Sub-Saharan Africa has replaced Europe as the locus for the world’s Christians, with Christians declining as a share of the world’s population due to people leaving the faith, according to new research. Source: OSV News.
According to the Pew Research Centre, Christians tallied across denominations remain the world’s largest religious group — a majority in all regions except the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and North Africa areas. But “they are shrinking as a share of the global population, as large numbers of Christians around the world ‘switch’ out of religion to become religiously unaffiliated”, Pew said.
The centre yesterday released “How the Global Religious Landscape Changed from 2010 to 2020,” surveying the religious makeup of 99.98 per cent of the world’s population of just under 8 billion.
The data — drawn from more than 2700 sources, including national censuses, large-scale demographic and population surveys as well as population registers — represents 201 countries and territories with populations of at least 100,000.
The report is the most recent in a series on global religious change, produced by Pew in collaboration with the John Templeton Foundation.
Seven broad categories are named in the report: Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, other religions — which include, among others, Baha’is, Sikhs, Zoroastrians and Wiccans — and those who are religiously unaffiliated.
While the total number of Christians in the world increased from 2.1 billion to 2.3 billion during the decade from 2010-2020, the total population of non-Christians concurrently grew by 15 per cent to 5.6 billion.
“As a result, Christians shrank as a percentage of the global population, with their share falling from 31 per cent to 29 per cent,” Pew said.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the overall population grew 31 per cent to 1.1 billion from 2010-2020, with most people (62 per cent) in the region identifying as Christians, said Pew.
Australia saw the greatest drop in its Christian population during the report period, declining by just over 20 points from 67.1 per cent to 46.8 per cent and counting 2.83 million fewer Christians by 2020.
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Latest from Pew Research: Christianity up in sub-Saharan Africa, down worldwide due to those leaving the faith (By Gina Christian, OSV News)
