"They said to you, "In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires." Jude 1:18 NIV

As one looks about their world, even those with the limited vision of indifference can see that Christendom is changing. One of those changes is the decrease in the number of Europeans who believe in God.

By 2050. the Pew report predicted that 30% (2.8 billion of the European population will identify themselves as Muslim compared to 31 per cent (2.9 billion) identifying themselves as Christian.

To better understand that the population of Western Europe has become decidedly more atheistic than ever, a comparison with Eastern Europe must be made.

Eastern Europe still has a high percentage of people who believe in God (60%), except for the Czech Republic (31%), and is comparable to that of the U.S. This percentage will increase slightly by 2050.*

Western European people who still believe in God are definitely in the minority: falling below 30% in Sweden and 40% in Belgium.* The total number of people in Western Europe who used to believe in God has transitioned to being almost one-third Christian, one-third atheists and the remaining one-third very indifferent to anything religious.

People in Western Europe are abandoning their belief in God in favor of what meaning and reasoning they can draw from science. Between now and 2050, the number of atheists worldwide is actually predicted to fall by 2%, but in Western Europe, the number of atheists will continue to rise.*

It is sad to see that these countries that were once was the mainstays of Christendom becoming decidely more athestic every year, and changing in a way quite similar to how St. Jude said it would be in the "last times".

*The Telegraph - What the world's religious landscape will look like in 2050, by Raziye Akkoc 4/8/18

Rik Charbonneaux is a retired NE Iowan who loves all of God's Word and all of His creatures.