (1.6 million).
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