If you ask a Muslim about the reasons for
their religious beliefs, chances are they'll
list “Islam is the world's fastest growing
religion” as one of their top two or three
reasons. Meanwhile, atheists claim that the
world is becoming a less religious place and
soon we'll be living in a post-religion world.
But are these claims true? And what do they
mean for the future of Christianity? I've
done the hard research and I'm have some good
answers to these questions. So join me today
as I explore the future of Christianity and
religion in general.
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Perhaps you've seen a study in the news that
suggests that around the year 2070 Islam will
catch up with Christianity as the world's
most populous religion. Perhaps you've heard
news stories about churches becoming apartments
or heard atheists talking about how society
has moved beyond religion and that we are
heading toward a post-Christian world. But
what is the reality? Is Christianity failing?
Are people converting to Islam or dropping
belief entirely? Are we heading to a society
where Christian ideas become like Greek ideas
– remembered, but no longer believed by
anyone?
I have done a lot of research on the subject
and have some solid answers to share. This
is going to be a fairly long video filled
with statistics. I'll do my best to keep the
video interesting, but if it gets too nerdy
and boring, just skip to the last couple minutes
where I share my conclusions without going
over all the statistics. A precise timestamp
for the summary is found in the description
box.
Before we dive into the data, first some words
of caution. There are many problems with projecting
the future of world religion. First, all statistics
are based on either on survey data or census
data, but surveys and censuses can't capture
true religious belief. Some people may identify
on a survey as belong to a particular religion
religious and generally have beliefs that
match that religion, but don't practice the
religion with any sincerity. On the other
hand, people may choose to hide their religious
beliefs either out of fear for personal safety
or because they don't want to be associated
with a particular religious organization.
A few percent of the population will fill
out the survey, but not treat it with any
honesty. Either they fill is out randomly
or they'll purposely give answers that make
no sense because they think it is funny. For
example, when I was in high school, we took
a survey on drug use and weapon possession.
While none of my friends actually possessed
weapons, many of them answered that they regularly
brought assault rifles to school for the purpose
of hunting because they thought it was a humorous
game. So the next time you see in the news
that 40% of teenagers don't know who the president
is or some other outrageous statistic, just
keep in mind that teenagers especially like
to give dishonest answers to surveys to surveys
because they think it is funny.
Second, where survey data is not available,
there are incentives for for people to exaggerate
statistics – and not just in the ways you
might expect. For example, in the year 2000,
Muslim Sheikh Ahmad Al Katani stated that
each year around 6 million Muslims convert
to Christianity in Africa. This number is
certainly a gross exaggeration. His reason
for exaggeration? To increase his fundraising.
However, this figure has been widely repeated
since, including in what would normally be
considered reliable news sources, since then
due to the lack of hard data.
Third, due to the difficulty of estimating
future conversions, many projections of the
future of the world religions chose to simply
ignore conversion data. While that might make
their job easier, it certainly will not match
reality.
Finally, projections always assume current
trends hold. However, in reality this is unlikely
to be the case as religious conversion statistics
change dramatically over time. After all,
if this was not the case almost the entire
world would still be polytheistic, due to
the ancient beliefs of polytheism.
Despite all that, I do think we can draw some
reasonable, if not definitive, conclusions.
So without further ado let's jump into the
data. I started by looking at historical data
gathered by a variety of organizations. I
then looked at recent trends and especially
raw survey data to try to project the near
future. Further details on my methodology
can be found in an append comment.
First up is the claim that non-belief is taking
over the world. Spoiler alert: this one is
flat out false. Globally, atheism and non-belief
in general peaked around 1970 at the height
of the communist revolution. Of the 18 world
views tracked by the World Religion Database,
only Shintoism and atheism have fallen in
absolute numbers since 1970. During the same
time frame, the world population as a whole
has doubled. As such, atheism has fallen from
4.5% to under 2% currently. And narrowing
it down to just the last 10 years, atheism
is dead last in population growth.
Agnosticism is doing a bit better, but still
is growing a much slower rate than the world
population in general. Approximately 9% of
the world currently identifies as agnostic,
but that is down from 15% in 1970. In the
last 10 years, its growth rate has been about
half that of the world population in general.
I looked at projections from several professional
organization and of them agreed this trend
is likely to continue for the near future,
with atheism and agnosticism continuing to
decline as a percentage of world's population.
Where then does the idea that non-belief is
taking over the world come from. Sometimes,
it comes from comparing 1900 to the current
situation. It is true that in 1900, less than
1% of the world's population did not have
any religious beliefs. However, the majority
of the growth of atheism and agnosticism between
1900 and 1970 came from the expense of traditional
Chinese religions, which fell from 23% of
the population in 1900 to just 6% today. Christianity's
share of the world population is roughly the
same today as it was in 1900. In any case,
the recent trends are much more useful for
projecting the future than looking at the
entire period of 1900 to 2019.
Mostly, the idea that religious non-belief
is on the rise come from people looking at
the United States and foolishly thinking that
it represents the entire world. Looking only
at the top line, Christianity has indeed fallen,
from 80% of the U.S. population in the year
2000 to about 72% today. Meanwhile, the so-called
religious nones have risen from 14% of the
population to 23%, give or take a couple percentage
depending on what survey you're looking at.
However, beneath the top line, the picture
is much more complicated. For starters, not
all of the “nones” are actually non-believers.
Pew helpfully breaks down religious nones
into three categories: atheists, agnostics,
and “no religion in particular.” The last
group is the largest and also quite diverse.
While some people in this group certainly
would be what one would traditional call atheist
or agnostic, others seem to have religious
beliefs. For example, 45% of this group say
religion plays an important role in their
lives. Sixty percent of this group says they
are at least fairly certain that God exists,
while just 20% say they believe God does not
exist. Thus, the majority of the “no religion
in particular” crowd is made up of people
who either would identify as quote-unquote
“spiritual but not religious” or people
who have fairly traditional religious beliefs,
but for one reason or another choose not to
associate with an organized religion.
A better measure of religious non-belief is
to look at the percentage of the population
who answers the question does a God exist
in the negative. This has the added benefit
of capturing people who identify as belonging
to a particular religion for cultural reasons,
but don't actually believe in God at all.
Even this measure is not perfect. For example,
about 27% of Buddhists answer that they don't
believe in God, consistent with their religion's
teachings. Buddhists make up less than 1%
of the US population, so this doesn't effect
the overall number, but it does serve as a
reminder there is a difference between believing
in spirituality or supernatural things and
believing in a deity. That said, combining
the answers “I don't believe God exists”
and “There is no way to know if God exists
or not” shows the rate of non-belief has
risen from about 7% in the year 2000 to 11%
today. That's still a very significant rise,
but it does paint a different picture of the
current situation than saying 23% of the population
is non-believers.
Now if we look at that information and decide
that it means that non-belief is growing by
4 percentage points every 20 years, then we
may conclude that in a couple hundred years
religion will be a thing of the past. However,
this is very poor statistical reasoning. In
reality, religious switching goes both ways.
Looking more closely at the data, just under
40% of people raised in non-religious households
end up embracing organized religion as adults.
This rate of switching is significantly higher
than is found within any organized religion.
This suggests that unless trends change dramatically,
non-belief will always be e a minority position
within the United States.
In contrast, only 18% of people raised as
Christians have become religious nones as
adults and just 3% have fully embraced atheism.
So why then is the percent of the population
that indetifies as Christian dropping? The
answer is simple – if you start out with
the vast majority of the population, then
even relatively small losses will have a significant
effect. 20% of 80% of the population is greater
than 40% of 14% of the population, so Christianity
is declining and religious nones are growing.
However, if current trends hold an equilibrium
will be reached at which point the number
of people switching into Christianity and
the number of people switching out of Christianity
will be roughly equivalent. I did the math
and in about 3 generations stability would
occur. In that time, the Christian share of
the population will fall to about 60%, the
religious nones will raise to about 32% and
all other religions will make up 8% of the
U.S. population. Of course trends are unlikely
to continue unchanged, so take this as a demonstration
that non-belief is not on a course to achieve
the majority, not a prediction of the future.
I also looked at European data. Trends varied
widely from country to country, providing
another example of how foolishness it is to
think one belief system is on a course to
take over the entire world. At one extreme,
is Ukraine where 75% of people raised in non-religious
households now identify as Christian, while
just 2% of people raised in Christian households
now identify as non-religious. This is a continuation
of a long-term trend as the country has gone
from roughly 60% Christian in 1970 to about
85% Christian today. On the other end of the
spectrum is France where 37% of people raised
in Christian households now identify as non-religious,
and just 12% of people raised in non-religious
households now identify as Christian. As such,
France has fallen from 84% Christian in 1970
to 62% today. Since the ISSP survey data that
I'm using for these numbers seeks to take
roughly the same number of surveys in every
country regardless of population, it would
be difficult to make a project of the entire
European continent. However, the data we've
looked at also show that it would be quite
deceptive to do so anyway.
What we can safely say is that Europe is currently
majority Christian and is likely to remain
that way for the foreseeable future. Indeed,
non-belief has actually shrunk as a percentage
of the European population since 1970, although
it is currently rising slightly. So where
then does the perception that Europe is majority
atheist and agnostic come from? One possible
explanation is weekly church attendance.
While sincere religious belief and attendance
of weekly religious services are certainly
not equivalent, attendance of service does
provide one indication of commitment to one's
religion. In the United States, self-reported
weekly attendance runs about 35 to 40 percent.
While in Europe the figure is between 15 and
25 percent for most countries. Interestingly,
Gallup has been asking this question in the
United States for the last 80 years and the
percentage has remained more or less unchanged
during that time period. This is despite substantial
decline in both church membership and the
number of people identifying as Christian
over that time period. One possible explanation
for this discrepancy is that what we have
actually seen in is not a decline of committed
believers, but a decline of casual or “cultural”
Christians. That is people who identify as
Christian, but don't let religion play a significant
role in their lives.
Meanwhile, weekly attendance in Christian
portions of Africa is over 80%, the highest
anywhere in the world. It also happens that
Christianity is growing rapidly in Africa.
Let me suggest this is not a coincidence – sincere
religious belief leads to growth of the religion.
Although reliable survey data of Africa is
rare, estimates say that about 9% of the population
was Christian as of 1900. By 1970, that figure
had risen to 38% and it now stands at 49%.
If current trends hold, Africa will become
a Christian majority continent within the
next five years. Considering that most of
the world's population growth over the next
25 years is expected to take place in Africa,
this is indeed very good news for Christianity.
Christianity is also growing in Asia while
non-belief is falling steadily on that continent.
In 1970, China was just 0.1% Christian and
was roughly 60% atheist and agnostic. Today
the country is 7% Christian and 40% atheist
and agnostic. If these trends hold, China
is on pace to become the world's most populous
Christian country within the next couple decades.
South Korea is well on its way to becoming
a Christian majority country as it is now
32% Christian, up from 18% in 1970. In Russia,
Christianity has surged from 38% of the population
in 1970 to 82% today.
So whatever angle we approach the question
from, there is no data-based reason to think
anyone currently living will ever see a world
where non-belief is the majority position.
Indeed, non-belief is much more likely to
fall as a percentage of the world's population
than to rise over the next 50 years. Even
in the West, it is likely an equilibrium will
be reached long before non-belief overtakes
Christianity as the most common belief system.
What about Islam though? Muslims love to claim
that Islam is growing rapidly and they are
indeed right that Islam has grown rapidly
in recent years, although it hasn't necessarily
been the world's fastest growing religion
depending on the exact time frame one uses.
The important question to ask though is why
it's growing. Is it from conversion or is
it from biological factors. As it turns out,
it is entirely due to biology. The Islamic
population is currently younger than the world
average, which means they less deaths, but
that is obviously a temporary quirk and not
a real feature of the religion. Muslim women
are currently having more babies per family
on average. However, the birth rate is slowing
due to much of Muslim achieving industrialization.
And thus, this advantage may soon disappear.
In Europe, an additional factor is driving
the population growth: immigration. While
it may give Muslims more political power and
such in Europe, it certainly does not increase
the number of Muslims in the world. And it
does present a significant problem for Islam
as around 30% of those who immigrate either
leave Islam themselves or experience their
children apostatizing. This is a substantially
higher rate than what if found within Christianity.
Of those who leave Islam a majority, around
60%, become non-believers, while 30% join
Christianity, and 10% join some other religion.
Meanwhile, Muslims have been unable to attract
any Christian converts, as around only 0.1%
of the population raised as Christians ends
up converting to Islam as adults. When you're
losing 30% of your children to apostasy while
attracting only 0.1% of other religion's children,
that's a recipe for disaster in the long run.
The data in the United States is very similar
on both accounts – around 30% of the children
raised as Muslims end up leaving the religion,
while around 0.1% of those raised as Christians
convert to Islam. Worldwide there are likely
more ex-Muslims current living than in the
rest of the history of Islam combined.
One of the factors that led to the decline
of Christianity in Europe during the 20th
century was the filtering down of academic
criticism to a popular level. The Church was
not prepared for this criticism and as a result
lost many members due to the doubts the criticism
caused. Thanks to additional scholarship and
additional archaeological discoveries, Christians
now have good answers to these criticisms.
Although even the most skeptical scholars
of today would laugh at the over-the-top conclusions
of much of the late 19th century criticism,
the perception the criticism caused (and in
some cases the discredited scholarship itself
passed off as good scholarship to ignorant
people on the Internet) remains.
This sort of academic criticism is just now
starting to be done for Islam. And it's going
to be a lot worse for Islam when it filters
down to the public. In the Christian perception,
the Bible was written by human authors under
the inspiration of God. In the Muslim view,
the Quran is the word for word dictation of
God. As such, any cultural oddities or other
difficulties in the Biblical text is much
easier to explain than any difficulties in
the Islamic texts. Additionally, even most
atheists acknowledge that Jesus exhibited
exceptional moral character. Mohammad , however,
looks and behaves exactly as one would expect
from a 7th century warlord. Such behaviors
are near universally seen as immoral in today's
society, meaning Muslims don't have a moral
figure to fall back upon when their scriptures
are torn apart. Finally, the average Muslim's
confidence is based on simple “facts,”
such as a perfect preservation of the Quran,
which as easily shown as false, rather than
any deep scriptural or personally understanding
of God.
For now, the perception that “Islam must
be right since 99% of everybody I know believes
it” has protected the Islamic world against
mass defections. Combine that with strict
anti-conversion laws, up to and including
the death penalty, and it's not hard to see
why Muslim world has remained 99% Muslim.
However, the Internet is quickly changing
things. Islamic governments can no longer
protect their citizens from information and
criticism is quickly breaking through the
Islamic bubble. For example, although Saudi
Arbians officially remains more than 99% Muslim,
around 5% of the population privately identifies
as atheist despite the illegality and dangerness
of holding such a world view. For a while,
most people who decide Islam isn't true will
hide their beliefs. However, at some point
a crucial mass will be reached and suddenly
Islamic governments will either be overthrown
or forced to secularize. Once that happens,
there'll be an apparent explosion in the number
of ex-Muslims as people are feel more comfortable
expressing their true beliefs. This will in
turn cause others to start doubting Islam,
creating a snowball effect. The simple truth
is, there is no good reason intellectually,
or even emotionally, to believe in the truth
of Islam.
Please see my previous video for more information
on the future of Islam specifically. I also
have a video on the spread of Christianity
within Iran, an early indication that the
Islamic bubble is beginning to pop. Both videos
are linked to at the end of this video and
links are also found in the append comment.
Before summarizing my conclusions, I want
to talk about briefly about religious conversion.
In history class I was taught there are three
true world religions; that is religions that
have the potential to regularly spread via
conversion. Specifically, theses would be
Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. This view
is false. Buddhism, which has existed far
longer than Christianity has not really spread
outside of its home region and is currently
growing at a much slower rate than the world
population in general, which means it is shrinking
as a percentage of the world's population.
Islam appears to have spread widely, but when
one takes a closer look at its history, one
sees that conversion was mostly done via the
sword rather than voluntarily. Even in Mohammad's
day, he attracted only a handful of converts
after many years of preaching. That changed
when he started to promise war booty for anyone
who would convert to Islam. In its 1400 year
history, Islam has attracted very few converts
outside of the area that was conquered by
the Islamic empire of the middle ages.
Christianity, on the other hand, has spread
to every continent and has a strong foothold
in nearly every country on Earth. The only
exceptions are countries where Christianity
is either heavily persecuted against or outright
illegal. Even in those situations, Christianity
can be found underground in small numbers.
Actually measuring religious conversion, however,
is difficult. In the much publicized Pew projections
of the future of the world's religions, Pew
said it did not have reliable conversion data
on roughly 2/3rds of the world's countries.
Most notably, it did not have reliable data
on China or India, the two most populous countries
in the world. However, everyone who has specializes
in those areas agrees that Christianity is
growing by conversions in both countries.
Since Pew's “good” data is highly concentrated
in western countries, Christianity shows a
net loss of around 1.5 million adherents due
to conversion in their estimates. In contrast,
the Center for the Study of Global Christianity
provides estimates all of the world's countries.
They estimate that China alone makes up for
nearly all of gap between the number of people
leaving and joining Christianity in western
countries. Add in the rest of Asia and Africa
where Christianity is growing via conversion
and the situation flip flops to a net gain
of around 2 million Christians a year. The
Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion estimates
that 15.5 million people join Christianity
via conversion a year, while nearly 12 million
leave the religion, for a net gain 3.5 million
a year.
All that said, conversion statistics vary
drastically over time, so it is unwise to
project into the distant future. For example,
before 1965 Christian missionaries had been
active in Indonesia for several decades. During
that time, they achieved modest success, mostly
among the nation's various folk religions
of the nation. Then suddenly, 2 million people
converted over a period of 6 years, mostly
from Islam. The dramatic difference was due
to a change in social situation brought on
by a failed coup and the ensuing violence
practiced by the Muslim majority. I talk more
about this situation in my video on Islam
and stay tuned for a future video where I
look at the various factors that lead people
to people converting to Christianity.
What we can say confidently is that Christianity
attracts the most converts of any religion.
Religions such as Buddhism and Islam attract
far fewer converts annually, even on a percentage
basis, but also have less defectors. This
low rate of defection is likely due to the
lack of diversity in most of the Muslim and
Buddhist world. When everyone you know thinks
exactly like you do, it is easy to never question
your religious beliefs. Additionally,in much
of the Islamic world and sometimes other non-Christian
countries, there are outright laws against
conversion.
The other thing we can say with confidence
is that Christianity will continue to grow
in absolute numbers for the foreseeable future.
This means any projections of a post-Christian
world are either pure hyperbole or wishful
thinking.
I've gone over a lot of statistical material
today, but hopefully it wasn't too boring.
To summarize, there's a common perception
that non-belief is growing and that religion
is becoming less and less popular. There are
many problems with this perception. It is
usually based on looking at the United States
and maybe Western Europe and assuming that
trends there match worldwide trends. However,
the world is very big place with a great deal
of diversity. While non-belief is indeed growing
in these areas, elsewhere, especially Asia,
non-belief is shrinking. Globally, atheism
has actually lost ground in the last 40 years
while agnosticism has grown significantly
slower than the world population in general.
Additionally, a significant percentage of
people who chose not to associate with any
particular religion actually have religious
beliefs, making it quite deceptive to claim
all these people as non-believers.
Conversion runs both ways – non-religious
people can become religious just as easily
as religious people can become non-religious.
Indeed, when we look at the actual survey
data it look like people raised in non-religious
households are more likely to embrace religion
as adults, then Christians are to become non-religious
as adults. Finally, the percentage of the
population that attends church weekly has
remained more or less constant over the last
century. This suggests that the least committed
Christians make up most, if not all, of the
losses that Christianity has experienced in
the last century. Unless trends change very
dramatically, there will never be a post-religious
world. And all of the current statistical
data suggests that religion is actually increasing
globally, not decreasing.
In regards to Islam, it is indeed the world's
fastest growing religion as Muslims love to
point out. However, its growth is due to a
high birth rate and lower than average death
rate. Both of these are likely short term
differences rather than long term features
of the religion. Meanwhile, Islam attracts
very few converts and Muslims in the west
see a very high apostasy rate among their
children. Furthermore, the kind of academic
criticism that harmed Christianity in the
West is only now beginning to be against Islam.
The Internet makes it easier than ever to
spread information, suggesting it is only
a matter of time before the criticism penetrates
the Islamic bubble. Already there are likely
more living ex-Muslim apostates than the number
of Muslims who left Islam in the rest of its
history combined. All these factors combine
to suggest that Islam will soon cease to be
the world's fastest growing religion and may
experience a substantial decline.
Projecting the future of world religion is
a difficult and perhaps foolish endeavor.
However, only Christianity has a significant
presence in most of the world and it attracts
far more converts than any other religion.
Christianity is growing rapidly in Africa,
where it will soon reach majority status.
It will then be the majority religion in 5
of the 6 populated continents. As most of
the world's future population growth is expected
to be in Africa, this is good news for Christianity
on a global scale. In the remaining continent,
Asia, Christianity is also growing rapidly.
In particular, China, which was less than
0.1% Christian 50 years ago may soon become
home to the world's largest number of Christians.
Christianity may well continue to decline
in the West, but globally it is on the rise.
Christianity will remain the world's most
common religion for the foreseeable future
and will likely increase its adherents both
in absolute numbers and as a percentage of
the world's population over the coming decades.
If you have any questions about how I obtained
any of this data, just let me know in the
comments and I'll be happy to answer. Thanks
for watching
