Contrary to beliefs that the march of secularism is unstoppable, religion is set to make a comeback in Europe and strengthen in the rest of the world, an audience in Dublin heard last night.

Speaking at a lecture hosted by the Iona Institute and the Irish Catholic, Dr Eric Kaufmann (pictured) said that higher birthrates and immigration would lead, over the next century, to a more religious Europe.

Dr Kaufmann, author of “Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?”, said that, while many analysts presumed that secularisation would eventually lead to the death of religion, recent trends showed that this was not the case.

Outside Europe, the rest of the world was not secular, while within Europe, secularisation, even in very secular countries like France had stopped advancing. While the number of people practicing their religion was now very low in such countries, the decline in religion among the native populations had slowed.

Meanwhile, immigrants into Europe tended to be significantly more religious than the native population. Further, the religions espoused by these immigrant populations tended to retain young people at a very high rate, with ‘identity politics’ protecting religious retention rates.

Immigrant populations also tended to have higher birth rates as compared to native populations, Dr Kaufmann added.

And those with particularly strong beliefs “are breeding faster than anyone,” he adds.

He pointed out that the once small ultra-Orthodox Jewish community will make up the majority of Jews both in Israel and the diaspora between 2050 and 2100. In 1960, just a few per cent of the Jewish population of Israel studied in ultra-Orthodox primary schools. In 2012, a third of Jewish children between seven and eight will do so.

Kaufmann also points out that evangelical Protestants in the US have doubled their share of the white Protestant population during the 20th century, mostly through higher birth rates growth rather than conversion.

And he says that, overall, religious women have above-replacement fertility, while overall non-religous women tend to have below replacement fertility. Figures suggest that, in spite of the secularisation of the young, the proportion of non-religious Americans is projected to peak at 17 per cent soon after 2050, much earlier in the major cities, because of low secular fertility and and religious immigration.

Other demographic effects are also set to change the make up of Western society, he adds. Religions which are more “fundamentalist”, he says, tend to lose fewer children to secular society, and as they become better organised and more technologically savvy, their retention rates have grown.

Meanwhile, other demographic factors are also set to contribute to this trend in the West. Poor immigrants, Kaufman points out, tend to be more religious. In addition, he argues, while Christian church attendance has declined by 40 per cent in the UK outside London, in the capital, it has remained stable, because most of London’s practicing Christians are non-white, and many others are white immigrants.