James Mumford is a well-dressed 27-year-old from the posh London neighborhood of Pimlico. He holds degrees in philosophy from Oxford and Yale and, like many of Britain's elite, spent a post-graduate stint working in London's finance industry. But tonight he wants to talk about how he came to accept the Lord Jesus Christ into his heart. "I don't mind talking about my faith," he says, sheepishly. "But it's a touch embarrassing. Just don't brand me as a mindless evangelical."
The church has become so popular that it recently began encouraging hundreds of its congregation to attend dying churches around London — as much to ease its own congestion than anything else.
Judging by the success of the HTB, however, the humanists may be fighting a losing battle. Once considered a stalwart of rural England, the Anglican church has found new life in the largest of Britain's supposedly godless cities. And the new converts are perhaps even more fervent than their small town equivalents. HTB's Sunday services include singing, dancing, and speaking in tongues. "I've looked everywhere for the answers to my deepest questions," the philosophy major Mumford says. "It took me a while to realize that I'd find them in a London Church."
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1866094,00.html?xid=rss-topstories
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