Catholics turn to Islam as faith conversions rise

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Catholics turn to Islam as faith conversions rise
Moe
09/03/00 at 11:36:50
Catholics turn to Islam as faith conversions rise

By Jonathan Petre

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000140326706927&rtmo=LlS7GKid&atmo=LlS7GKid&pg=/et/00/9/3/nrel03.html

PEOPLE are converting from one religious denomination or faith to
another at a faster rate than ever, with 1,000 swapping every week,
according to a new study.

Despite the decline in formal church attendance, the remaining "religious
traffic" is "heading in all directions", Rabbi Jonathan Romain claims in a
book to be published next month. Traditional barriers between religions
are crumbling in a multi-faith, consumerist society, he says in Your God
Shall Be My God.

Anglicans are becoming Roman Catholics, and vice versa, Jews are becoming
Buddhists, Muslims are becoming Anglicans and Roman Catholics Jews.
Between 10 and 30 per cent of converts to Buddhism are Jewish, according
to official estimates. Such converts are referred to as a "Jew-Bu".

Dharmachavi Vishvapani, 35, a Jew who changed his name from Simon
Blomfield to join the Western Buddhist Order, said he preferred Buddhism
because it focused on practice rather than dogma. He said: "Not long after
my barmitzvah, at the age of 15, I took up meditation. It all happened
quite quickly after that. Judaism did not seem relevant to my life. It was
more about sustaining a culture than living a good life."

A high proportion of the 1,500 to 2,500 converts to Islam every year are
Catholics. According to Sarah Jacobs, a former Catholic who is now a
Muslim, the leap between the two faiths is not as great as it seems. She
was confirmed in the Catholic Church, the faith of her mother, at 13. When
one of her brothers married a Muslim she was horrified, but three years
ago she followed him, to the dismay of the rest of her family. She said:
"What appealed to me was the incredible simplicity and clarity of Islam."

Dr Ahmed Andrews, a lecturer in the sociology of religion at Derby
University and another convert from Catholicism to Islam said: "There are
between 5,000 and 10,000 white Muslim converts in this country, and most
of the ones I know are former Catholics." Rabbi Romain maintains that
Islam is not the only beneficiary: of the 300 to 400 coverts to Judaism
every year, about a fifth are Catholics.

Catholicism has also had some high-profile converts, including the Duchess
of Kent and Ann Widdecombe, the shadow Home Secretary. Defections from
Anglicanism to Rome, dubbed "crossing the Tiber", reached a peak after the
Church of England's decision to ordain women. The traditionalist umbrella
group Forward in Faith, believes about 350 clergy and thousands of lay
people have switched.

Many conversions follow marriage, as in the high-profile cases of the
society girl Santa Palmer-Tomkinson, who became a Jew after she married
the writer Simon Sebag-Montefiore, and Jemima Goldsmith, the daughter of
the half-Jewish tycoon Sir James, who became a Muslim after marrying the
former cricketer Imran Khan.

Rabbi Romain, minister of Maidenhead synagogue, Berkshire, says in his
book: "Not only is Britain a multi-faith society, but it is proudly so.
People previously used to one faith are now presented with an array of
different religious options that were hardly thought of beforehand." He
says that a further spiritual impetus has been created by the Millennium.
"While there has been a decline in knowledge about religion, the spiritual
yearning for answers to questions of the meaning of life and personal
direction remain. People feel a spiritual vacuum so they look outside
their own religious backgrounds, and there is a lot more on offer."

The biggest growth is being experienced by Islam and Buddhism, and
movements such as New Age and paganism. Rabbi Romain believes that Britain
is more fruitful territory for the "new religious movements", or cults,
than the United States. An estimated 400 have spring up since 1945, and
there are 3.2 cults per million of the population in this country compared
with 2.3 per million in the US. "Britain also has the distinction of being
the country in Europe with the highest number of Indian and Eastern cult
centres and communities," he adds.

Peter Brierley, of Christian Research, said the rate of
cross-fertilisation appeared to have increased. He added: "What we don't
know is whether people, having changed, are not changing back again five
years later."
Re: Catholics turn to Islam as faith conversions rise
bhaloo
09/04/00 at 07:38:33
slm

Very interesting article Moe.  I wonder what the actual statistics are.


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