The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life’s (@pewforum) Global Christianity: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Christian Population concludes that the number of Christians around the world has more than tripled in the last 100 years, from about 600 million in 1910 to more than 2 billion in 2010. But the world's overall population also has risen rapidly, from an estimated 1.8 billion in 1910 to 6.9 billion in 2010. As a result, Christians make up about the same portion of the world's population today (32%) as they did a century ago (35%). This apparent stability, however, masks a momentous shift.
Although Europe and the Americas still are home to a majority of the world's Christians (63%), that share is much lower than it was in 1910 (93%). And the proportion of Europeans and Americans who are Christian has dropped from 95% in 1910 to 76% in 2010 in Europe as a whole, and from 96% to 86% in the Americas as a whole. At the same time, Christianity has grown enormously in subSaharan Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, where there were relatively few Christians at the beginning of the 20th century.
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Also see our previous post, "Poll: Religion, Faith Still Important to Most People Around the World."
What are the implications of this information on your publishing agenda? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
Religion News Service (@ReligionNewsNow): “Report shows Christianity shifting to Africa.”
Baptist Press (@baptistpress): “Pew: Christianity has become global faith in past century.”
The Christian Post (@ChristianPost): “Christianity Is the World's Largest Religion, Says Pew Forum Survey.”
CBN (@CBNNews): “Christian Population Declining in Europe.”
CNN (@CNNbelief): “Christianity goes global as world's largest religion.”