Christian population growth
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Christian population growth is the population growth of the global Christian community. According to a 2011 Pew Research Center survey, there were more than 2.2 billion Christians around the world in 2010, more than three times as many as the 600 million recorded in 1910. However, this rate of growth is slower than the overall population growth over the same time period.[1] In 2020, Pew estimated the number of Christians worldwide to be around 2.38 billion.[2][3] According to various scholars and sources, high birth rates and conversions in the Global South were cited as the reasons for the Christian population growth.[4][5][6][7][8][9]
| Tradition | Followers | % of the Christian population | % of the world population | Follower dynamics | Dynamics in- and outside Christianity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Catholicism | 1,094,610,000 | 50.1 | 15.9 |  Growing |
 Stable |
| Protestantism | 800,640,000 | 36.7 | 11.6 | Growing |
Growing |
| Orthodoxy | 260,380,000 | 11.9 | 3.8 |  Shrinking |
Shrinking |
| Other denominations | 28,430,000 | 1.3 | 0.4 | Growing |
Growing |
| Christianity | 2,184,060,000 | 100 | 31.7 | Stable |
Stable |
- Catholic (48.6%)
- Protestant (39.8%)
- Orthodox (11.1%)
- Other (0.50%)
| Christian median age in region (years) | Regional median age (years) | |
|---|---|---|
| World | 30 | |
| Sub-Saharan Africa | 19 | 18 |
| Latin America-Caribbean | 27 | 27 |
| Asia-Pacific | 28 | 29 |
| Middle East-North Africa | 29 | 24 |
| North America | 39 | 37 |
| Europe | 42 | 40 |
The Christian fertility rate is 2.7 children per woman, which is higher than the global average fertility rate of 2.5. Globally, Christians were only slightly older (median age of 30) than the global average median age of 28 in 2010. According to Pew Research religious switching is projected to have a modest impact on changes in the Christian population.[13] According to various scholars and sources, Pentecostalism is the fastest-growing religious movement in the world;[14][15][16][17][18] this growth is primarily due to religious conversion to Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity.[19][20]
According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, approximately 2.7 million converting to Christianity from another religion, World Christian Encyclopedia also cited that Christianity rank at first place in net gains through religious conversion.[21] While according to "The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion", approximately 15.5 million converting to Christianity from another religion, while approximately 11.7 million leave Christianity, and most of them become irreligious, resulting in a net gain of 3.8 million.[22] Christianity earns about 65.1 million people due to factors such as birth rate and religious conversion while losing 27.4 million people due to factors such as death rate and religious apostasy. Most of the net growth in the numbers of Christians are in Africa, Latin America and Asia.[22]
Fertility rate
The Christian fertility rate has varied throughout history. The Christian fertility rate also varies from country to country. In the 20-year period from 1989 to 2009, the average world fertility rate decreased from 3.50 to 2.58, a fall of 0.92 children per woman, or 26%. The weighted average fertility rate for Christian nations decreased in the same period from 3.26 to 2.58, a fall of 0.68 children per woman, or 21%. The weighted average fertility rate for Muslim nations decreased in the same period from 5.17 to 3.23, a fall of 1.94 children per woman, or 38%. While Muslims have an average of 3.1 children per woman—the highest rate of all religious groups—Christians are[when?] second, with 2.7 children per woman.[23]
The gap in fertility between the Christian- and Muslim-dominated nations fell from 67% in 1990 to 17% in 2010. According to a study published by the Pew Research Center in 2017, births to Muslims between the years of 2010 and 2015 made up an estimated 31% of all babies born around the world. By the Pew Research Center's estimates, the Muslim fertility rate and Christian fertility rate will converge by 2040.[24]
| Country | Fertility rate (2019) (births/woman)[25] | Percent Christian |
|---|---|---|
 Ecuador | 2.40 | 94% |
 East Timor | 3.94 | 99% |
 Armenia | 1.76 | 98.6% |
 Equatorial Guinea | 4.43 | 92% |
 Moldova | 1.27 | 95.3% |
 Venezuela | 2.25 | 88.0% |
 Greece | 1.35 | 90% |
Conversion
- According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, approximately 2.7 million convert to Christianity annually from another religion; World Christian Encyclopedia also stated that Christianity ranks in first place in net gains through religious conversion.[21] While, according to book "The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion", which published by the professor of Christian mission Charles E. Farhadian,[26] and the professor of psychology Lewis Ray Rambo,[27] between 1990 and 2000, approximately 1.9 million people converted to Christianity from another religion, with Christianity ranking first in net gains through religious conversion.[28]
- According to "The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion", in mid-2005 approximately 15.5 million converted to Christianity from another religion, approximately 11.7 million left Christianity, and most of them became irreligious, resulting in a net gain of 3.8 million.[22] Christianity added about 65.1 million people due to factors such as birth rate and religious conversion, while it lost 27.4 million people due to factors such as death rate and religious apostasy in mid-2005. Most of the net growth in the numbers of Christians is in Africa, Latin America and Asia.[22]
- According to scholar Philip Jenkins Christianity was growing rapidly in China and some other Asian countries and sub-Saharan Africa around 2002.[29]
- According to various scholars and sources, Pentecostalism is[when?] the fastest-growing religious movement in the world;[14][15][16][17][18] this growth is primarily due to religious conversion to Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity.[19][20] According to Pulitzer Center 35,000 people become Pentecostal or "Born again" every day.[30] According to scholar Keith Smith of Georgia State University "many scholars claim that Pentecostalism is the fastest growing religious phenomenon in human history",[31] and according to scholar Peter L. Berger of Boston University "the spread of Pentecostal Christianity may be the fastest growing movement in the history of religion".[31]
- According to a 2012 report by the Singapore Management University, more people in Southeast Asia were converting to Christianity, and these new converts are mostly Chinese business managers.[32] Scholars Juliette Koning and Heidi Dahles of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam stated that there was a "rapid expansion of charismatic Christianity from the 1980s onwards. Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Malaysia were said to have the fastest-growing Christian communities, and the majority of the new believers are "upwardly mobile, urban, middle-class Chinese". Asia has the second largest number of Pentecostal-charismatic Christians in any continent, with the number growing from 10 million to 135 million between 1970 and 2000.[32] Scholar Wang Zuoa noted in 2014 that 500,000 Chinese people converted to Protestantism annually.[33] According to scholar Todd Hartch of Eastern Kentucky University, by 2005, around 6 million Africans converted to Christianity annually.[34]
- Conversion into Christianity has significantly increased among Korean,[35] Chinese,[36] and Japanese in the United States.[37] In 2012, the percentage of Christians in these communities were 71%, 30% and 37% respectively.[38]
- Due to conversion, the number of Chinese Christians increased significantly from 4 million before 1949 to 67 million in 2010.[39][40]
- It's been reported also that increasing numbers of young people or educated people are becoming Christians in several countries such as China,[41][42] Hong Kong,[43] Indonesia,[44] Iran,[45][46] Japan,[47] Singapore,[48][49][50] and South Korea.[51]
- The 2015 Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background: A Global Census study published by Baylor University institute for studies of religion estimates that 10.2 million Muslims converted to Christianity based on global missionary data.[52] Countries with the largest numbers of Muslims converted to Christianity according to this study include Indonesia (6,500,000),[53] Nigeria (600,000),[53] Iran (500,000 versus only 500 in 1979),[53] the United States (450,000),[54] Ethiopia (400,000) and Algeria (380,000).[53] Indonesia is home to the largest Christian community made up of converts from their former Islamic faith; according to various sources, since the mid and late 1960s, between two million and 2.5 million Muslims converted to Christianity.[55][56][57][58][59][60][61]
- According to the Council on Foreign Relations, in 2007 experts estimated that thousands of Muslims in the Western world were converting to Christianity annually, but did not publicize their conversions due to fear of retribution.[62]
By branches
Catholic Church
- Church membership in 2019 was 1.34 billion people[63] (18% of the global population at the time), increasing from the 1950 figure of 437 million[64] and 654 million in 1970.[65][66] On 31 December 2008, membership was 1.166 billion, an increase of 11.54% over the same date in 2000,[67] and slightly greater than the rate of increase of the world population (10.77%). The increase was 33.02% in Africa,[67] but only 1.17% in Europe. It was 15.91% in Asia, 11.39% in Oceania, and 10.93% in Americas.[67] As a result, Catholics were 17.77% of the total population in Africa, 63.10% in Americas, 3.05% in Asia, 39.97% in Europe, 26.21% in Oceania, and 17.40% of the world population. Of the world's Catholics, the proportion living in Africa grew from 12.44% in 2000 to 14.84% in 2008, while those living in Europe fell from 26.81% to 24.31%. However, Catholic numbers have grown in Scandinavia where the Catholics in Nordic dioceses have tripled or even quadrupled. For example, in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, 330,000 Catholics have now registered in their dioceses.[68][69] Membership of the Catholic Church is attained through baptism,[70] and from 1983 to 2009, if someone formally left the Church, that fact was noted in the register of the person's baptism.
- Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, who compiles the Vatican's yearbook, said in a 2008 interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that "For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us." He said that Catholics accounted for 17.4 percent of the world population - a stable percentage - while Muslims were at 19.2 percent. "It is true that while Muslim families, as is well known, continue to make a lot of children, Christian ones on the contrary tend to have fewer and fewer", the monsignor said,[71] though Africa and parts of Asia are the exception. If the UN report in 2018 is on target, Africa's population will grow to 4.5 billion by 2100, adding to all African religious groups.[72] Muslims in 2010 represented as much as 23.4% of the total world population and this is expected to increase to 26.3% by 2030.[73] In 2016, the global Catholic population was projected to grow to 1.63 billion in 2050.[74]
Eastern Orthodoxy
Protestantism
- According to Mark Jürgensmeyer of the University of California, popular Protestantism is one of the most dynamic religious movements in the contemporary world.[75] Changes in worldwide Protestantism over the last century have been significant.[76] Since 1900, due primarily to conversion, Protestantism has spread rapidly in Africa, Asia, Oceania and Latin America.[77]
- There are more than 1.17 billion Protestants worldwide,[78][1][79][80][81][82][83] among approximately 2.4 billion Christians.[78][84][85][86] In 2010, a total of more than 800 million included 300 million in Sub-Saharan Africa, 260 million in the Americas, 140 million in Asia-Pacific region, 100 million in Europe and 2 million in Middle East-North Africa.[1] Protestants account for nearly forty percent of Christians worldwide and more than one tenth of the total human population.[1]
- Protestantism is growing in Africa, Eastern Europe,[87][88] Asia,[88][89] Latin America,[88][90] Muslim world,[52] and Oceania,[91] while remaining stable or declining in Anglo America[91] and Europe,[81][92] with some exceptions such as France,[93] where it was nearly eradicated after the abolition of the Edict of Nantes by the Edict of Fontainebleau and the following persecution of Huguenots, but now is claimed to be stable in number or even growing slightly[93] and Spain, where the Protestantism is growing faster than other religious groups.[94][95] According to some, Russia is another country to see a Protestant revival.[96][97][98]
- According to various scholars and sources, Pentecostalism is the fastest-growing religious movement in the world;[14][15][16][17][18] this growth is primarily due to religious conversion to Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity.[19][20] According to Pulitzer Center 35,000 people become Pentecostal or "Born again" every day.[30] According to scholar Keith Smith of Georgia State University "many scholars claim that Pentecostalism is the fastest growing religious phenomenon in human history",[31] and according to scholar Peter L. Berger of Boston University "the spread of Pentecostal Christianity may be the fastest growing movement in the history of religion".[31]