How many Christians are in the world?
Christianity by country
According to Christian Today, there were 2.4 billion Christians around the world in 2015. And according to a 2012 Pew Research Center survey, if current trends continue, Christianity will remain the world's largest religion by year 2050. By 2050, the Christian population is expected to exceed 3 billion. Many charismatic movements are growing in Africa, Latin America, Muslim world, and Asia.Other religions:
Protestantism
Protestantism is the second largest form of Christianity with collectively between 800 million and more than 900 million adherents worldwide or nearly 40% of all Christians. It originated with the 16th century Reformation, a movement against what its followers perceived to be errors in the Roman Catholic Church. Ever since, Protestants reject the Roman Catholic doctrine of papal supremacy and sacraments, but disagree among themselves regarding the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. They emphasize the priesthood of all believers, justification by faith alone (') rather than by good works, and the highest authority of the Bible alone (rather than with sacred tradition) in faith and morals ('). The "five solae" summarise basic theological differences in opposition to the Roman Catholic Church.
Christianity by country
On the left: A list of the top ten countries by largest number of Christians. On the right: a list of the top ten countries by highest percentage of the population that is Christian.
China Christian Council
In the recent 30 years, Christianity in China has developed rapidly. It introduces the best developing period in Chinese Christian history. Incomplete statistics indicate that there may be over 23 million Christians throughout the country, 30 times than in 1949. There may also be over 56,000 churches and meeting points, 70 percent of which are newly built. More than 55 million copies of the Bible have been printed, 3,500,000 copies per year in recent years. There are a total of 21 theological seminaries with more than 1900 students in China.
Christian Science
There were an estimated 106,000 Scientists in the United States in 1990 (427 per million), according to Rodney Stark. In 2009 the church said that for the first time more new members had been admitted from Africa than from the United States, although it offered no numbers. While the "Manual of the Mother Church" prohibits the church from publishing membership figures, the church does provide the names of Christian Science practitioners (members trained to offer Christian Science prayer on behalf of others). In 1941 there were 11,200 practitioners in the United States, against 965 in 2015 (1,249 worldwide). Stark writes that clusters of practitioners listed in the "Christian Science Journal" in 1998 were living in the same retirement communities.
Stark attributes the rise of the movement in the late-19th and early-20th centuries to several factors, chiefly that medical practice was in its infancy. Because patients often fared better without medical treatment, Christian Science prayer was favorable in comparison. Other factors included that the church retained cultural continuity with Christianity by stressing that it was Christian and adopting its terms, despite the new content Eddy introduced. It was not puritanical. Members were expected not to drink or smoke, but could otherwise do as they pleased, and several exceptions to the avoidance of medicine were permitted.
Christianity in Ghana
According to the census figures of the year 2000, out of Ghana's 18.8 million people, Christians made up 69 per cent of the population of Ghana. A 2015 study estimated some 50,000 believers in Christ from a Muslim background.
History of Christianity and homosexuality
Historically, Christian churches have regarded homosexual sex as sinful, based on the Catholic understanding of the natural law and traditional interpretations of certain passages in the Bible. This position is today affirmed by groups representing most Christians, including the Catholic Church (1.1 billion members), Orthodox Church (250 million members), and some Protestant denominations, especially Evangelical churches such as the Southern Baptist Convention (16.3 million members) and the United Methodist Church (12 million members). Restorationist churches such as the LDS Church (13 million members) also view homosexual sex as sinful.
Christianity in the United Arab Emirates
Christians account for 13 percent of the total population of the United Arab Emirates, according to a ministry report, which collected census data.
Christian tourism
Christian tourism is a subcategory of religious tourism which is geared towards Christians. As one of the largest branches of religious tourism, it is estimated that seven percent of the world's Christians—about 168 million people—are "on the move as pilgrims" each year.
Growth of religion
According to Harvard University professor Robert D. Putnam, an increasing number of Americans are leaving their faith and becoming unaffiliated. By 2050, Christianity is expected to remain the majority in the United states (66.4%, down from 78.3% in 2010), and the number of Christians in absolute number is expected to grow from 243 million to 262 million.
According to a 2005 paper submitted to a meeting of the American Political Science Association, most of Christianity's growth has occurred in non-Western countries. The paper concludes that the Pentecostalism movement is the fastest-growing religion worldwide. Protestantism is growing as a result of historic missionary activity and indigenous Christian movements by Africans in Africa, and due primarily to conversion in Asia, Latin America, Muslim world, and Oceania. According to Pew Research Center, Christianity is declining in the United states while non-Christian faiths are growing.
Christianity in China
Controversy exists regarding the veracity of estimates published by some sources. For example, Gerda Wielander (2013) has claimed that estimates of the number of Christians in China that have been spread by Western media may have been highly inflated. For instance, according to Asia Harvest, a US non-profit organization and "inter-denominational Christian ministry", there were 105 millions Christians in China in 2011. The compiler of these figures, Paul Hattaway, indicates that his figures are his own estimate, based on more than 2,000 published sources such as Internet reports, journals, and books, as well as interviews with house church leaders. The study points out that “owing to the difficulties of conducting such a [study] in China today – not the least of which is the sheer size of the country – there is [in the study’s rough estimation] a margin of error of 20 percent.” Citing one of the aforementioned surveys, Gerda Wielander says that the actual number of Christians is around 30 million. Similarly, missionary researcher Tony Lambert has highlighted that an estimate of "one hundred million Chinese Christians" was already being spread by American Christian media in 1983, and has been further exaggerated, through a chain of misquotations, in the 2000s. Christopher Marsh (2011) too has been critical of these overestimations. On 6 January 2015, David Ferguson published on the "People's Daily" the satirical news "Merry Christmas, 100 million Chinese!" criticising such type of journalism.
Christianity in Asia
Nations mentioned in the above list follow the list of countries and territories mentioned in the United Nations geoscheme for Asia. Areas which have not been recognised, such as Abkhazia, are not mentioned in this list. The data included in the table above are per sources in linked articles when available, and the CIA World Factbook when not. The number of Christians mentioned per country is the result of applying the percentages to the total population. These results will deviate from actual counts where they are available. The dominant religious affiliation per country mentions the dominant sect. In the case of Yemen for instance, Sunni Islam is shown as having 53% of the total population as followers. It does not mention that of the remaining 47% of the total population, 45% of the total population belongs to the Shia Islam sect.
Christians to the World
Christians to the World () is a Christian-oriented pro-democracy political group established by social worker Hendrick Lui Chi-hang in 2016. It encourages the political activeness of the Christians, holding localist thoughts and advocates for a referendum to decide the prospect of the Hong Kong sovereignty in 2047 to implement genuine autonomy of Hong Kong. In the 2016 Hong Kong Legislative Council election, Lui ran in the New Territories West and received 812 votes, 0.13 percent of the vote share.
Ecumenism
The exact number of these denominations is disputed, based on differing definitions used. The largest number often quoted is "approximately 45,000" from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. The "World Christian Encyclopedia" lists "approximately 33,000" in 2001. Yet, at the same time, the World Council of Churches counts only 348 member churches, representing more than half a billion members. This, with the Catholic Church's 1.25 billion Christians, indicates that 349 churches/denominations already account for nearly 80% of the world's Christian population.
Christianity in the United States
Christianity is the most adhered to religion in the United States, with 75% of polled American adults identifying themselves as Christian in 2015. This is down from 85% in 1990, lower than 81.6% in 2001, and slightly lower than 78% in 2012. About 62% of those polled claim to be members of a church congregation. The United States has the largest Christian population in the world, with nearly 240 million Christians, although other countries have higher percentages of Christians among their populations.
Christian population growth
The average 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. According to the "World Christian Encyclopedia", approximately 2.7 million converting to Christianity annually from another religion, "World Christian Encyclopedia" also cited that Christianity rank at first place in net gains through religious conversion. While according to "The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion", approximately 15.5 million converting to Christianity annually from another religion, while approximately 11.7 million leave Christianity annually, and most of them become irreligious, resulting in a net gain of 3.8 million. Christianity earns about 65.1 million people annually due to factors such as birth rate, religious conversion and migration, while losing 27.4 million people annually due to factors such as death rate, religious apostasy and immigration. Most of the net growth in the numbers of Christians is in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
Multiculturalism and Christianity
Christianity is a religion open to all humanity that counts one out of every three people on earth among its members. The Christian world encompasses a greater area of land than that of any other religious territory. In terms of both population and geography, Christianity is the world's largest religion. As such, Christianity contains a great diversity, and has followers from a wide range of ethnicities, nationalities, and cultures. Both Europeans and non-Hispanic Whites are shrinking minorities in the Church.
Protestantism
There are more than 900 million Protestants worldwide, among approximately 2.4 billion Christians. 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. Protestants account for nearly forty percent of Christians worldwide and more than one tenth of the total human population. Various estimates put the percentage of Protestants in relation to the total number of world's Christians at 33%, 36%, 36.7%, and 40%, while in relation to the world's population at 11.6% and 13%.
Christianity in Japan
Japan remains one of the most secular nations in the world according to the World Values Survey. While there may be up to 3 million Japanese Christians, Christianity in Japan is spread among many denominational affiliations. 70 percent of Japanese churches have an average attendance of less than 30, though membership is often double this figure.
Abrahamic religions
, estimates classified 54% (3.6 billion people) of the world's population as adherents of an Abrahamic religion, about 32% as adherents of other religions, and 16% as adherents of no organized religion. Christianity claims 33% of the world's population, Islam has 21%, Judaism has 0.2% and the Bahá'í Faith represents around 0.1%.
Christian views on marriage
David Dykes, theologian, author, and pastor of a 15,000-member Baptist church, sermonized that "When you are in Christ, you have full equality with all other believers". In a sermon he entitled "The Ground Is Level at the Foot of the Cross", he said that some theologians have called one particular Bible verse the Christian "Magna Carta". The Bible verse reads: "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (). Acknowledging the differences between men and women, Dykes writes that "in Christ, these differences don't define who we are. The only category that really matters in the world is whether you are in Christ. At the cross, Jesus destroyed all the made-made barriers of hostility:" ethnicity, social status, and gender.
List of Christian denominations
Some groups are large (e.g. Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans or Baptists), while others are just a few small churches, and in most cases the relative size is not evident in this list except for the denominational group or movement as a whole (e.g. Church of the East, Oriental Orthodoxy, Lutheranism or the Latter Day Saints). The largest group is the Catholic Church with more than 1.29 billion members. The smallest of these groups may have only a few dozen adherents or an unspecified number of participants in independent churches as described below. As such, specific numbers and a certain size may not define a group as a denomination. However, as a general rule, the larger a group becomes, the more acceptance and legitimacy it gains.
Eastern Orthodoxy by country
Based on the numbers of adherents, the Eastern Orthodox Church (also known as Eastern Orthodoxy) is the second largest Christian communion in the world after the Roman Catholic Church. The most common estimates of the number of Eastern Orthodox Christians worldwide is approximately 200–260 million. The numerous Protestant groups in the world, if taken all together, outnumber the Eastern Orthodox, but they differ theologically and do not form a single communion.
Wealth and religion
A study done by the nonpartisan wealth research firm New World Wealth found that 56.2% of the 13.1 million millionaires in the world were Christians, while 6.5% were Muslims, 3.9% were Hindu, and 1.7% were Jewish; 31.7% were identified as adherents of "other" religions or "not religious".
Anglican Frontier Missions
Anglican Frontier Missions exists because the church does not yet exist in every ethno-linguistic nation of the world. Some geo-political nations, like Nigeria, which is made up of 537 ethno-linguistic nations, waited 1800 years for the life-changing message of Jesus Christ. Some 6,000 more ethno-linguistic nations are still waiting. Even though 67 generations have come and gone since Jesus' resurrection, still over 2.0 billion people are unreached with the Gospel. This unseen quarter of the world has no geographic and/or cultural access (or infinitesimally limited access) to churches and Christians. In spite of the great advances made by missionaries over the years, 1/4 of the world’s entire population still has not encountered a Christian, let alone the Gospel itself. These people will likely never have a chance to hear the Gospel before they die, unless intentional efforts are made to reach them. Yet only 3% of the Church’s missionaries and 0.1% of its resources are going to evangelize these unreached people groups. The two countries that send the most missionaries—the US and Brazil—are also the two countries that receive the most missionaries.
The plight of the Gentile nations during St. Paul’s time remains the plight of unreached nations today. They can’t put their faith in Jesus if they’ve never been told about him, and they can’t be told about him unless Christians go to them with the good news. But less than 1% of the Church’s mission resources are being used to reach them. The 10 countries in the world containing 73% of the world’s unreached peoples receive only 9% of all international missionaries. Meanwhile, 40% of mission resources go to 10 other countries which are oversaturated with gospel presence. Why the large disparity between the need and our response? The answer to this question is another question: “How can we send unless someone tells us about the unreached in the first place?” 70% of bible-believing Christians—people who know and take the Great Commission seriously—have never been told that over one-fourth of the world’s population has yet to come into contact with Christians who can tell them the good news of Jesus Christ.
Palestinian Christians
There are also many Palestinian Christians who are descendants of Palestinian refugees from the post-1948 era who fled to Christian-majority countries and formed large diasporan Christian communities. Worldwide, there are nearly one million Palestinian Christians in these territories as well as in the Palestinian diaspora, comprising around 6-7% of the world's total Palestinian population. Palestinian Christians live primarily in Arab states surrounding historic Palestine and in the diaspora, particularly in Europe and the Americas.
Catholic Church in Mexico
The Catholic Church is the world's largest Christian church, and its largest religious grouping. The 2010 census reported that Mexico had some 101,456,786 Catholics among the population aged five and above, which equates to around 91% of the total population, making it the second largest Catholic country in the world after Brazil. The country is divided into 18 Ecclesiastical provinces, containing a total of 90 dioceses. There are 15,700 diocesan priests and 46,000 men and women in religious orders.
Christianity
It is the world's most populous religious group, with over 2.4 billion followers, or 33% of the global population, comprising a majority of the population in about two-thirds of the countries in the world.
Today, the four largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church (1.3 billion), Protestantism (920 million), the Eastern Orthodox Church (260 million) and Oriental Orthodoxy (86 million).
Jordan
Jordan contains some of the oldest Christian communities in the world, dating as early as the 1st century AD after the crucifixion of Jesus. Christians today make up about 4% of the population, down from 20% in 1930, though their absolute number has grown. This is due to high immigration rates of Muslims into Jordan, higher emigration rates of Christians to the west and higher birth rates for Muslims. Jordanian Christians number around 250,000, all of whom are Arabic-speaking, according to a 2014 estimate by the Orthodox Church. The study excluded minority Christian groups and the thousands of western, Iraqi and Syrian Christians residing in Jordan. Christians are exceptionally well integrated in the Jordanian society and enjoy a high level of freedom. Christians traditionally occupy two cabinet posts, and are reserved 9 seats out of the 130 in the parliament. The highest political position reached by a Christian is the Deputy Prime Minister, currently held by Rajai Muasher. Christians are also influential in media. Smaller religious minorities include Druze, Bahá'ís and Mandaeans. Most Jordanian Druze live in the eastern oasis town of Azraq, some villages on the Syrian border, and the city of Zarqa, while most Jordanian Bahá'ís live in the village of Adassiyeh bordering the Jordan Valley. It is estimated that 1,400 Mandaeans live in Amman, they came from Iraq after the 2003 invasion fleeing persecution.
Western religions
The Western world, taken as consisting of Europe, the Americas, Australia-New Zealand and (in part) South Africa and Philippines, remains predominantly Western Christian: 77.4% in North America (2012), 90% in Latin America (2011), close to 76.2% in Europe (2010), (includes 35% of European Christians who are Eastern Orthodox especially in Eastern Europe, 76%, not properly part of "Western religion", 46% of European Christians are Roman Catholic, 18% of European Christians are Protestant), 61.1% in Australia-New Zealand (2011), 79% in South Africa and 90% in the Philippines.
Christianity in the Middle East
Smaller Christian groups include: Arameans, Georgians, Ossetians and Russians. There are currently several million Christian foreign workers in the Gulf area, mostly from the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. In the Persian Gulf states, Bahrain has 1,000 Christian citizens and Kuwait has 400 native Christian citizens, in addition to 450,000 Christian foreign residents in Kuwait. Although the vast majority of Middle Eastern populations descend from "Pre-Arab" and "Non-Arab" peoples extant long before the 7th century AD Arab Islamic conquest, a 2015 study estimates there are also 483,500 Christian believers from a previously Muslim background in the Middle East, most of them being adherents of various Protestant churches. Converts to Christianity from other religions such as Islam, Yezidism, Mandeanism, Yarsan, Zoroastrianism, Bahaism, Druze, and Judaism exist in relatively small numbers amongst the Kurdish, Turks, Turcoman, Iranian, Azeri, Circassian, Israelis, Kawliya, Yezidis, Mandeans and Shabaks.
Catholic Church by country
According to the Census of the 2018 "Annuario Pontificio" (Pontifical Yearbook), the number of Catholics in the world was about 1.299 billion at the end of 2016.
Multiculturalism and Christianity
At the turn of the millennium, 60% of the world's two billion Christians lived in Africa, Latin America, or Asia, and by 2025, those demographics will shift to an estimated 67% of the world's three billion Christians. The rise of Christianity in the southern hemisphere, especially northern Africa and Latin America, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries is a "grassroots movement" that has generated new forms of Christian theology and worship, and shifted the cultural and geographic focal point of the Church away from the West. The prominence of the southern hemisphere's Christianity has brought with it a cultural and intellectual diversity to World Christianity, and contributed such ideas as Liberation Theology.
Evangelicalism
In 2015, the World Evangelical Alliance is "a network of churches in 129 nations that have each formed an Evangelical alliance and over 100 international organizations joining together to give a world-wide identity, voice, and platform to more than 600 million Evangelical Christians". The Alliance was formed in 1951 by Evangelicals from 21 countries. It has worked to support its members to work together globally.
Growth of religion
Protestantism is one of the most dynamic religious movements in the contemporary world. From 1960 to 2000, the global growth of the number of reported Evangelicals grew three times the world's population rate, and twice that of Islam. Evangelical Christian denominations also are among the fastest-growing denominations in some Catholic Christian countries, such as Brazil and France (France jumping from 2% to 3% of the population). In Brazil, the total number of Protestants jumped from 16.2% in 2000 to 22.2% in 2010 (for the first time, the percentage of Catholics in Brazil is less than 70%). These cases don't contribute to a growth of Christianity overall, but rather to a substitution of a brand of Christianity with another one.
Christian denomination
Christianity has not been a monolithic faith since the first century or Apostolic Age, if ever, and today there exist a large variety of groups that share a common history and tradition within and without mainstream Christianity. Christianity is the largest religion in the world (making up approximately one-third of the population) and the various divisions have commonalities and differences in tradition, theology, church government, doctrine, and language.
Christianity in Asia
A 2015 study estimates 6,968,500 Christian believers from a Muslim background in Asia, while about 483,500 Christian believers from a Muslim background in the Middle East, most of them belonging to some form of Protestantism.
Christian martyrs
However, the methodology used in arriving at this number has been criticized. The majority of the one million people the Center counted as Christians who died as martyrs between 2000 and 2010, died during the Civil War in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The report did not take into consideration political or ethnic differences. Professor Thomas Schirrmacher from the International Society for Human Rights, considers the figure to be closer to 10,000. Todd Johnson, director of the CSGC, says his centre has abandoned this statistic. Vatican reporter and author of "The Global War on Christians" John Allen that "I think it would be good to have reliable figures on this issue, but I don't think it ultimately matters in terms of the point of my book, which is to break through the narrative that tends to dominate discussion in the West - that Christians can't be persecuted because they belong to the world's most powerful church. "The truth is two thirds of the 2.3 billion Christians in the world today live… in dangerous neighbourhoods. They are often poor. They often belong to ethnic, linguistic and cultural minorities. And they are often at risk."
List of Christian denominations by number of members
The list includes the following Christian denominations: the Catholic Church including the Eastern Catholic Churches; all the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches with some recognition and their offshoots; Protestant denominations with at least 0.2 million members; the provinces of the Anglican Communion with at least 0.2 million members; all the other Christian branches with distinct theologies, such as Restorationist and Nontrinitarianian denominations; the independent Catholic denominations; and the Church of the East. With about 2.42 billion adherents all over the world, Christianity is the largest religious group in the world.
Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee)
In 2018, the total worldwide membership of the Church of God was 7,468,083. Of that total, 1,189,304 members were in the United States and Canada, making the Church of God the 22nd largest Christian denomination in the United States. Worldwide, there were 54,995 churches and 42,831 credentialed ministers (including music and Christian education ministers) in the Church of God.
Eastern Christianity
It is estimated that there are approximately 240 million Eastern Orthodox Christians in the world. Today, many adherents shun the term "Eastern" as denying the church's universal character. They refer to Eastern Orthodoxy simply as the "Orthodox Church".
Assemblies of God
The Assemblies of God (AG), officially the World Assemblies of God Fellowship, is a group of over 140 autonomous but loosely associated national groupings of churches which together form the world's largest Pentecostal denomination. With over 397,000 ministers and outstations in over 256 countries and territories serving approximately 69.1 million adherents worldwide, it is the fourth largest international Christian group of denominations and the largest Pentecostal denomination in the world.
Persecution of Christians
North Korea leads the list of 50 countries in which Christians are persecuted the most at the current time according to a watchlist by Open Doors. It is currently estimated that more than 50,000 Christians are locked inside concentration camps because of their faith, where they are systematically subjugated to mistreatment such as unrestrained torture, mass-starvation and even imprisonment and death by asphyxiation in gas chambers. This entails that 20% of the Christian community in North Korea live in concentration camps. The number of Christians being murdered for their faith seems to be increasing as times goes by because in 2013 the death toll was 1,200 and in 2014, this figure doubled rendering it to close to 2,400 martyred Christians. North Korea has earned the top spot 12 years in a row.
Christendom
The estimated number of Christians in the world ranges from 2.2 billion to 2.4 billion people. The faith represents approximately one-third of the world's population and is the largest religion in the world, with the three largest groups of Christians being the Catholic Church, Protestantism, and the Eastern Orthodox Church. The largest Christian denomination is the Catholic Church, with an estimated 1.2 billion adherents.
Christianity
With around 2.4 billion adherents, split into three main branches of Catholic, Protestant and Eastern Orthodox, Christianity is the world's largest religion. The Christian share of the world's population has stood at around 33% for the last hundred years, which means that one in three persons on earth are Christians. This masks a major shift in the demographics of Christianity; large increases in the developing world have been accompanied by substantial declines in the developed world, mainly in Europe and North America. According to a 2015 Pew Research Center study, within the next four decades, Christians will remain the world's largest religion; and by 2050, the Christian population is expected to exceed 3 billion.
Christians
Christianity remains the dominant religion in the Western World, where 70% are Christians. According to a 2012 Pew Research Center survey, if current trends continue, Christianity will remain the world's largest religion by the year 2050. By 2050, the Christian population is expected to exceed 3 billion. While Muslims have an average of 3.1 children per woman—the highest rate of all religious groups, Christians are second, with 2.7 children per woman. High birth rates and conversion were cited as the reason for Christian population growth. A 2015 study found that approximately 10.2 million Muslims converted to Christianity. Christianity is growing in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Muslim world, and Oceania.
Ecumenism
Christianity has not been a monolithic faith since the first century or Apostolic Age, if ever, and today there exist a large variety of groups that share a common history and tradition within and without mainstream Christianity. Christianity is the largest religion in the world (making up approximately one-third of the population) and the various divisions have commonalities and differences in tradition, theology, church government, doctrine, and language.
Christianity in Morocco
Christians in Morocco constitute less than 1% of the country's population of 33,600,000 (2014 census). Most of the Christian adherents are Catholic and Protestants. 
The U.S. State Department estimates the number of Moroccan Christians as more than 40,000. Pew-Templeton estimates the number of Moroccan Christians at 20,000. The number of the Moroccans who converted to Christianity (most of them secret worshippers) are estimated between 8,000-40,000.
David Berg
He disapproved of mainstream Christians because he thought that they failed to follow the teachings of Christ. He believed that all Christians should model their lives after the first century church, living a simple life, and devoting their life, time, and money to sharing the Gospel of Christ with as many people as possible. During the first 25 years of this movement, the Family International claims they shared their message with over 260 million people in over 100 countries. According to The Family International, 18 million of those people became followers of Christ.
Baptists
Today, more than 100 million Christians identify themselves as Baptist or belong to Baptist-type churches. There are 48 million Baptists who belong to churches cooperating with the Baptist World Alliance. Many Baptist groups, including the Southern Baptist Convention and the Baptist Bible Fellowship do not cooperate with the Alliance.
Religion in Asia
Only six countries are predominantly Christian: Asian Russia which is predominantly the Russian Orthodox Church ;Cyprus, which is predominantly Orthodox; the Philippines, which is the third-largest Roman Catholic nation in the world; Timor Leste, which is the most overwhelming Christian (99.6%) and Roman Catholic nation in Asia (97.6%) ; Armenia, which was the first state to adopt a Christian denomination as its state religion; and Georgia. Christianity also accounts for 29.2% of South Korea's population (54.5% of its religious population) and is now the predominant religion in South Korea, Christianity is also a large minority religion in Lebanon accounting for 40% of its population. Christianity is also a large minority religion in Kazakhstan (26%), Singapore (18.3%), and Kyrgyzstan (17%).
Christianity in the Middle East
Lebanon holds the largest proportion of Christians in the Arab world proportionally and falls behind only Egypt and Syria in absolute numbers. Christians were half of Lebanon's population before the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), but in 2012 they are believed to form a large minority of 40.5% of the country's population (according to the last official Lebanese Census of 1932, the Lebanese Christian population was 51% of the country's population in 1932). However, if one counts the estimated 8–14-million-strong Lebanese diaspora, they form far more than the majority of the population. The exact number of Christians is uncertain because no official census has been made in Lebanon since 1932. Lebanese Christians belong mostly to the Maronite Catholic Church and Greek Orthodox, with sizable minorities belonging to the Melkite Greek Catholics. Lebanese Christians are the only Christians in the Middle East with a sizable political role in the country. As a result of the National Pact the Lebanese president, half of the cabinet, and half of the parliament follow one of the various Lebanese Christian rites.
Christianity in Turkey
Christianity in Turkey has had a long history dating back to the 1st-century AD. In modern times the percentage of Christians in Turkey has declined from 20-25 percent in 1914 to 3-5.5 percent in 1927, to 0.2% today. This was due to events which had a significant impact on the country's demographic structure, such as the First World War, the genocide of Syriacs, Assyrian, Greeks, Armenians, and Chaldeans the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, and the emigration of Christians (such as Assyrians, Greeks, Armenians etc.) to foreign countries (mostly in Europe and the Americas) that actually began in the late 19th century and gained pace in the first quarter of the 20th century, especially during World War I. Today people of different Christian denominations, represent less than 0.2 percent of Turkey's population, including an estimated 80,000 Oriental Orthodox, 35,000 Catholics, 18,000 Antiochian Greeks, 5,000 Greek Orthodox and 8,000 Protestants. There are also a small group of Protestant Turks whom still faces difficulties even though they are from recent Muslim Turkish backgrounds(rather than ethnic minorities)that don't have historic claims to churches or property in the country. Currently there are 236 churches open for worship in Turkey. The Eastern Orthodox Church has been headquartered in Constantinople since the 4th century. 
Christianization of Syriacs and Armenians most likely began around the 1st century AD. The spread of Christianity beyond Jerusalem is discussed in the Book of Acts.
Christians
A Pew Center study about religion and education around the world in 2016, found that Christians ranked as the second most educated religious group around in the world after Jews with an average of 9.3 years of schooling, and the highest numbers of years of schooling among Christians were found in Germany (13.6), New Zealand (13.5) and Estonia (13.1). Christians were also found to have the second highest number of graduate and post-graduate degrees per capita while in absolute numbers ranked in the first place (220 million). Between the various Christian communities, Singapore outranks other nations in terms of Christians who obtain a university degree in institutions of higher education (67%), followed by the Christians of Israel (63%), and the Christians of Georgia (57%).
World Alliance of Reformed Churches
The WARC brings together more than 75 million Christians in over 100 countries around the world.
Christianity in Nepal
It is impossible to determine with certainty the exact number of Christians in Nepal today, but most informed observers agree that the 2011 Census's figure of 375,699 (1.4% of the population) is a significant underestimate. Scholars and religious minorities have argued that Nepal's censuses consistently under-report non-Hindus. C.B. Gahatraj, General Secretary of the Federation of National Churches of Nepal, claimed in 2012 that there were 2.5 million Christians in Nepal, while other informed observers have placed the number between 700,000 and 2 million. Scholars who have assessed the various estimates have suggested that a figure of roughly 1 million may be the most plausible estimate.
Christianity in India
Christians are found all across India and in all walks of life, with major populations in parts of South India and the south shore, the Konkan Coast, and Northeast India. Indian Christians have contributed significantly to and are well represented in various spheres of national life. They include former and current chief ministers, governors and chief election commissioners. Indian Christians have the highest ratio of women to men among the various religious communities in India. Christians are the second most educated religious group in India after Jains.
Christianity in the Philippines
The Philippines is the 5th largest Christian country on Earth, with about 90% of the population being adherents. It is also one of two predominantly Roman Catholic nations in Asia (the other being East Timor) and, , was the third largest Catholic country in the world. (other two nations are Brazil and Mexico).
List of Pentecostals and non-denominational Evangelicals
Numbering 169 million adherents worldwide, Pentecostals and non-denominational evangelicals comprise a significant part of the Christian church, outnumbering more widely recognised groups such as the Baptists (105 million), Lutherans (87 million), Anglicans (77 million), Reformed Churches, i.e. Calvinists, Presbyterians and Congregationalists (75 million), but a smaller proportion than those adhering to Eastern Orthodoxy (260 million). Cf. the Wikipedia page on denomination sizes for sources and further detail.
Christianity in Jordan
Jordan contains some of the oldest Christian communities in the world, Christians having resided in Jordan after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ early in the 1st century AD. Christians today make up about 4% of the population, down from 20% in 1930, but their absolute numbers increased. This is due to high immigration rates of Muslims into Jordan, higher emigration rates of Christians to the west and higher birth rates for Muslims. Jordanian Christians number around 250,000, all of whom are Arabic-speaking, according to a 2014 estimate by the Orthodox Church. The study excluded minority Christian groups and the thousands of western, Iraqi and Syrian Christians residing in Jordan.
Religion
Christianity is based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth (1st century) as presented in the New Testament. The Christian faith is essentially faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, and as Savior and Lord. Almost all Christians believe in the Trinity, which teaches the unity of Father, Son (Jesus Christ), and Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead. Most Christians can describe their faith with the Nicene Creed. As the religion of Byzantine Empire in the first millennium and of Western Europe during the time of colonization, Christianity has been propagated throughout the world. The main divisions of Christianity are, according to the number of adherents:
Nominal Christian
Patrick Johnstone and Jason Mandryk suggest that "nominalism" is a major issue. They assert that "many traditionally Christian populations know nothing of a personal faith, true repentance, and a trust in the finished work of Christ for their salvation", and estimate that 1.2 billion people are "nominal and non-practising 'Christians'."
Charismatic Christianity
In 2011, there were an estimated 584 million Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians worldwide. They made up 9 percent of the world's population and 27 percent of all Christians. There were 279 million Pentecostals and over 300 million Charismatics (the figures for Charismatics include both the Charismatic Movement in the historic churches as well as the neocharismatic movement). Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity is second in size only to the Roman Catholic Church.Encyclopedic:
Ecumenism
The world's 2.2 billion Christians are visibly divided into different communions or denominations, groupings of Christians and their churches that are in full communion with one another, but to some degree exclusive of other Christians.
Demographics of South America
An estimated 90% of South Americans are Christians (82% Roman Catholic, 8% other Christian denominations mainly Traditional Protestants and Evangelicals but also Orthodoxy), accounting for ca. 19% of Christians worldwide.
Arab Christians
Jordan contains some of the oldest Christian communities in the world, Christians have resided in the Transjordan early in the first century. Today, Christians today make up about 4% of the population, down from 20% in 1930. This is due to high immigration rates of Muslims into Jordan, higher emigration rates of Christians to the west and higher birth rates for Muslims. Jordanian Arab Christians number around 221,000, according to a 2014 estimate by the Orthodox Church. The study excluded minority Christian groups and the thousands of western, Iraqi and Syrian Christians residing in Jordan. Another estimare suggests the Orthodox number 125-300,000, Catholics at 114,000 and Protestants at 30,000 for a total 270-450,000. Most native Christians in Jordan identify themselves as Arab, though there are also significant Assyrian and Armenian populations in the country. There has been an influx of Christian refugees escaping Daesh, mainly from Mosul, Iraq, numbering about 7000 and 20,000 from Syria.
Christians
According to a study from 2015, Christians hold the largest amount of wealth (55% of the total world wealth), followed by Muslims (5.8%), Hindus (3.3%) and Jews (1.1%). According to the same study it was found that adherents under the classification Irreligion or other religions hold about 34.8% of the total global wealth. A study done by the nonpartisan wealth research firm New World Wealth found that 56.2% of the 13.1 million millionaires in the world were Christians.
Christianity in Pakistan
Christians make up one of the two largest (non-Muslim) religious minorities in Pakistan, along with Hindus. The total number of Christians in Pakistan was estimated at 2.5 million in 2005, or 1.6% of the population. Of these, approximately half are Catholic and half Protestant.
Religion in Iraq
Christianity was brought to Iraq in the first century by the Apostle Thomas, Addai (Thaddaeus) and his pupils Aggagi and Mari. Thomas and Thaddeus belonged to the twelve Apostles. Iraq's Chaldean minority represents roughly 3% of the population (earlier CIA Factbook), mostly living in Northern Iraq, concentrated in the Ninewa and Dahuk governorates. There are no official statistics, and estimates vary greatly. In 1950 Christians may have numbered 10–12% of the population of 5.0 million. They were 8% or 1.4 in a population of 16.3 million in 1987 and 1.5 million in 2003 of 26 million. Emigration has been high since the 1970s. Since the 2003 Iraq War, Iraqi Christians have been relocated to Syria in significant but unknown numbers. There has been no official census since 2003 the Christian population in Iraq numbers 1.2–2.1 Million.
Evangelicalism
According to Sébastien Fath of CNRS, in 2016, there are 619 million Evangelicals in the world, one in four Christians. In 2017, about 630 million, an increase of 11 million, including Pentecostals.
Religion in Asia
Christianity is a widespread minority religion in Asia with more than 286 million adherents according to Pew Research Center in 2010, and nearly 364 million according to Britannica Book of the Year 2014. constituting around 12.6% of the total population of Asia.
Religion in Jordan
The country also boasts one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, coexisting with the rest of the population. They made up about 4.2% of the population when the country had 5 million inhabitants in 2005 (Who are the Christians in the Middle East, Betty Jane & J. Martin Bailey, pp. 168–169). down from 20% in the 1930s, due to several reasons, mainly due to high rates of Muslim immigration into the country. More than half are Greek Orthodox. The rest are Latin or Greek Rite Catholics, Syrian Orthodox, Protestants and Armenians., ibid. Jordanian Christians in a country of almost 10 million are thought to number 250,000-400,000 excluding tens of thousands Syrian and Iraqi Christians in the country. A 2015 study estimates some 6,500 Christian believers from a Muslim background in the country, most of them belonging to some form of Protestantism.
Palestinian Christians
Palestinian Christians () are Christian citizens of the State of Palestine. In the wider definition of Palestinian Christians, including the Palestinian refugees, diaspora and people with full or partial Palestinian Christian ancestry this can be applied to an estimated 500,000 people worldwide as of the year 2000. Palestinian Christians belong to one of a number of Christian denominations, including Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, Catholicism (Eastern and Western rites), Anglicanism, Lutheranism, other branches of Protestantism and others. They number 6–7% of the 12 million Palestinians. 70% live outside Palestine and Israel. In both the local dialect of Palestinian Arabic and in Classical Arabic or Modern Standard Arabic, Christians are called "Nasrani" (the Arabic word Nazarene) or "Masihi" (a derivative of Arabic word "Masih", meaning "Messiah"). Hebrew-speakers call them "Notzri" (also spelt "Notsri"), which means Nazarene (originated from Nazareth).
Christian denomination
The Catholic Church which claims 1.2 billion members – slightly over half of all Christians worldwide – does not view itself as a denomination, but as the original pre-denominational church, a view rejected by other Christians. Protestant denominations account for approximately 37 percent of Christians worldwide. Together, Catholicism and Protestantism (including Anglicanism, and other denominations sharing historical ties) comprise Western Christianity. Western Christian denominations prevail in Western, Northern, Central and Southern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas and Oceania.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
During the 20th century, the church grew substantially and became an international organization, due in part to the spread of missionaries around the globe. In 2000, the church reported 60,784 missionaries and global church membership stood at just over 11 million. Worldwide membership surpassed 13 million in 2007 and reached 14 million in July 2010, with about six million of those within the United States. However, it is estimated based on demographic studies that only one-third of the total worldwide membership (about 4.5 million people as of 2014) are regularly attending churchgoers. The church cautions against overemphasis of growth statistics for comparison with other churches because relevant factors—including activity rates and death rates, methodology used in registering or counting members, what factors constitute membership, and geographical variations—are rarely accounted for in the comparisons.
Christian Church International
The Christian Church International, until October 2018 known as the Christian Universal Life Church (CULC), is an independent global panentheist, evangelical Christian church based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 2007 the church was founded by Elias I. and a team of fellow panentheists in Toronto, Canada. In 2018 the denomination had 1.5 million members in more than 80 countries and 1.4 million followers on social media. It is therefore one of the biggest grassroot and social media churches on a global scale.
Christianity in Oman
Christianity is the religion of 6.5% of the population of Oman, which are about 300,000 persons. 90 Christian congregations exist in Oman.
Christianity in Nepal
Christianity is, according to the 2011 census, the fifth most practiced religion in Nepal, with 375,699 adherents, or 1.4% of the population. However, it is widely claimed that non-Hindus are systematically under-reported in Nepal's censuses, and informed observers have estimated that there are at least 1 million Nepali Christians. According to a report by Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, Nepal's church is the fastest growing in the world. The vast majority of Nepali Christians are evangelical Protestants (if evangelical is defined broadly to include charismatics and Pentecostals); there is also a small Catholic population of roughly 10,000.
Christmas traditions
Christianity in Pakistan constitutes the second largest religious minority community in Pakistan after Hindus. The total number of Christians is approximately 2,800,000 in 2008, or 1.6% of the population. Of these, approximately half are Roman Catholic and half Protestant. Christians celebrate Christmas by going from house to house singing carols, and in return the family offers something to the choir. Mostly the money collected from such carols is used for charity works or is given to the church. Their homes are decorated with local Christmas handicrafts while artificial stars signifying the Star of Bethlehem are hung on rooftops. Christmas celebrations are also popular with the urban middle class in the country with hotels, cafes, restaurants and theme parks hosting festivities and special events.
Protestantism
There are an estimated 285,480,000 Evangelicals, corresponding to 13% of the Christian population and 4% of the total world population. The Americas, Africa and Asia are home to the majority of Evangelicals. The United States has the largest concentration of Evangelicals. Evangelicalism is gaining popularity both in and outside the English-speaking world, especially in Latin America and the developing world.
The Charismatic movement is the international trend of historically mainstream congregations adopting beliefs and practices similar to Pentecostals. Fundamental to the movement is the use of spiritual gifts. Among Protestants, the movement began around 1960.
Eastern Christianity
There has been a significant Christian migration in the 20th century from the Near East. Fifteen hundred years ago Christians were the majority population in today's Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and Egypt. In 1914 Christians constituted 25% of the population of the Ottoman Empire. At the beginning of the 21st century Christians constituted 6–7 percent of the region’s population: less than 1% in Turkey, 3% in Iraq, 12% in Syria, 39% in Lebanon, 6% in Jordan, 2.5% in Israel/Palestine and 15–20% in Egypt.
Religion in China
There has been much speculation by some Western authors about the number of Christians in China. Chris White, in a 2017 work for the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity of the Max Planck Society, criticises the data and narratives put forward by these authors. He notices that these authors work in the wake of a "Western evangelical bias" reflected in the coverage carried forward by popular media, especially in the United States, which rely upon a "considerable romanticisation" of Chinese Christians. Their data are mostly ungrounded or manipulated through undue interpretations, as "survey results do not support the authors' assertions".Besides the surveys based on fieldwork, estimates using projections have been published by the Pew Research Center as part of its study of the "Global Religious Landscape" in 2010. This study estimated 21.9% of the population of China believed in folk religions, 18.2% were Buddhists, 5.1% were Christians, 1.8% were Muslims, 0.8% believed in other religions, while unaffiliated people constituted 52.2% of the population. According to the surveys by Phil Zuckerman published on Adherents.com, 59% of the Chinese population was not religious in 1993, and in 2005 between 8% and 14% was atheist (from over 100 to 180 million). A survey held in 2012 by WIN/GIA found that in China the atheists comprise 47% of the population.
Persecution of Christians in the modern era
According to Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, in the hundred years leading up to 2010 the Middle East's Christian population dwindled from 20% to less than 5%. Oren argues that with the exception of Israel, Christians in the Middle East have endured severe political and cultural hardships: in Egypt, Muslim extremists have subjected Coptic Christians to beatings and massacres, resulting in the exodus of 200,000 Copts from their homes; in Iraq, 1,000 Christians were killed in Baghdad between the years 2003 and 2012 and 70 churches in the country were burned; in Iran, converts to Christianity face the death penalty and in 2012 Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani was sentenced to death; in Saudi Arabia, private Christian prayer is against the law; in the Gaza Strip, half of the Palestinian Christian population has fled since Hamas seized power in 2007 and Gazan law forbids public displays of crucifixes; in the West Bank, the Christian population has been reduced from 15% to less than 2%.
Christianity in Guinea-Bissau
Christians in Guinea-Bissau constitute approximately 10 percent (~153,300) of the country's population (1,533,964 - 2009 est.). Other sources report, that the population of Christians in Guinea-Bissau may vary from 5 to 13%
Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria
There are about 20 million Coptic Orthodox Christians in the world. Between 15 and 18 million of them are found in Egypt under the jurisdiction of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. Since Egypt does not have an official government census on religion, estimates of the size of Egypt's Christian population vary from the estimated low previous government figures of 6 to 7 million to the 12 million reported by some Christian leaders in 2008. The actual numbers may be in the 15 to 18 million range, out of an Egyptian population of more than 90 million. However, in 2011, the Pew Research Center announced that Copts in Egypt constitute 4.5% of the population, while the Catholic Holy See puts Copts at 6 to 8%. Then in 2017 government owned news Al Ahram estimated the percentage of Copts at 10 to 15%. However, in 2012 after the Egyptian revolution the Muslim Brotherhood was drafting new constitution then Major-General Abu Bakr al-Guindi claimed that the lower figures support a downward trend in the percentage of Copts in Egypt, as recorded in consecutive estimated Egyptian censuses since a 1927 high where Egyptian Christians formed 8.3% of the population. This decline has been explained by Major-General Abu Bakr al-Guindi, head of Egypt's Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, as being the result of Copts having the highest emigration rate, the lowest birthrate and the highest income level in the country. Although many Copts rejected this statement and population count by Abu Barker al-Guindi claiming they have been undercounted as most Copts reside in Upper Egypt.
Christianity by country
Christianity is the predominant religion in Europe, Russia, North America, South America, the Philippines, East Timor, Southern Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, and Oceania. There are also large Christian communities in other parts of the world, such as Indonesia, Central Asia, and the Middle East, where Christianity is the second-largest religion after Islam. The United States has the largest Christian population in the world, followed by Brazil and Mexico.
Growth of religion
While according to Pew Research Center survey it is expected that from 2010 to 2050 significant number of Christians will leave their faith. Most of the switching are expected into the unaffiliated and Irreligion. The Pew Research study also found that Christianity has the highest number of defectors between 2010 to 2050 compared to any other religions. On the other hand, conversion into Christianity have also been well documented. Large increases in the developing world (around 23,000 per day) have been accompanied by substantial declines in the developed world, mainly in Europe and North America. According to the "World Christian Encyclopedia", approximately 2.7 million converting to Christianity annually from another religion, "World Christian Encyclopedia" also cited that Christianity rank at first place in net gains through religious conversion. On the other hand, demographer Conrad Hackett of Pew Research Center stated that the World Christian Encyclopedia gives a higher estimate for percent Christian when compared to other cross-national data sets"".
Protestantism in the United States
Protestantism is the largest grouping of Christians in the United States with its combined denominations collectively accounting for about half the country's population or 150 million people. Simultaneously, this corresponds to around 20% of the world's total Protestant population. America has the largest number of Protestants of any country in the world. Baptists account for about one third of American Protestants. The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest single Protestant denomination in the United States with one-tenth of American Protestants.
Christianity in Kuwait
Christianity in Kuwait is a minority religion, accounting for 18%-20% of the country's population, or 650,000 - 750,000 people. Kuwait's Christians can be divided into 2 groups. The first group are Christians who are native Kuwaitis numbering approximately between 200 and 400 people. The second group, who make up the majority of Christians in Kuwait, are expatriates from various countries around the world. 
There are also a number of believers in Christ from a Muslim background in the country, though many are not citizens. A 2015 study estimates some 350 such Christians in the country that are ex Muslim.
Religion in Kuwait
Christianity is a minority religion in Kuwait. Kuwait has a native Christian community, there are between 200 and 400 Christian Kuwaiti citizens. In 2014, there were 259 Christian Kuwaitis residing in Kuwait. Kuwait is the only GCC country besides Bahrain to have a local Christian population who hold citizenship. Of the non-citizen population, there are an estimated 600,000 Christians in Kuwait. The government-recognized Christian churches include the Roman Catholic Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church, the National Evangelical Church Kuwait (Protestant), the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, the Greek Catholic (Melkite) Church, and the Anglican Church. There are also many Christian religious groups not officially recognised by the government with smaller populations, including the Indian Orthodox, Mar Thoma, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and Seventh-day Adventist Church. Unrecognized groups are generally free to worship in private. There are also a number of believers in Christ from a Muslim background in the country, though many are not citizens. A 2015 study estimates some 350 such Christians in the country.
Christianity in Africa
Christianity is now one of the two most widely practiced religions in Africa. There has been tremendous growth in the number of Christians in Africa - coupled by a relative decline in adherence to traditional African religions. Only nine million Christians were in Africa in 1900, but by the year 2000, there were an estimated 380 million Christians. According to a 2006 Pew Forum on Religion and Public life study, 147 million African Christians were "renewalists" (Pentecostals and Charismatics). According to David Barrett, most of the 552,000 congregations in 11,500 denominations throughout Africa in 1995 are completely unknown in the West. Much of the recent Christian growth in Africa is now due to African evangelism and high birth rates, rather than European missionaries. Christianity in Africa shows tremendous variety, from the ancient forms of Oriental Orthodox Christianity in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Eritrea to the newest African-Christian denominations of Nigeria, a country that has experienced large conversion to Christianity in recent times. Several syncretistic and messianic sections have formed throughout much of the continent, including the Nazareth Baptist Church in South Africa and the Aladura churches in Nigeria. There are also fairly widespread populations of Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses.
P'ent'ay
According to the 2005 statistics from the World Christian Database, Ethiopian Pentecostal/Charismatic members cover a bit over 16 percent of the country as P'ent'ays of Ethiopia. The individual groups are the Word of Life Church (Qale Hiywet) church, Mekane Yesus, Churches of Christ, Misgana Church of Ethiopia, Assembly of God, Hiwot Berhan Church, Emnet Kristos, Meserete Kristos, Light of Life Church, Mulu Wongel (Full Gospel Believers Church) and other churches constituting slightly over 12 million P'ent'ays in Ethiopia. However, according to World Christian Encyclopedia, the Evangelical community is down to only 13.6% of Ethiopian population. According to the 1994 government census, Protestant Christians comprise 10% of the population (about 7-8 million today). According to membership and adherent records provided by the various churches and denominations, Ethiopian Protestants claim as high as 18.59% of the country's population which is inline with the recent data from the US department of state.
Christians
As of the early 21st century, Christianity has approximately 2.4 billion adherents. The faith represents about a third of the world's population and is the largest religion in the world. Christians have composed about 33 percent of the world's population for around 100 years. The largest Christian denomination is the Roman Catholic Church, with 1.17 billion adherents, representing half of all Christians.
Pentecostalism
In 1995, David Barrett estimated there were 217 million "Denominational Pentecostals" throughout the world. In 2011, a Pew Forum study of global Christianity found that there were an estimated 279 million classical Pentecostals, making 4 percent of the total world population and 12.8 percent of the world's Christian population Pentecostal. The study found "Historically Pentecostal denominations" (a category that did not include independent Pentecostal churches) to be the largest Protestant denominational family.
Growth of religion
In 1990, 1.1 billion people were Muslims, while in 2010, 1.6 billion people were Muslims. According to the BBC, a comprehensive American study concluded in 2009 the number stood at approximately 23% of the world population with 60% of Muslims living in Asia. From 1990 to 2010, the global 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). "Although the religion began in Arabia, by 2002 80% of all believers in Islam lived outside the Arab world". On the other hand, in 2010, Pew Forum finds "that statistical data for Muslim conversions are scarce and as per their available information, there is no substantial net gain or loss of Muslims due to religious conversion. It stated that "the number of people who embrace Islam and those who leave Islam are roughly equal. Thus, this report excludes the religious conversion as a direct factor from the projection of Muslim population growth." The growth of Islam from 2010 to 2020 has been estimated at 1.70% due to high birthrates in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. The report also shows that the fall in birth rate of the Muslims slowed down the growth rate during 1990 to 2010. It is due to the fall of fertility rate in many Muslim majority countries. Despite the decline Muslims still have the highest birth rate among the world's major religious groups. According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the World Christian Database as of 2007 has Islam as the fastest-growing religion in the world. A 2007 Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report argued that some Muslim population projections are overestimated, as they assume that all descendants of Muslims will become Muslims even in cases of mixed parenthood.
Resurgent Islam is one of the most dynamic religious movements in the contemporary world. The Vatican's 2008 yearbook of statistics revealed that for the first time, Islam has outnumbered the Roman Catholics globally. It stated that, "Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism as the biggest single religious denomination in the world", and stated that, "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". According to the Foreign Policy, High birth rates were cited as the reason for the Muslim population growth. With 3.1 children per woman, Muslims have higher fertility levels than the world's overall population between 2010 and 2015. High fertility is a major driver of projected Muslim population growth around the world and in particular regions. Between 2010 and 2015, with exception of the Middle East and North Africa, Muslim fertility of any other region in the world was higher than the rate for the region as a whole. While Muslim birth rates are expected to experience a decline, it will remain above replacement level and higher fertility than the world's overall by 2050. As per U.N.'s global population forecasts, as well as the
Pew Research projections, over time fertility rates generally converge toward the
replacement level. Globally, Muslims were younger (median age of 23) than the overall population (median age of 28) as of 2010. While decline of Muslim birth rates in coming years have also been well documented. According to David Ignatius, there is major decline in Muslim fertility rates as pointed out by Nicholas Eberstadt. Based on the data from 49 Muslim-majority countries and territories, he founds that Muslims birth rate has significantly dropped for 41% between 1975 and 1980 to 2005–10 while the global population decline was 33% during that period. It also stated that over 50% declined was found in 22 Muslim countries and over 60% decline in Iran, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Libya, Albania, Qatar and Kuwait.
According to the religious forecast for 2050 by Pew Research Center, between 2010 and 2050 modest net gains through religious conversion are expected for Muslims (3 million) and most of the net gains through religious conversion for Muslims found in the Sub Saharan Africa (2.9 million). The study also reveals that, due to young age & relatively high fertility rate among Muslims by 2050 there will be near parity between Muslims (2.8 billion, or 30% of the population) and Christians (2.9 billion, or 31%), possibly for the first time in history. According to Pew Research Center the projected Muslims population will equal the Christian population by 2070. While both religions will grow but Muslim population will exceed the Christian population and by 2100, Muslim population (35%) will be 1% more than the Christian population (34%). By the end of 2100 Muslims are expected to outnumber Christians. According to the same study, Muslims population growth is twice of world's overall population growth due to young age and relatively high fertility rate and as a result Muslims are projected to rise to 30% (2050) of the world's population from 23% (2010).
Growth of religion
World religions statistics place the Bahá'í Faith around 0.1% of the world population in recent years. The "World Christian Encyclopedia" estimated only 7.1 million Bahá'ís in the world in 2000, representing 218 countries, and its evolution to the "World Christian Database" (WCD) estimated 7.3 million in 2010 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." This source's only documented flaw was to consistently have a higher estimate of Christians than in other cross-national data sets. 2015's estimate is of 7.8 million Bahá'ís in the world.
Evangelicalism
According to a 2011 Pew Forum study on global Christianity, 285,480,000 or 13.1 percent of all Christians are Evangelicals. These figures do not include the Evangelical movements Pentecostalism and Charismatic movement; 584,080,000. The study states that the category "Evangelicals" should not be considered as a separate category of "Pentecostal and Charismatic" categories, since some believers consider themselves in both movements where their church is affiliated with an Evangelical association.
Christianity
Estimates of the total number of Protestants are very uncertain, but it seems clear that Protestantism is the second largest major group of Christians after Catholicism in number of followers (although the Eastern Orthodox Church is larger than any single Protestant denomination). Often that number is put at more than 800 million, corresponding to nearly 40% of world's Christians. The majority of Protestants are members of just a handful of denominational families, i.e. Adventists, Anglicans, Baptists, Reformed (Calvinists), Lutherans, Methodists and Pentecostals. Nondenominational, evangelical, charismatic, neo-charismatic, independent and other churches are on the rise, and constitute a significant part of Protestant Christianity.
Christianity
As a percentage of Christians, the Catholic Church and Orthodoxy (both Eastern and Oriental) are declining in parts of the world (though Catholicism is growing in Asia, in Africa, vibrant in Eastern Europe, etc.), while Protestants and other Christians are on the rise in the developing world. The so-called "popular Protestantism" is one of the fastest growing religious categories in the world. Nevertheless, Catholicism will also continue to grow to 1.63 billion by 2050, according to Todd Johnson of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity. Africa alone, by 2015, will be home to 230 million African Catholics. And if in 2018 the U.N. projects that Africa's population will reach 4.5 billion by 2100 (not 2 billion as predicted in 2004), Catholicism will indeed grow as will other religious groups.
Muslim world
The Open Doors USA organization, in its 2012 survey of countries around the world that persecute Christians, listed 37 members of the Muslim world amongst the top 50 countries where Christians face the most severe persecution. 9 of the top 10 countries are Islamic-majority states.
Christian denomination
The Eastern Orthodox Church, with an estimated 225–300 million adherents, is the second-largest Christian organization in the world and also considers itself the original pre-denominational church. Unlike the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church is itself a communion of fully independent autocephalous churches (or "jurisdictions") that mutually recognize each other to the exclusion of others. The Eastern Orthodox Church, together with Oriental Orthodoxy and the Assyrian Church of the East, constitutes Eastern Christianity. (There are also some smaller groups of Eastern Catholics which are in communion with the Bishop of Rome but have cultural and historical ties with other Eastern Christians and Byzantine Lutherans were newer group of Eastern Christianity and Protestant Lutheranism in Ukraine and Slovenia that accepts Byzantine Rite as the denomination's liturgy while retaining their Lutheran traditions.) Eastern Christian denominations are represented mostly in Eastern Europe, North Asia, the Middle East, Northeast Africa and mostly South India.