The bewildering influx of immigrants into London has had one effect that no one could have predicted 20 years ago: it’s making our capital city religious again.
We’ve noticed – but only up to a point. Islam is visible: the women in niqabs, the new mosques, the Halal butchers. But the transformation of Christianity in London is harder to spot. If you asked the average Londoner how many Sunday churchgoers in the city were black, I suspect he or she would be startled by the answer: about half of them.
My guest on this week’s Holy Smoke podcast is Ben Judah, whose knowledge of the demography of London was picked up by living in and among immigrant communities while researching his eye-opening book This is London.
Pentecostalism – especially of the West African variety – is by a wide margin the most dynamic Christian presence anywhere in Britain.
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