New Zealand church attendance has remained constant since 2013 and its implications

In 2008, the International Social Survey Programme was conducted in New Zealand by Massey University.

The results of this survey indicated that 72% of the population believed in the existence of God or a higher power, 15% are agnostic, and 13% are atheist (the survey had a 3% margin of error). See: Irreligion in New Zealand

In December 2017, a leading New Zealand news website declared that church attendance in New Zealand has remained constant at 10% since 2013. The abstract for the 2016 journal article Cross-National Trends in Religious Service Attendance published in Public Opinion Quarterly declared that New Zealand church attendance has “bottomed-out” stability in New Zealand, Western Europe and Australia.

Concerning the future of religion/secularism in Europe, professor Eric Kaufmann wrote:

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We have performed these unprecedented analyses on several cases. Austria offers us a window into what the future holds. Its census question on religious affiliation permits us to perform cohort component projections, which show the secular population plateauing by 2050, or as early as 2021 if secularism fails to attract lapsed Christians and new Muslim immigrants at the same rate as it has in the past. (Goujon, Skirbekk et al. 2006). This task will arguably become far more difficult as the supply of nominal Christians dries up while more secularisation-resistant Muslims and committed rump Christians comprise an increasing share of the population.

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In 2010, Eric Kaufmann reported that the rate of secularisation flattened to zero in most of Protestant Europe and France.

Religious immigrants resistant to secularization

See also: Desecularization and Growth of global desecularization and Religion and migration

Conservative Protestants have relatively high fertility rates. (Picture: Protestant church pulpit in Europe)

In 2011, a paper was published entitled The End of Secularization in Europe?: A Socio-Demographic Perspective. The authors of the paper were: Eric Kaufmann - Birkbeck College, University of London; Anne Goujon - World Population Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA); Vegard Skirbekk World Population Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).

An excerpt from the paper by Kaufmann, Goujon and Skirbekk:

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Conservative Protestants, a much larger group than the Mormons, also benefit from relatively high fertility. Hout et al. (2001) find that three-quarters of the growth of conservative Protestant denominations against their liberal counterparts is due to fertility advantage rather than conversion. In Europe, there has been less attention paid to fertility differences between denominations. However, several studies have discovered that immigrants to Europe tend to be more religious than the host population and — especially if Muslim—tend to retain their religiosity (Van Tubergen 2006). Though some indicators point to modest religious decline toward the host society mean, other trends suggest that immigrants become more, rather than less, religious the longer they reside in the host society (Van Tubergen 2007). All of which indicates that religious decline may fail at the aggregate level even if it is occurring at the individual level (Kaufmann 2006, 2010). This article thereby investigates the hypothesis that a combination of higher religious fertility, immigration, and slowing rates of religious apostasy will eventually produce a reversal in the decline of the religious population of Western Europe.

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Research indicates that among ethnic minority immigrants religion is a source of group ethnic identification which makes them more resistant to secularization. In most countries, with the exception of France, Muslim immigrants have nearly 100% retention rates for the second generation.

Filipinos at an annual Christmas parade in Hamilton, New Zealand. Irreligion in the Philippines is particularly rare among Filipinos.

On December 23, 2012, Professor Eric Kaufmann who teaches at Birbeck College, University of London wrote:

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I argue that 97% of the world's population growth is taking place in the developing world, where 95% of people are religious. On the other hand, the secular West and East Asia has very low fertility and a rapidly aging population... In the coming decades, the developed world's demand for workers to pay its pensions and work in its service sector will soar alongside the booming supply of young people in the third world. Ergo, we can expect significant immigration to the secular West which will import religious revival on the back of ethnic change. In addition, those with religious beliefs tend to have higher birth rates than the secular population, with fundamentalists having far larger families. The epicentre of these trends will be in immigration gateway cities like New York (a third white), Amsterdam (half Dutch), Los Angeles (28% white), and London, 45% white British.

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Kaufmann told a secular audience in Australia: "The trends that are happening worldwide inevitably in an age of globalization are going to affect us."

At a conference Kaufmann said of religious demographic projections concerning the 21st century:

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Part of the reason I think demography is very important, at least if we are going to speak about the future, is that it is the most predictable of the social sciences. ...if you look at a population and its age structure now. You can tell a lot about the future. ...So by looking at the relative age structure of different populations you can already say a lot about the future... ...Religious fundamentalism is going to be on the increase in the future and not just out there in the developing world..., but in the developed world as well.

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See also: Religion and migration and Growth of religious fundamentalism

21st century New Zealand: Irreligion, religion and religious immigrants

See: 21st century New Zealand: Irreligion, religion and religious immigrants

21st century New Zealand, its aging population and desecularization

See: 21st century New Zealand, its aging population and desecularization

Destiny Church accuses government of incompetency/fraud as far a reporting church members figures of evangelical churches

The website News Hub NZ reported:

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Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki is eviscerating the latest Census data as "ludicrous" and "laughable" after it showed the size of his church was under a third of what he claims. According to the latest official data, his church has a mere 1772 adherents, far below what Tamaki says is more than 6000 active members. In the aftermath, NZME described Destiny Church's numbers as "surprisingly low", while The Spinoff went further, describing Destiny Church as an "utterly marginal religious group". But Tamaki is not to be mocked and he's refusing to turn the other cheek. He's publicly called out both companies' reporting as "wishful thinking" and a "left-wing hatchet job"... Tamaki says that at no point did the Census tell Destiny Church members that they could put Destiny down as a religion. "Most of us, including myself, will have put down Christian or Pentecostal. Even I wasn't counted in the 2018 Census as a Destiny Church member!" Tamaki said in a statement on Tuesday. "We are a predominantly Māori church and the Census utterly and totally failed Māori, which The Spinoff and its ilk conveniently forget. "They even had City Impact Church, a majority Pakeha church, down as only having 441 members which is ludicrous. It's laughable."

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See also

• Postsecularism and New Zealand in the 21st century
• Irreligion in New Zealand
• European desecularization in the 21st century
• Desecularization
• Atheists and the endurance of religion