Storm Clouds Are Brewing Overhead

Just like there are different types of clouds – cirrus, cumulus, nimbus, and stratus – there are different kinds of storms that are brewing overtop America. Some are political, some are spiritual, and some are economic.

Let’s start with the most important (and the most foreboding) which are the spiritual storm clouds gathering overhead. But first, some historical context…

Charles Haddon Spurgeon pastored the New Park Street Chapel, later known as the Metropolitan Tabernacle, in London for 38 years, from 1854 to 1892. Under his stewardship, the Metropolitan Tabernacle grew to become the largest church in the world, seating 5,000 people with standing room for another 1,000. Spurgeon, known as the “Prince of Preachers” due to his soaring rhetoric, preached an estimated 3,600 sermons there, many of which were published individually or as part of a collection.

During Spurgeon’s lifetime, Great Britain was a bastion of Christianity, sending missionaries to the far corners of the world. For this reason, Spurgeon once praised God for blessing his native country with such a strong Christian faith and heritage.

“You have made this nation the home of the Gospel,” Spurgeon wrote, “and when the enemy has risen against her, You have shielded her. Help us to offer repeated songs for repeated deliverances.”

Today, 133 years after Spurgeon’s death, Great Britain is anything but the “home of the Gospel”. In fact, the country that was once so zealous to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ is now nominally religious, with just 46.2% of the population identifying as Christian (down 13.1% over the past 10 years) and 37.2% saying that they are non-religious (up 12%). Meanwhile, the number of Muslims increased from 4.9% to 6.5% and Hindus increased from 1.5% to 1.7%.

Even more disturbing are the results of The European Social Survey, carried out between 2014 and 2016, which found that 70% of Britons between 16 and 29 were not religious.

Peeking beneath the surface shows just how much Christianity in Great Britain is on the decline. A Mass-Observation survey conducted in 1948 and 1949 found only 15% of Britons attended church… and The English Church survey found that church attendance was just 12% in 1979, 10% in 1989, and 7.5% in 1998.

Another poll from 2012 found church attendance had fallen even further to a mere 6%, with the average age of attendees being 51. That was down from 11% in 1980, when the average age was 37. Pollsters predict church attendance will drop to a microscopic 4% this decade, with the average attendee being 56 years old.

Meanwhile, The Ipsos MORI poll in 2003 reported that just 18% of Britons were "a practicing member of an organized religion" and The Tearfund Survey in 2007 found that only 7% of the population considered themselves to be practicing Christians. That same survey revealed that 2/3 of Britons hadn’t attended a religious service in the past year.

This decline in attendance has forced many churches to shut their doors across the United Kingdom, with the Church of England alone closing down 1,500 churches between 1969 and 2002. In October 2014, weekly attendance at Church of England services dropped below 1 million for the first time ever. That year, there were just 130,000 baptisms, down 12% since 2004; 50,000 marriages, down 19%; and 146,000 funerals, down 29%. The Church estimated that about 1% of churchgoers are lost to death each year… and they are not being replaced.

Conversely, a 2004 study showed that at least 930,000 Muslims attended a mosque at least once a week, just outnumbering the 916,000 regular churchgoers in the Church of England. Keep in mind that was 21 years ago, and the number of Muslim immigrants to Great Britain has swelled exponentially since then.

Why be concerned? Because, as British atheist Richard Dawkins once said, “I have mixed feelings about the decline of Christianity, insofar as Christianity might be a bulwark against something worse.”

And so, Americans should stand up and take notice, because Hamtramck MI – which was 90% Polish as recently as 1970 – is now the first majority Muslim city in the United States. A suburb of Detroit, the 2-square mile town boasts 28,000 residents, an all-Muslim city council, and a Muslim mayor, Amer Ghalib. The main street in Hamtramck has been officially renamed “Palestine Avenue” and Mayor Ghalib’s victory party was a men-only affair in line with Muslim custom and in accordance with Sharia law.

And yes, every day since July 2004, the Muslim call to prayer has been broadcast via loudspeakers throughout the town… which begs the question: Where is the ACLU and its attorneys?

Just 10 miles southwest of Hamtramck lies Dearborn, a much larger city with 110,000 residents. As of the 2020 census, 54.5% of Dearborn’s population is of Middle Eastern or North African ancestry with Lebanese (20.7%), Yemenis (13.2%), Arabs (8.6%), and Iraqis (4.5%) being the most represented. Nor surprisingly, Dearborn’s mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, is also Muslim.

Last year, Hammoud made headlines for telling a Christian evangelist that he "wasn't welcome" in Dearborn, before backing down and issuing a tepid apology.

For those who think that Detroit and its environs is the only area in America rejecting Christianity in favor of Islam, look no further than Tuesday’s election results. New York City voters chose a Muslim Socialist over a Catholic Independent and in the Commonwealth of Virginia, Ghazala Hashmi was elected lieutenant governor, the first Muslim to win statewide office in the U.S.

The election of Zohran Mamdani in NYC is especially troubling because he has a history of anti-Semitic comments and positions in a city with 1 million Jewish residents. A self-described Democratic-Socialist, Mamdani is now in control of 1/9 of the U.S. economy… an economic engine larger than the entire country of Canada.

I wonder how he is going to pay for the free buses and free childcare he promised, let alone manage to freeze rental prices while opening government-operated grocery stores… especially when the "rich white people" he demonized throughout his campaign pack up and move, taking their checkbooks with them. The same goes for businesses, large and small, that are expected to flee the city and relocate to the suburbs and more tax-friendly states like Florida, Texas, Tennessee, and the Carolinas.

But then again, I’m sure the far-thinking New Yorkers who supported Mamdani because of his promise of more free government handouts thought that one through… NOT!

Hence the political and economic storm clouds brewing overhead.

I’m just glad that I live in the Free State of Florida, but unfortunately, what happens in Michigan, Virginia, and New York City impacts the Sunshine State, too. For instance, real estate analysts expect a mass exodus from the Big Apple – and New Jersey, where voters chose yet another liberal Democrat to be their next governor – down I-95 to the Florida Georgia Line (and no, I don’t mean the former country music duo). That is sure to create a housing shortage and drive-up home costs even higher.

Oh well, at least they don’t broadcast the Muslim call to prayer in Vero Beach. Here, at least for the time being, we only hear church bells ringing.