In spite of atheism's rise in the mainstream today, a research revealed that more people are actually drawn into religion.
"Particularly in the West, it can seem like secularism is growing and people are leaving the church and the faith. Globally, that is not the case at all," Lifeway Research emphasized.
Last month, the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary released the 2022 Status of Global Christianity Report.
According to the report, while the religionists are increasing at 1.27% annually, the non-religionists only surge to 0.52%. There are already more than 7 billion religionists in the world today and are expected to rise to more than 8.8 billion in 2050. On the other hand, there are only over 890 million non-religionists in 2022 and are projected to decrease by 40 million in 2050.
Christians are the dominant religionists, having a current record of more than 2.5 billion, followed by the Muslims with over 1.9 billion. The Jews, which are the fewest among the religionists, account for more than 15 million.
While the Catholics are the largest Christian group, the fastest growing Christian groups are evangelicals and Pentecostals. As observed by Lifeway, the latter will have a "dramatic global growth" among all groups with just 1 million in 1900 to more than 1 billion in 2050.
The Christians are growing much more rapidly in the Global South, including Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania, with an annual rate of 1.79%. There are currently 1.72 billion Christians in the region and will rise to 2.56 billion in 2050. While in the Global North, composed of Europe and North America, Christians are increasing by only 0.13% annually, having a current record of more than 837 million and is expected to decrease to only 772 million in 2050.
Africa is home to most number of Christians in the world with a current record of 692 million, followed by Latin America with more than 612 million and Asia with over 388 million. Oceania only has more than 28 million Christians.
Christianity rises the fastest in Africa (2.77%) followed by Asia (1.5%) and Latin America (1.09%). Growth rate in Oceania is only 0.73%.
By 2050, Africa is expected to hav more than 1.28 billion Christians.
The present number of Christian martyrs are 900,000 and is expected to plateau by 2025. However, it is expected to reach 1 million in 2050.
The printing of Bibles grows by 2.52% annually, with 93 million this year, 100 million in 2025 and 120 million in 2050. Lifeway shared that there are already 1.8 billion Bibles in circulation today and will rise by 2.3 billion by 2050.
The center also stated that the rate of evangelized people substantially increases as more Christians reach the non-Christian nations.
"With more Christians living outside of Christian nations, more non-Christians know a Christian. In 1900, only 5.4% of non-Christians could identify a Christian they knew. That percentage has risen to 18.3% today. By 2050, 1 in 5 non-Christians (20%) will know a follower of Jesus and have the opportunity to hear the gospel from them," Lifeway explained.
