Europe and America lose millions of Christians, Africa now largest region with 697 million believers | – The times of India

For nearly two millennia, Christianity expanded from a small Jewish sect in the Eastern Roman Empire to the largest religion in the world. Imperial support in the 4th century, medieval missionary networks across Europe, and later colonial-era evangelization in the Americas, Africa, and parts of Asia steadily expanded its reach. In 2020, the country still represented the largest share of humanity: 28.8% of the world’s population, or about 2.3 billion people. Yet the latest demographic analysis from the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project shows a quieter transformation beneath that dominance of headlines. Christianity is still growing in raw numbers, but it is shrinking proportionately, losing followers in dozens of countries while expanding rapidly in others, and shifting geographically away from its historic European base to sub-Saharan Africa. The findings are based on more than 2,700 censuses and surveys in 201 countries and territories, mapping religious changes between 2010 and 2020 and examining the forces driving them, particularly fertility patterns and religious ‘switching’, where people leave the faith in adulthood.

From imperial religion to global majority

The early spread of Christianity depended on itinerant preachers and close-knit communities that provided social support and the promise of universal salvation. Its trajectory changed dramatically after Emperor Constantine abolished the faith in 313 AD. legalized, and later when it became the Roman state religion. Medieval missions brought it throughout Europe, and from the 15th century European expansion exported it around the world. The colonial powers, Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, France and Belgium, often involved territorial expansion and conversion. Missionaries established schools and medical services, translated Scripture, and in some regions used coercive systems of taxation and legislation to suppress indigenous religions. In modern times, Christianity had become a global majority faith on several continents.

From 2010 to 2020, Christianity grew by 6%, from 2.1 billion to 2.3 billion, and remained the largest religion in the world.

That long expansion explains its contemporary scale. Between 2010 and 2020, the number of Christians still increased by 122 million, from 2.1 billion to 2.3 billion, an increase of 6%. But the world’s population grew faster and the number of non-Christians grew by 15%, causing Christianity’s share to fall from 31% to 28.8%, with all Christians counted under a single category, including Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Protestant denominations such as Baptists, Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists and Pentecostals.

The Geographic Shift: Africa Rises While Europe Declines

The most notable change of the decade is geographical rather than numerical. Christianity’s historic center of gravity, Europe, is no longer home to the largest Christian population. The number (or count) of Christians decreased in two regions. In Europe, the number of Christians fell to 505 million (a decline of 9%). In North America they shrank to 238 million (down 11%). In every other region the number of Christians grew. The number increased most in sub-Saharan Africa, to 697 million (+31%).

In 2020, 31% of all Christians lived in sub-Saharan Africa, compared to 22% in Europe. Latin America and the Caribbean accounted for 24% of the world’s Christians, and North America for 10%.

Between 2010 and 2020, Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa grew by 31%, reaching 697 million adherents.

The share of the population identifying as Christian also shifted:

In the Asia-Pacific and Middle East-North Africa regions, Christians remained below 10% of the population, declining by less than one point.

In 2020, North America had approximately 238 million Christians, approximately 10% of the world’s total Christian population.

However, when measured by individual countries rather than regions, the United States still has the largest Christian population of any country. About 64% of Americans identified as Christians in 2020, about a tenth of all Christians worldwide.Also read: Is religion declining? 1 in 4 worldwide are now non-religious, but will become the third largest group as Christianity falls

Where Christianity declined and the only place it grew

Substantial changes (defined as a shift of at least five percentage points) occurred in 41 countries, more than for any other religion. In all but one case, Christianity declined. The largest drops:

Between 2010 and 2020, the share of Christians in North America fell by 14 points, while Europe fell by 8 points.

In several countries Christianity lost majority status:

In both cases, the number of religiously unaffiliated people rose to 40% or more of the population. Mozambique was the only country to see a substantial increase, rising 5 points to 61%, following the end of an anti-religious government campaign in the 1980s. Overall, Christians remained the majority in 120 countries and territories, up from 124 in 2010.

The central driver of change was not only birth rates, but also religious conversion. Christians suffered the greatest net losses: For every person who joined Christianity, 3.1 left. Most did not join another religion; they became religiously disconnected. This movement explains both the declining share of Christianity and the simultaneous growth of the “nones”. Worldwide, the religious shift shows a clear direction: more people are leaving a religion than adopting one. Among adults aged 18 to 54, 3.2 people leave the religion for every person who joins. Fertility still matters, Christians have relatively high birth rates, but switching compensates for this. In contrast, the growth of the Muslim population is mainly driven by a young age structure and higher fertility, and not by conversion.

By 2020:

Globally, 75.8% of people identified with a religion, while 24.2% did not.

The unaffiliated now make up 24.2% of the world’s population, largely driven by Christian unaffiliation.

The data shows that Christianity remains the world’s largest religion, but is increasingly concentrated in the South and increasingly shaped by disaffiliation in the West. Over the past century it spread across continents; over the past decade, the center has quietly moved.