I don’t buy that premise ... Islam will strengthen because it has absolutes and other religions are becoming more and more squishy to the point of irrelevance ,,, take the Church of England as my #1 example.
Any regime built upon coercion, peer pressure or, most importantly, tunnel vision, will eventually succumb to the pressure within any individual mind to experience curiosity and explore the world. The USSR fell, and rather quickly, after a generation of exposure to Western TV, more than any other factor, with the possible exception of the SDI program. The Soviets were whipped technologically. The Soviet bureaucracy was not providing the quality of life visible just over the border. A very important process of mind is the making of comparisons. Why else do dictators need closed societies?
>>I don’t buy that premise ... Islam will strengthen because it has absolutes and other religions are becoming more and more squishy to the point of irrelevance ,,, take the Church of England as my #1 example.
I have to agree. If anything, Islam has thrived on the internet, allowing Jihadists to indoctrinate with web videos.
Catholicism has absolutes, too many for many Catholics.
The Protestants have it easy, fewer absolutes.
Protestants also have no obligatory Sunday Mass, no holy days of obligation, no first Holy Communion, no obligatory Confirmation, no Holy Communion at least once a year, no confession ever, no penances, no Lenten fast, no Advent time, no abstinence from meat, no divorce-remarry, no nuns, no rosary and no Stations of the Cross.
I agree with your reading of the Church of England.
Islam will be as strong as their families, not unlike any faith. I lived in Saudi Arabia five years with my husband, who worked for ARAMCO. It was quite an education for us. There were as many lukewarm Muslims as their were anything else. They HAD to do the prayers five times a day but God reads hearts, not obligatory prayers with no heart behind them.