Sweden's mosques. . .

Permit me again to visit the problems of the homeland of half my relatives, Sweden.  It was and remains in myth and legend a Lutheran homeland.  There are still plenty of Lutheran church buildings.  The problem is that they are largely empty.   The some 3,000+ buildings dot the landscape but actual attendance of the 5+ million member church is dismal.  Some say as low as 2%!  The Lutheran Church of Sweden - the state religion/church until 2000 - remains the largest Christian denomination but is facing a continuous decline in registered membership - once nearly all the population of Sweden but now dropping below half.  Look at the attendance at worship and you see another picture entirely than the seemingly steady membership figures.  While there are other smaller Christian denominations include Free churches, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Eastern Orthodox Church, the growing face of Sweden is Muslim.

Sweden has experienced a sharp increase in the number of mosques over the last decades. Without an official register of how many mosques or prayer centers there are in Sweden, the Swedish Agency for Support to Religious Communities estimated last year that there are around 300 mosques nationwide, though the true figure may be higher because many of the prayer centers operate rather casually and outside any formal system of registration.  Government officials also say more mosques are on the way.  While this might seem negligible in comparison to the numbers of buildings associated with the Church of Sweden, the difference is that Muslims attend and the Lutherans don't.  Sweden's religious landscape has been radically transformed over the last quarter of a century. While churches have been quietly closed or the number of attenders decline to almost nothing, the number of mosques has skyrocketed by some 4,200 percent and they are full.  Furthermore, the Muslim population of Sweden has a robust birth rate while Sweden's native population is graying and having less children than it would take to replace them.  In effect, Islam is the second official religion of Sweden.  Sweden's massive demographic changes over the last 25 years is not only reflected in the demographic composition of the nation, but also the religious composition of the country. While churches continue to empty, Sweden went from approximately seven mosques in 2000 to now 300 in 2025.

This is not simply about the influx of Islam but about the decline of Sweden.  Its ethnic brand is about to become a memory.  Indeed, according to figures suggested by Yasir Qadhi, a Pakistani-born American theologian, predicted that in just one generation, half of Malmö’s population would be Muslim.  While it is certainly the path chosen by the Swedes over time, the reality is that Sweden would be hard pressed to reverse this course or make any real changes in the future ahead.  It is almost a done deal.  What is written here could be written about many of those nations in which Lutheranism once thrived and, indeed, about Western Europe as a whole.  Again, this is less about what Muslims are doing than about what Swedes and the Europeans are not.  They are not having children and they seem fairly passive about giving up their history and their identity and more concerned with maintaining their social service umbrella as their population ages.

Sadly, it is not uncommon for Lutheran church buildings across Europe to be seen as the cultural property of the nation rather than religious buildings in which the faithful gather for the Divine Service.  That itself is an admission that the handwriting is on the wall.  Membership figures tell a completely different story than the numbers of folks in the pews and virtually admit that what is being maintained is not a living community of faith gathered around the Word and Sacraments but a monument to their history to which they continue to cling as they reality of the change unfolds before their eyes.  It is becoming increasingly costly to maintain these Christian buildings while money is pouring in to finance mosques.  Swedish mosque construction has been partially or completely financed with money from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar or Turkey. In the case of Saudi Arabia alone, the numbers are in the realm of billions of kronor. There is also information in the media that every fourth Swedish mosque is financed by the Sunni Muslim and Wahhabi kingdom.

As I have posted before, many years ago my parents hosted a Swedish folk music and dance troop which had come to Nebraska to join in the anniversary celebration of a small village with a Swedish heritage.  The meal she served was stereotypically Swedish to the folks there but the modern day Swedes called it museum food and preferred American fast food and other non-traditional dishes.  Perhaps that is the Christian future of Sweden and other nations in the same boat.  Their Lutheran heritage is museum fodder, something to be appreciated in a display behind glass covers rather than celebrated with faith.  If it is their future, it could be ours as well -- whether or not it includes the explosion of Muslim immigrants celebrating their faith.  In my Swedish hometown, one of the three church buildings in town has closed its doors for good and, guess what, they thought about turning it into a museum.