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GLOBAL RELIGIONS: WHERE IS THECHRISTIAN MAP MOVING?

 By Wayne Baker 

note: This post is part ofa series by Dr. Baker on Our Values about core

 American values. Thisweek Dr. Baker isdiscussing globalreligions. 

Christmas is the holiday

most celebrated byChristians around the

 world. For most Americans, Christmasnow is behind us— butmillions of adherents,especially OrthodoxChristians, will keep celebrating into January. From its birth in the Middle East,Christianity has circled the globe.

Do you know where most Christians live today?

Do you know how the Christian map has changed through history?

Over the past 2,000 years, Christianity spread outward from Jerusalem andeventually —for more than 1,000 years—the greatest centers of Christian scholarshipand leadership were in northern Africa and in the vast sweep of Asia that stretchestoward India. If you care to read more about that period, look for historian PhilipJenkins’ fascinating book, The Lost History of Christianity . For his book cover,Jenkins’ selected one of the medieval maps of the “Christian world”—shaped like athree-petaled flower with Jerusalem at the center.

How the map has shifted! To see this at a glance, click here to look at the newPew map of global religious concentrations. Compare the Pew map with the three-petaled flower, shown above. You will notice that two of the historic petals ofChristian strength now appear green on the Pew map—meaning that northern Africaand the Asian regions east of Jerusalem are largely homelands of Islam today. Now,the world’s biggest Christian communities thrive in regions unimaginable tomedieval map makers.

Here is what Pew tells us about worldwide Christianity:

Now, about 1 in 3 people in the world are Christians, according to the just-releasedPew report. Catholics are the largest single group, about half of the 2.2 billionChristians in the world. Over a third (37%) are Protestant, 12% are part of various

16th century map of the Christian world. 

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Orthodox churches, and 1% are Mormons, Christian Scientists, Jehovah’s Witnessesand others.

Now, almost all Christians (99%) live outside the Middle East. In sheer numbersEurope has the most: almost 560 million Christians. That’s about 75% of the total

European population. The Caribbean and Latin America are next, with 90% of itsestimated population of 590 million identifying as Christian.

Sub-Saharan Africa is next, with well over 500 million Christians—about 63% of theregion’s total population. But that African wave of Christianity actually is further tothe south than what Jenkins describes from 1,000 years ago. Then, Egypt and thelands surrounding Egypt in northern Africa were great centers of Christianity. Now,Christian concentrations in Africa are much farther afield.

The Asia-Pacific region is ranked fourth, with almost 290 million Christians. But thisis only 7% of the total population of that region.

North America ranks fifth in sheer numbers, with almost as many Christians as the Asia-Pacific region. However, these numbers account for over three-quarters of thatregion’s total population.

The region that gave birth to Christianity has only 12.7 million Christians today. Thisfigure combines the Middle East and North Africa. That’s less than 4% of the totalpopulation living in this region.

Does this historic movement in the Christian map surprise you?

 What do these shifts mean for world politics, security and culture?

Do you think the Christian map could keep changing?

29 / 12 / 2012

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 ANTI-CHRISTIAN TERROR IS EVERYONE’S

CONCERN

 By Steven B. Nasatir 

 An Egyptian woman mourns during the funeral of several Copt Christians who werekilled in Warraq’s Virgin Mary church in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013. APPhoto/Khalil Hamra

The persecution of any religious minority anywhere by anyone is an evil injustice. Itrequires all persons of conscience to speak out and, when possible, take action.

The upcoming 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht makes this an auspicious time toraise awareness about the contemporary violence targeting religious minorities andtheir places of worship. Of particular concern are attacks against Christian minoritiesthat have occurred with alarming frequency from Syria to Egypt, from Iraq toPakistan, and from Kenya to Sudan.

November 9 marks 75 years since the pogrom against Jews committed by mobsthroughout the Nazi Reich. Often called Kristallnacht, or the “Night of Broken Glass,”

 when rioters killed or injured hundreds of Jews; burned over 1,000 synagogues;destroyed 7,000 Jewish-owned shops and businesses; vandalized cemeteries andschools, and; sent 30,000 Jews to German concentration camps. It marked a turning

point in the escalating campaign of persecution culminating in the Holocaust.

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These events, seared into Jewish collective memory, make us doubly aware—andduty bound—to raise our voices when the deadly brew of religious bigotry and

 wanton violence are mixed.

Today in Syria, a once thriving Christian population—a community nearly as ancient

as that country’s once great Jewish community—has been depopulated by 25percent,according an estimate the Patriarch Melkite Greek Catholic PatriarchGregorios III Laham shared with the BBC.

In September, The Associated Press reported that Syrian Christians in Maaloula—acommunity dating to the birth of Christianity and that still speaks Aramaic— weredriven out or forcibly converted to Islam by rebels aligned with al-Qaeda.

“It is chaos, it is violence, it is blood, it is death. Life has been paralyzed. We have losteverything,” said Archbishop Theophile Georges Kassa b of Homs.

In Egypt, some supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi last summerunleashed their rage against that nation’s Christians, a historic communityconstituting 20 percent of the country’s population. Mobs burned dozens of Christianschools, convents, monasteries, institutions, and churches of any, and all Christiandenominations. And just days ago, gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire outside aCoptic Christian church during a wedding, murdering four, including an 8-year-oldgirl.

“It never happened before in history that such a big number of churches wereattacked on one day,” Bishop Thomas, a Coptic Orthodox bishop in Assiut told AlJazeera. “We normally used to have attacks once a month or so.”

 As Kristallnacht teaches, the burning of houses of worship can be a red alert that worse is yet to come. September saw the horrific Taliban bombing of Anglican worshippers in Pakistan, which took 85 lives, and, according to accounts shared by witnesses, the targeting for murder of Kenyan Christians—deliberately separatedfrom others in a chilling reminder of Nazi “selections”— by al Shabaab terrorists in aNairobi shopping mall.

 Attacks like these have contributed to a decline in the Christian population in theMiddle East and North Africa from 9.5 percent to 3.8 percent of the total populationfrom 1910 to 2010, according to a Pew Forum report on Global Christianity.

Tellingly, Israel is the only Middle East country where the Christian population hasgrown in the last half century, from 34,000 to 158,000, in large measure, accordingto many observers, because of the religious freedoms enjoyed there.

 As a Jew, I’m proud of the status of religious minorities in the Jewish state. As an American, I’m especially proud to live in a society where people of different faiths(and no faith) share the values of tolerance and coexistence. Despite isolated thoughsometimes deadly instances of religiously-inspired terror during the past fewdecades, ours is a nation where no Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, or

person of any other faith must live in fear because of who they are.

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It is time to sound the alarm about the religious persecutions of Christians andothers. Let us raise our voices, and call on our elected representatives to take action.People of all faiths should support passage of  H.R.301, legislation that would directour President to appoint a State Department Special Envoy to Promote ReligiousFreedom of Religious Minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia.

The bill will facilitate U.S government responses to human rights violations, combatacts of religious intolerance and incitement targeting religious minorities, and helpaddress the needs of religious minorities.

Further, we must demand that international institutions designed to protect humanrights, especially the United Nations, must actually do so without prejudice.

For people of conscience, for people of all faiths, now is not the time to be silent.

24 / 10 / 2013

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Europe Turns Blind Eye to Anti-Semitism

by Arsen Ostrovsky 

December 19, 2013

It is inexplicable that the EU Fundamental Rights Agency has removed its very own

"Working definition of anti-Semitism" from its website, while more than half of

OSCE Member States continue to be in breach of EU laws to monitor anti-Semitic

incidents.

Serious questions must be asked of the EU about its resolve to tackle this form of

hatred, when it cannot even agree on how to define anti-Semitism or comply with the

most elementary laws to help combat it.

Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council, recently said anti-Semitism is "a crime

against Europe and its culture, against man and its humanity. To be anti-Semitic is to reject

Europe."

Van Rompuy's remarks were made just last month, upon the release of the EU Fundamental

Rights Agency's (FRA) report on the disturbing, yet not surprising, findings of rampant anti-

Semitism in Europe.

His comments echo those of other EU officials and European leaders.

Yet, for all the EU's rhetoric condemning anti-Semitism and calling for urgent steps to combat it,

their actions portray a very different picture.

Take for example the above-mentioned FRA report on anti-Semitism, released November 8th.

The report was an exhaustive study on "Jewish people's experiences of discrimination and hate

crime" in eight EU member states - Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Sweden

and the United Kingdom  – that combined, make up about 90% of the EU's Jewish population.

An image from the recent FRA report on anti-Semitism.

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According to the report, two-thirds of the respondents considered anti-Semitism to be a problem

in those states surveyed, with three-quarters indicating the level of anti-Semitism in their country

had worsened in the past five years and a quarter saying they were afraid to openly identify as

Jewish for fear of anti-Semitism.

Now comes the inexplicable news that FRA has removed its very own "Working definition of anti-

Semitism" from its website.

According to FRA officials, the "Working Definition" was removed as part of a clearing out of all

"non-official" documents because it was only a "discussion paper" that was "never adopted."

Although the "Working Definition," initially drafted in 2004 and which provided for a strong and

exhaustive definition of anti-Semitism, was, regrettably, never formally adopted by the EU, it

nonetheless provided an authoritative source of guidance and expert advice for EU institutions

and member states in the fight against anti-Semitism.

Importantly, the "Working Definition" had also recognized that the vilification of Israel, and

Israelis, as a form of anti-Semitism today.

It is simply unfathomable that an organization tasked with providing guidance and leadership on

combating anti-Semitism, and which only weeks ago released a major report on the

unprecedented rise in anti-Semitism across Europe, would now remove even the tenuous

definition of the very crime it seeks to combat.

In addition to FRA, there is another major European-based body, the Organization for Security

and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which is tasked with, among other matters, combating anti-

Semitism.

It is perhaps no coincidence that the OSCE takes significant guidance on this from FRA.

The central part of OSCE's mission is the requirement for member states to collect information

and monitor anti-Semitic incidents in their home states. Yet, in its most recent annual report for

2012, also released last month, only 27 of the 57 OSCE Member States submitted official

statistics. Among the countries that did not submit the required official statistics include: France,

Hungary, Greece, Russia and Belgium -- some of the very countries identified by FRA as having

the highest levels of anti-Semitism.

Quite simply, without reliable data on anti-Semitic incidents, how can governments and Jewish

communities properly assess levels of anti-Semitism or propose remedies?

With anti-Semitism in Europe having reached a level unprecedented since the end of the

Holocaust, serious questions must be asked of the EU about its resolve to tackle this oldest and

most enduring form of hatred, when it cannot even agree on how to define anti-Semitism or

comply with the most elementary laws to help combat it.

So what should be done?

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First, the EU should be pressed to immediately reinstate the FRA "Working Definition of anti-

Semitism" as the legislative basis of the definition of anti-Semitism in Europe.

Any definition of anti-Semitism should also be done in conjunction with battling against Holocaust

denial, which is gaining widespread prevalence with the rise of far-right neo-Nazi movements

across many parts of Europe.

Under current EU law, Holocaust denial is punishable by a jail sentence of up to three years.

However, EU countries that do not have such a prohibition in their own domestic legislation are

not bound to enforce the EU law. At present, only 13 of the 28 EU member states have laws

specifically criminalizing Holocaust denial.

Concurrently, European governments should also be pressed to monitor anti-Semitism, as

already required under accords reached between the EU and OSCE.

And lastly, education, education, education. The history of the Holocaust and its lessons and

implications should be compulsory study in high schools across Europe. People are not born to

hate, they learn to hate.

If Herman Van Rompuy is sincere in saying that "to be anti-Semitic is to reject Europe,"

European political institutions must lead by example, with deeds, not just words.

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RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH RETURNS TO

MIDEAST

Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Greek Orthodox Patriarch of JerusalemMetropolitan Theophilos (second from right) stand near the Stone of Anointing,

 where Christians believe the body of Jesus was prepared for burial, at the Church ofthe Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City, June 26, 2012. Photo:REUTERS/Alexsey Druginyn

Given the diplomatic and military presence that Moscow has recently established onthe Mediterranean and in the Levant, it is only natural that its ecclesiastical roleexperience a resurgence as well. During the last few days, the Russian banner of thetwo-headed eagle, representing the church and the state, has been personified inBeirut by the visiting Metropolitan Hilarion, chairman of the Department of External

Church Relations in the Russian Orthodox Church. The church’s “foreign minister”met with a number of state, political and religious officials in the Lebanese capital, bringing with him a number of messages. The most important was Russia’s decisionto effectively act as the protector of Christians in the Levant and as their defenderand legal representative, perhaps the only real one they have on an internationallevel

In a closed meeting held at Hilarion's Beirut hotel and attended by Al-Monitor , themetropolitan expounded on the reasons and goals of his visit. He began by laying outRussia’s official stance vis-à- vis the Arab Spring. He contended, “It is not a naturalprocess resulting from internal developments that took place in the countries that

 witnessed its effects. What occurred was more of a foreign plan executed by externalfactions to control these countries, a plan that began with the Iraq war in 2003.” As a

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result, “It was not democracy that prevailed in those countries, but utter and totalchaos, the price of which was primarily paid by the Christian inhabitants of thesecountries, who were persecuted, killed and driven out.”

The metropolitan said that according to his church’s information, nine-tenths of

Iraq’s Christians were made homeless as a result of the war there. The same type ofdispossession also occurred later in Libya, recently in Egypt, and is occurring now inSyria. Wherever opposition militants take control, Hilarion asserted, Christians areforced to either leave or die. It was as if an intersection of interests occurred betweenthe secular administrations of the West and their counterparts in Muslim Gulf states.

Hilarion went on to emphasize that the goals, principles and interests of the RussianFederation are predicated on “the survival of Levantine Christians in their countries,and their peaceful coexistence with their Muslim compatriots, away from externalattempts to destabilize those countries.” He further explained that this was of utmostimportance to Russia in its capacity as the home to a multitude of Muslim factions as

 well as to his church, whose territory extends over numerous countries, fromUkraine, Belarus, all the way to Moldova, the Baltic states and Central Asia. Thechurch is present in areas where Christians form the majority, as well as others

 where they are the minority. Levantine Christians’ successful coexistence with theirMuslim countrymen is necessary and of vital importance to nearby Russian church’ssubjects, Hilarion said, as well as to the Russian state. While he called on LevantineChristians to remain on the land of their forebears, refrain from emigrating, andmaintain their demographic growth and their unity as Christians, he reiteratedMoscow’s stance, as state and church, to stand by their side, repeating, “We will notforsake you. You are not alone.”

Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev)

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 Apart from the public rhetoric, other aspects of the bishop of Moscow’s visit to Beiruthave elicited observations. One concerns the choice of this particular man for the job.He is a young Orthodox Church official, only 45 years of age, who rose meteoricallyin the church’s hierarchy within a relatively short period of time. He now occupiesthe same post previously filled by the current patriarch of Moscow, Kirill I, prior to

the latter assuming his current office. Hilarion's age and position will allow him tocontinue to follow up on his currently assigned dossiers for a long time to come, as

 well as assure him a promising future within the church’s ranks.

Hilarion’s competency to hold his current job appears beyond reproach. He is fluentin seven languages and knowledgeable about international political matters. He is acharming orator, as well as a capable diplomat, yet, his rhetoric revealed anotherinteresting point — his repeated mention of Vladimir Putin, in every paragraph andattached to every idea, to the point where he seemed to be more of a state officialthan a church representative. As such, his church responsibilities and his activities inthe region were given added breadth.

 Another interesting aspect was the bishop’s focus on Christian unity, whichtranslated into a lengthy meeting with the Lebanese Maronite patriarch, head of thelargest Rome-affiliated Eastern church. It was also perhaps not a coincidence thatHilarion left Beirut for Rome, where he had an appointment with Pope Francis onNov. 11. At the meeting with the head of the Catholic Church, the status of LevantineChristians will be at the forefront of discussions, Hilarion said.

It would appear that Moscow, as a state and a church, has the following in mind: Justas the Syrian chemical weapons crisis constituted an opportunity for US-Russian“reconciliation” and paved the way for a strong Russian resurgence on the world

stage as a full-fledged decision-making partner, so the issue of Levantine Christianscould be an opportunity for Moscow to achieve reconciliation between the Orthodoxand Catholic Churches. This would be deemed necessary and vital by Russia in itsquest to complement said political resurgence, in the Middle East, Europe andfarther afield internationally. In light of the dwindled Christian dimension to

 Western policies, and as Muslim affairs continue to gain importance in the identities,policies and countries of the Muslim world, a reconciliation between Moscow and the

 Vatican might be the first opportunity toward the former imposing itself as aChristian equalizer vis-à-vis the Muslim world around the globe.

The Russian state’s agenda might entail a third aspect, for it seems that Moscow istrying to recover the role it played when it was the capital of the Soviet Union. Thedifference is that during the Kremlin’s communist days, revolutionary Marxism stoodat the core of the regime’s ideology, which was reflected in foreign policy rhetoriccentered around backing liberation movements, revolution in third world countries,and establishment of a series of international institutions, ranging from theComintern to global conferences of communist youth. Now that Moscow is Orthodoxagain, it seems that this religious component has merely replaced communism as themost prevalent aspect at the regime’s ideological core. This is a core whoselegitimacy, to be consecrated, requires an external element, the best embodiment of

 which would be the issue of protecting Christian minorities, in particular, those ofthe Levant.

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Behold, then, the return of the two-headed Russian eagle. And here lies Beirut, thefirst stop on its flight back.

15 / 11 / 2013

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 WHY THEY QUIT CHURCH … AND CAME

BACK

 By Rod Dreher 

Sorry I’ve been silent this morning. I taught a class of homeschooled teenagers aclass on Dante’s Inferno this morning. I do not like public speaking and don’t thinkI’m very good at it (too self -conscious), but boy, was it fun talking about Dante.

 While I was babbling on about Paolo and Francesca, a friend and reader of this blogsent this Christianity Today article by a church-leaving, church-returning Millennialtalking about the experience of falling away from church (as she says 60 percent ofher generation will do at some point) and returning. Here’s what they did after theyquit going to church:

We attended book clubs that we found from craigslist postings on theInternet. We sat in some stranger’s house with a glass of wine, andwe felt strangely free to express our opinions. We said what wethought about the book. We asked questions. We wondered aloudwhat the author was trying to say about hope.

We batted around ideas, feather-light and beautiful, and we thoughtbriefly of all of the Bible studies we attended. Those times when we

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kept our complex, doubt-filled questions bottled up in our heartsbecause we couldn’t figure out a way to ask them.

Back then, we were in search of a place where we fit. We were leavingthe churches where we grew up. The youth groups where we took ourfirst wobbly steps toward whoever it was that we were going tobecome.

We knew it wouldn’t be pizza parties and camping retreats and yellowbuses heading toward Florida – this new, grown-up churchexperience. But we expected belonging. We expected grace andsupport and love.

For a while we tried, moving from one church to another. We were

never looking for perfect ion . We weren’t that naïve. We couldn’t evenname what we were looking for – a fit, a holy place, some siren songcalling us home.

Some of us searched longer than others, but in the end we faded out.We were looking for Jesus. Instead we found programs, guilt, andawkward small talk. We found fog machines and Five-Simple-Steps-to-Spiritual-Growth and fill-in-the-blank Bible studies.

So we started sleeping in on Sunday mornings. We went to the

farmers market and bought good things straight from the earth. Wedrank our morning coffee at small café tables outside, and peoplewalked by with their dogs at a slow, Sunday-morning pace. It felt morelike rest  to us than those chaotic church mornings, when we movedthrough the loud small talk of the church foyer and felt invisible.

Some of us went to neighborhood bars after work or late at night, andwe were surprised to find that all we had to do was sit down at thebar. All we had to do was s i t down , and we were part of that place,that crowd, that beautiful mosaic of people, all of them broken in their

own ways – few of them pretending otherwise.

In other words, she (they; she’s writing imaginatively) found real communityelsewhere. Not a formula. Not a program. Not “community” but something organic.But if you read on, she says they didn’t find real spiritual fulfillment away from thechurch, either. Her conclusion sounds forced, but I think I get what she’s talkingabout when she said she had to break through the accretions of “Christian culture” tofind the true and honest community — and communion — that was there all along.

I hear in this writer’s voice the point Pope Francis made in his sermon the other day:

to say prayers is not the same thing as praying. That is, the outward manifestations ofculture — the liturgy, the prayers, the church programs, etc. — are only valuable if

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they lead one to a real encounter with the living God. The friend who sent me thisarticle writes:

What I found striking about this article is that a lot of the real needspeople are seeking fulfillment for when they leave, it seems like the

Orthodox Church does a far better job of addressing by its verystructure. You are more conscious of the community of saints, livingand dead, who cheer you on (connected to the running described inthe article). You are more conscious of the way the disciplines shapeand renew and it is simply expected that everyone will participate inthem. You are more aware of the church as a living representation ofChrist and less focused on programs and what everyone is doing tovolunteer for this or that activity that no one really has time for in theirlife anyway. You are more aware of the value of the senses in worship

(which comes up in the article in the context of coffee and farmer’smarkets). Not that these things can’t be done well in other churches,but they are innate to Orthodox worship. I don’t expect to becomeOrthodox myself for a number of reasons, but sometimes when youwrite about it, I feel some jealousy and longing and this articlereminded me of that as well.

I think this is true, but I would offer a strong caution. It is possible to get lost inOrthodox culture too, and experience it as a barrier to theosis (union with God, thesummit of the Christian life) rather than an aid to it. What keeps me from being toosatisfied as a practicing Orthodox Christian is the story of my Greek friend who

 became an Evangelical in college because his home church was all about worshipingthe tribe (as he tells it). Another Greek friend who had the same experience, and who

 became an Evangelical in college, was often surprised to learn certain things aboutOrthodox practice from me. He said he’d gone through Orthodox school fromkindergarten through his senior year in high school, and had never heard of fasting,or anything like it.

The point is, anything can become a false idol.

Having said that, I do believe the friend who wrote me is correct. It goes back to the

lesson in the Terrence Malick film To The Wonder, at least in part. The experience of wonder — of the awe of the divine — has to be grounded and bounded in somethingfor us to hold on to the experience of it in the everyday. As regular readers know, I’ve

 been following a prayer rule for the past 11 days, a pretty strict one. This morning, I was up early praying the Jesus Prayer on the prayer rope, and it just wasn’thappening for me. It seemed rote. I was not in the flow. Yet I kept doing it, becausethere have been mornings when the presence of God felt so near it was as if He werestanding next to me. This stuff is not magic; you have to practice the presence of Godto make your heart (or, as the Orthodox would say, yournous), more sensitive to thetruth that He is always there. For someone as easily distracted as I am, and given toflights of fancy, the structure, the practices, and the imaginative universe of

Orthodoxy serves to keep me more connected to the reality of God and others. But

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like I said, it’s not magic. If you don’t have your will rightly ordered, these things willonly get you so far.

 What do you think?

28 / 10 / 2013

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Growth of religion

IntroductionBahá'í Faith

Main article: Bahá'í statistics 

World religions statistics place the Bahá'í Faith around 0.1% of the world population

in recent years.[1][2]

 The World Christian Encyclopedia estimated only 7.1 million

Bahá'ís in the world in 2000, representing 218 countries,[2]

 and its evolution to

the World Christian Database (WCD) estimated 7.3 million in 2010[3] while accredited

through the  Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA). However the WCD

stated: "The Baha'i Faith is the only religion to have grown faster in every United

Nations region over the past 100 years than the general population; Baha'i(sic) was

thus the fastest-growing religion between 1910 and 2010, growing at least twice as

fast as the population of almost every UN region."[4] This source's only documented

flaw was to consistently have a higher estimate of Christians than in other cross-

national data sets.[5]

 

From its origins in the Persian and Ottoman empires of the 19th century the Bahá'í

Faith was able to gain converts elsewhere in Asia, Europe, and North America by the

early 20th century. John Esslemont performed the first review of the worldwide

progress of the religion in 1919.[6]

 `Abdu'l-Bahá, son of the founder of the religion,

then set goals for the community through his Tablets of the Divine Plan shortly

before his death. Shoghi Effendi then initiated systematic pioneering efforts which

brought the religion to almost every country and territory of the world and converts

from more than 2000 tribes and peoples. There were serious setbacks in the Soviet

Union[7][8]

 where Bahá'í communities in 38 cities across Soviet territories ceased to

exist. However plans continued building to 1953 when the Bahá'ís initiated a Ten

Year Crusade after plans had focused on Latin America and Europe after WWII.

That last stage was largely towards parts of Africa.[9][10]

 Wide-scale growth in the

religion across Sub-Saharan  Africa particularly was observed to begin in 1950s and

extend in the 1960s.[11]

 There was diplomatic pressure from northern arab countries

against this development that was eventually overcome.[12]

 Starting in the 1980s

with Perestroyka the Bahá'ís began to re-organize across the Soviet Union

and Eastern Bloc. While sometimes failing to meet official minimums for recognitions

as a religion, communities of Bahá'ís do exist from Poland to Mongolia. 

The worldwide progress was such that the Encyclopedia Britannica (2002) identified

the religion as the second-most geographically widespread religion after

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Christianity.[13]

 It has established Bahá'í Houses of Worship by continental region

and been the object of interest and support of diverse non-Bahá'í notable people

from Leo Tolstoy[14]

 to Khalil Gibran[15]

 to Mohandas K. Gandhi[16]

 to Desmond

Tutu.[17] See List of Bahá'ís for a list of notable Bahá'ís.

 ARDA/WCD statistics place the Bahá'í Faith as currently the largest religious

minority in Iran[18]

 (despite significant persecution and the overall Iranian diaspora),

Panama,[19]

 and Belize;[20]

 the second largest international religion in

Bolivia,[21] Zambia,[22] and Papua New Guinea;[23] and the third largest international

religion in Chad[24]

 and Kenya.[25]

 

 A Bahá'í published survey reported 4.74 million Bahá'ís in 1987.[26] Bahá'í sources

since 1991 usually estimate the worldwide Bahá'í population to be "above 5

million".

[27][28]

 

Buddhism

Buddhism is based on the teachings of  Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as

the Buddha, who lived and taught in northeastern India in the 5th century BC. The

majority of Buddhists live in Asia; Europe and North America also have populations

exceeding 1 million.[29]  According to scholars of religious demographics, there are

between 200 million and 600 million Buddhists,[30]

 with 350 –550 million the most

widely accepted estimate.[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] Due to the syncretic nature of

religious beliefs in East Asia, however, some believe the Buddhist population

exceeds 1 billion.[37][38][39]

  According to Todd M. Johnson and Brian J. Grim, "The

Buddhist worldview and key rituals impact the whole of Chinese culture, including

many Chinese who claim to be agnostic or atheist. In this 'wider' definition it is

approximate to speak of 1 billion Buddhists."[32]

 

Buddhism is being recognized as the fastest growing religion in Western societies

both in terms of new converts and more so in terms of friends of Buddhism, who

seek to study and practice various aspects of Buddhism.[40][41] 

One estimate ranks Buddhism among the fastest growing religions in the United

States and in many Western European countries.[42]

 The  Australian Bureau of

Statistics through statistical analysis held Buddhism to be the fastest growing

spiritual tradition/religion in Australia in terms of percentage gain with a growth of

79.1% for the period 1996 to 2001 (200,000→358,000).[43]

Buddhism is the fastest-

growing religion in England's jails, with the number of followers rising eightfold over

the past decade.[44]

  A traditional belief among its majority Chinese population,

Buddhism is the fastest growing religion in Macau.[45] 

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Christianity

 According to a 2005 paper submitted to a meeting of the  American Political Science

 Association, most of this growth has occurred in non-Western countries and

concludes the Pentecostalismmovement is the fastest growing religion worldwide.

[46]

 In Vietnam, the US Department of State estimates that Protestants in Vietnam may

have grown 600% over the last decade.[47]

 In Nigeria, the numbers of Christians has

grown from 21.4% in 1953 to 50.8% in 2010.[48] In South Korea, Christianity has

grown from 20.7% in 1985 to 29.3% in 2010.[48]

 However, Protestant Christianity is

now seeing a decline in the country due to scandals involving church leadership and

an increasing negative outlook at Protestant missionary tactics. As a result,

Catholicism and Buddhism have become the fastest growing religions in South

Korea.

[49]

 In China, a recent boom in the Christian population has been called one ofthe "greatest revivals in Christian history". Mainland China now has about 67 million

Christians, or about 5% of the total population, despite considerable persecution

under Chairman Mao.[48][50] The Christian population in China is expected to reach

over 400 million people by 2040, which would give China the highest Christian

population of any country.[51][52]

 

Evangelical Christian denominations are among the fastest growing denominations

in some Catholic Christian countries, such as Brazil and France.[53][54] In Brazil, the

total number of Protestants jumped from 16.2% in 2000[55]

 to 22.2% in 2010 (for thefirst time the percentage of Catholics in Brazil is less than 70%).

The records of  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints show membership

growth every decade since its beginning in the 1830s[56]

 and is among the top ten

largest Christian denominations today.[57] 

Deism

The 2001  American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) survey, which involved50,000 participants, reported that the number of participants in the survey identifying

themselves as deists grew at the rate of 717% between 1990 and 2001. If this were

generalized to the US population as a whole, it would make deism the fastest-

growing religious classification in the US for that period, with the reported total of

49,000 self-identified adherents representing about 0.02% of the US population at

the time.[58]

 

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Hinduism

Over 80% of population of  Republic of India is regarded to be of  Hindus, accounting

for about 90% of Hindus worldwide. Their 10-year growth rate is estimated at 20%

(based on the period 1991 to 2001), corresponding to a yearly growth close to 2% ora doubling time of about 38 years.

[59] 

Islam

Islam began in  Arabia and from 633AD until the late 10th century it was spread after

 Arab armies began overtaking Christian lands from Syria to North

 Africa and Spain,[60]

 as well asBuddhist/Hindu lands in Central Asia, parts of  South

 Asia and Southeast Asia via military invasions,[61][62][63][64] and conquering

wars.[65][66][67]  According to some scholars, the Jizya (poll tax) was the most important

factor in the mass conversion to Islam, the tax paid by all non-Muslims (Dhimmis) in

Islamic empires.[68][69][70][62][71][72] (such as Christians under  Ottoman Empire's

authority,[73][74]

 Hindus and Buddhists under regime of  Muslim invaders,[66]

 Coptic

Christians under administration of the Muslim Arabs,[69] Zoroastrians living

under  Muslim's rule in ancientPersia,[70]

 and also with Jewish communities in the

medieval  Arab world[75]

) However, according to other scholars many converted for a

whole host of reasons, the main of which was evangelisation by Muslims, though

there were some instances where some were pressured to convert owing to internalconflict and friction between the Christian and Muslim communities, according to

historian Philip Jenkins.[76] However John L. Esposito, a scholar on the subject of

Islam in "The Oxford History of Islam"  states that the spread of Islam "was often

peaceful and sometimes even received favourably by Christians".[77] In a 2008

conference on religion at Yale University's The MacMillan Center Initiative on

Religion, Politics, and Society  which hosted a speech from Hugh Kennedy, he stated

forced conversions played little part in the history of the spread of the

faith.

[78]

 However, the poll tax known Jizyah may have played a part in convertingpeople over to Islam but as Britannica notes "The rate of taxation and methods of

collection varied greatly from province to province and were greatly influenced by

local pre-Islamic customs" and there were even cases when Muslims had the tax

levied against them, on top of  Zakat.[79]

 Hugh Kennedy has also discussed the

Jizyah issue and stated that Muslim governments discouraged conversion but were

unable to prevent it.[80]

 

In 1990, 935 million people were Muslims. According to the BBC, a comprehensive

 American study concluded in 2009 the number stood at approximately 23% of theworld population with 60% of Muslims living in Asia.

[81] From 1990 to 2010, the global

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Muslim population increased at an average annual rate of 2.2%. By 2030 Muslims

are projected to represent about 26.4% of the global population (out of a total of 7.9

billion people).[82]

 Several sources believe that this increase is due primarily to high

birth rates.[83][84][85] However according to others including the Guinness Book of

World Records, Islam is the world’s fastest-growing religion by number

of  conversions each year: "Although the religion began in Arabia, by 2002 80% of all

believers in Islam lived outside the Arab world. In the period 1990 –2000,

approximately 12.5 million more people converted to Islam than to

Christianity".[86] On the other hand in 2010 the Pew Forum stated "Statistical data on

conversion to and from Islam are scarce. What little information is available suggests

that there is no substantial net gain or loss in the number of Muslims through

conversion globally; the number of people who become Muslims through conversion

seems to be roughly equal to the number of Muslims who leave the faith. As a result,

this report does not include any estimated future rate of conversions as a direct

factor in the projections of Muslim population growth"[87] The growth of  Islam from

2010 to 2020 has been estimated at 1.70%[82]

 due to high birthrates in Asia, the

Middle East, and Europe. According to the Carnegie Endowment for International

Peace, the World Christian Database as of 2007 Islam is the fastest growing religion

in the world.[88]

 

Wicca

The American Religious Identification Survey gives Wicca an average annual growth

of 143% for the period 1990 to 2001 (from 8,000 to 134,000 – U.S. data / similar for

Canada & Australia).[58][89]

 According to The Statesman Anne Elizabeth Wynn claims

"The two most recent American Religious Identification Surveys declare Wicca, one

form of paganism, as the fastest growing spiritual identification in America".[90]

 The

"Free Press Release Distribution Service" claims Wicca is one of the fastest growing

religions in the United States as well.[91] Wicca which is largely a Pagan religion is

primarily attracting the followers of nature based religions in the Southern United

States which is contributing towards its growth.[92]

 

Nonreligious

In terms of absolute numbers, irreligion appears to be increasing (along

with secularization generally).[93]

 Even so, it is decreasing as a percentage of the

world population, due primarily to population increases in more religious developing

countries outpacing population growth (or decline) in less religious developedcountries. (See the geographic distribution of atheism.)

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The American Religious Identification Survey gave nonreligious groups the largest

gain in terms of absolute numbers: 14.3 million (8.4% of the population) to 29.4

million (14.1% of the population) for the period 1990 –2001 in the U.S.[58][89]

  A 2012

study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life reports, "The number of

 Americans who do not identify with any religion continues to grow at a rapid pace.

One-fifth of the U.S. public – and a third of adults under 30 – are religiously

unaffiliated today, the highest percentages ever in Pew Research Center

polling."[87]

  A similar pattern has been found in other countries such as Australia,

Canada, and Mexico. According to statistics in Canada, the number of "Nones"

increased by about 60% between 1985 and 2004.[94]

 In Australia, census data from

the Australian Bureau of Statistics give "no religion" the largest gains in absolute

numbers over the 15 years from 1991 to 2006, from 2,948,888 (18.2% of the

population that answered the question) to 3,706,555 (21.0% of the population that

answered the question).[95]

  According to INEGI, in Mexico, the number of atheists

grows annually by 5.2%, while the number of Catholics grows by 1.7%.[96][97] In New

Zealand, 39% of the population are irreligious making it largest percentage of total

population in Oceania region.[98]

 

Data collection

Statistics on religious adherence are difficult to gather and often contradictory;

statistics for the change of religious adherence are even more so, requiring multiple

surveys separated by many years using the same data gathering rules. This has only

been achieved in rare cases, and then only for a particular country, such as

the  American Religious Identification Survey[58] in the United States, or census data

from Australia (which has included a voluntary religious question since 1911).[99]

 

Historical growthThe World Religion Database (WRD) is a peer-reviewed database of international

religious statistics based on research conducted at the Institute on Culture, Religion

& World Affairs at Boston University. It is published by Brill and is the most

comprehensive database of religious demographics available to scholars, providing

data for all of the world's countries.[100]  Adherence data is largely compiled from

census and surveys; the WRD methodology is available online. The database

groups adherents into 18 broadly-defined categories: Agnostics, Atheists,[a] Baha'is,

Buddhists, Chinese folk-religionists, Christians, Confucianists, Daoists,Ethnoreligionists, Hindus, Jains, Jews, Muslims, New Religionists, Shintoists, Sikhs,

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Spiritists, and Zoroastrians. The WRD is edited by demographers Todd M.

Johnson and Brian J. Grim. 

World Religions by Adherents, 1910 – 2010

Religion

1910 2010 Rate*

Adherents % Adherents %1910 – 

2010

2000 – 

2010

Christianity  611,810,000 34.8 2,260,440,000 32.8 1.32 1.31

Islam 221,749,000 12.6 1,553,773,000 22.5 1.97 1.86

Hinduism 223,383,000 12.7 948,575,000 13.8 1.46 1.41

Agnosticism   3,369,000 0.2 676,944,000 9.8 5.45 0.32

Chinese folk

religion390,504,000 22.2 436,258,000 6.3 0.11 0.16

Buddhism 138,064,000 7.9 494,881,000 7.2 1.28 0.99

Ethnoreligion   135,074,000 7.7 242,516,000 3.5 0.59 1.06

Atheism  243,000 0.0 136,652,000 2.0 6.54  0.05

New religion 6,865,000 0.4 63,004,000 0.9 2.24 0.29

Sikhism 3,232,000 0.2 23,927,000 0.3 2.02 1.54

Judaism 13,193,000 0.8 14,761,000 0.2 0.11 0.72

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World Religions by Adherents, 1910 – 2010

Religion

1910 2010 Rate*

Adherents % Adherents %1910 – 

2010

2000 – 

2010

Spiritualism  324,000 0.0 13,700,000 0.2 3.82 0.94

Daoism 437,000 0.0 8,429,000 0.1 3.00 1.73

Bahá'í Faith 225,000 0.0 7,306,000 0.1 3.54 1.72

Confucianism   760,000 0.0 6,449,000 0.1 2.16 0.36

Jainism   1,446,000 0.1 5,316,000 0.1 1.31 1.53

Shinto  7,613,000 0.4 2,761,000 0.0 −1.01  0.09

Zoroastrianism   119,000 0.0 197,000 0.0 0.51 0.74

Total Population: 1,758,412,000 100.0 6,895,889,000 100.0 1.38 1.20

*Rate = average annual growth rate, percent per year indicated

Source: Todd M. Johnson and Brian J. Grim, eds. World Religion Database (Boston, MA: Brill;

accessed January 2012)

Future growth

Projections of future religious adherence are based off assumptions that presume

trends,total fertility rates, life expectancy, political climate, conversion rates, etc will

continue into the future. Such forecasts cannot be validated empirically and arecontentious, but are useful for comparison. The WNRF provides projections up to

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2200 in multiple scenarios, below is the most likely scenario based on the studies

made in 1995.

World Religions by Adherents 2200

Religion

Adherents %

Christianity   4,397,929,000  37.9 

Islam 2,624,567,000 22.6

Nonreligious   1,626,497,000 14.0

Hinduism  1,398,329,000 12.1

Buddhism 607,601,000 5.2

New religion  272,280,000 2.3

Chinese folk religion  253,162,000 2.2

Atheism 249,000,000 2.1

Sikhs 35,434,000 0.3

Judaism 24,697,000 0.2

Shamanism  19,859,000 0.2

Tribal Religion  15,416,000 0.1

Confucians   11,459,000 0.1

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World Religions by Adherents 2200

Religion Adherents %

Bahá'í Faith 214,559,000 0.1

Jainism   7,351,000 0.1

Shinto 6,138,000 0.1

Other 36,273,000 0.3

Total Population: 11,600,000,000 100.0

Source: Dr. Todd M. Johnson. [4]