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:
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.