When evangelical and Pentecostal Protestants denounce the scientific study of nature, they produce a population incapable of acting as thoughtful and informed citizens.
Pentecostal churches are popping up in disused stores and offering fiery services in Spanish.When people think of recent American immigrants particularly Latino ones it tends to be in terms of a handful of states (California, Texas, New York, Illinois and Florida) and a handful of gateway cities (New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, Chicago).
Protestantism claims 22% of Brazilian hearts, up from 5% in 1970 (most of that increase can be attributed to miracle-working Pentecostal churches).
Black African immigration is the chief reason for the rapid growth of Pentecostal churches in London (see chart).Immigration has slowed the decline in almost all denominations, including Catholicism and Anglicanism.
The new Muslim groups stepped into the breach, just as evangelical and pentecostal churches did in the mainly Christian south.The declaration of sharia law was presented as an attempt to restore morality and integrity in a corrupt land.
The best guess of the World Christian Database, an American statistical service, is that Brazil has 24m Pentecostal Christians, compared with 5.7m in the United States, where modern Pentecostalism began.The Universal Church is only the third-biggest Pentecostal group in Brazil, but it is the most ambitious.
Most of the more successful churches are evangelical or Pentecostal, and much of the growth has been driven by immigrants from Eastern Europe (boosting Roman Catholic churches) or by flourishing black communities.This poses several problems for Mr Cameron.
Joshua.Such Pentecostal churches are booming in Nigeria, indeed across much of Africa.
Pentecostal pulpits have been a home to some almighty rogues, and many Muslims would like to bring radical imams under control.Besides, should religion really be so focused on rounding up customers?
Dolores Mission holds charismatic prayer meetings, which are like Pentecostal services, but Catholic.
But that figure has been falling swiftly.In Brazil, the world's largest Catholic country, the church has lost adherents at a rate of 1% a year since 1991, mainly to Pentecostal churches.
