Christian trends

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]]Worldwide, Christianity claimed 600 million adherents in 1900, making up 35% of the world’s population. Over half were in Europe, with most of the balance split between North and South America. After seventy-five years (including two World Wars, one “Cold War” and numerous plans to evangelize the world), Christianity had barely kept pace with the global population but had spread out more evenly over the planet. Total adherents rose to 1.3 billion by the year 2000, still one-third of the world. During this time, Africa saw stunning movements in the East, South and West, but the most dramatic occurred in Middle Africa (1% to 75%). Asia’s Christians grew but not as significantly: the greatest move was in Southeast Asia, which went from 10% to 19%. Europe saw a significant decline, due mostly to the Communist-dominated Eastern region (which fell from 90% to 57%). North America and Latin America remained at the same proportion.

For the twenty-five year period ending in 2000, little actually changed in spite of the many plans to evangelize the world by AD 2000. The chief problem: too few workers deployed to the historically non-Christian areas of the world (North Africa, Asia, etc). Middle and Southern Africa continued their movement, both reaching 81% Christian. The house churches of Eastern Asia spread across China like wildfire, moving that region from 1% to 8% Christian. Eastern Europe dramatically reversed itself in the 1990s and rose again to 72% Christian (more a matter of returning to one’s roots than a brand new turning). The rest of Europe, however, was secularizing and Christianity lost ground. Movements in Latin America were mostly between branches of Christianity, while North America and the Pacific saw the church’s position slowly eroding.

Demographics are the leading force for change, and we can project the future of Christianity mostly on their basis. By 2025 Christianity will be very slowly increasing and fairly evenly divided between the continents. Africa’s East, Middle and South will be a “Bible belt” with significant competition occurring in the West. Gains in the North are unlikely without a significant and probably costly new effort.

Christianity in Asia will continue to make slow-but-certain gains. Europe’s population is declining and with it the church; by 2025, Southern Europe (with its declining churches and rising immigrants) will drop below 75% Christian. Ironically, the church is now growing in the East: numerically the church will be fewer but it is not declining as fast as the population, so its proportion is increasing.

Latin America and North America are continuing their secularizing trend, but even so it is unlikely that Christianity will decline significantly. Still the Americas will have tremendous problems with apathy, nominalism and even defining what a Christian is. Likewise, secularization in the Pacific will lead to the Australia-New Zealand region dropping below 75% Christian as well.

Such a future is not particularly ideal: gains in Africa and Asia are being offset by losses in once firmly Christian regions.

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