Study: Christianity grows exponentially in Africa

[onpatrol98]

Study: Christianity grows exponentially in Africa
By G. Jeffrey MacDonald, Religion News Service

With 2.18 billion adherents, Christianity has become a truly global religion over the past century as rapid growth in developing nations offset declines in Christianity's traditional strongholds, according to a report released Monday.

Billed as the most comprehensive and reliable study to date, the Pew Research Center's "Global Christianity" reports on self-identified Christian populations based on more than 2,400 sources of information, especially census and survey data.

Findings illustrate major shifts since 1910, when two-thirds of the world's Christians lived in Europe. Now only one in four Christians live in Europe. Most of the rest are distributed across the Americas (37 %), sub-Saharan Africa (24 %) and the Asia-Pacific region (13 %).

"In two out of three countries in the world, the majority of the population identifies as Christian," said Conrad Hackett, lead researcher on the "Global Christianity" report. "I had no idea about that. … I was surprised."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2011-12-20/christianity-growth-africa-europe/52125920/1

[Critters2]

1. Christian expressions in Africa tend to be very conservative. But yeah, it's growing.

A friend who's a Disciples of Christ pastor recently told me there are more DoCs in the Republic of Congo than in the US. It was a big mission field for them. Because missionaries tended to be conservative, so are the churches they planted.

[Betty Karlson]

2. That could change

(It changed in Europe too)

[Irishonly]

3. I am a DOC and you are right

My church is very liberal and when we hear someone from the Congo speak I am sometimes surprised.

[xmas74]

4. That's not surprising at all.

My church has a sister church in Mozambique and we send money and support as often as able.

And I've read a number of articles stating that the evangelicals (Nazarene, AoG, Pentecostal, etc) are growing by leaps and bounds throughout Asia.

The faith is declining throughout Europe and is showing decline in the United States but is showing heavy growth in other parts of the world. What I see as a problem is that the developing churches are much more conservative, which means any emerging leaders from that region will be conservative. With the rapid growth being from the more conservative regions it's feasible that there might be a return to a more conservative church for a number of groups.