This week, the new Syrian authorities declared Christmas a public holiday. This brought some reassurance to local communities that worried about the new regime and Sunni majority’s treatment of minorities. The Assads, themselves part of the Alawite minority, did not discriminate against other minorities. They were equally brutal to everyone, or on the whole even more so toward Sunnis.
In recent weeks, there had been some worrying but isolated incidents of vandalism at Christian churches in and around Hama. But the new declaration of Christmas as a public holiday will calm spirits and must be counted as a win for religious tolerance, which is sorely lacking in many parts of the Middle East.
Since Christmas is this week, we take a broad look at the state of Christianity around the world.
A February article in the Baptist Resource Network states the following:
First, the best news! Christianity is growing! According to the research, Christianity is growing around the world faster than the rate of population! The population growth rate is currently trending at 0.87% growth but Christianity’s growth rate is trending at 1.08%. In fact, the Christian population is projected to top 3 billion before 2050! Among these Christians, Protestants, independents, evangelicals, and Pentecostal/charismatics are the fastest-growing groups.
Also, the fastest-growing areas for Christianity are in the global south, particularly Asia and Africa. By 2050, the African Christian population will swell to more than 1.28 BILLION people! Amazing!
The report also reveals that most new adherents to the faith will come from non-Christian countries and that the global atheist population will continue to decline.
We would treat these figures with caution since these new Christians are not self-identified as such. The report that produced these figures looks at majority religions for each country and assumes that any population growth results in a larger number of Christians. This is a fair approach to some extent, but is like painting with a wide brush. The rising figure ignores the decline of Christianity in populations that are increasingly atheistic, namely the rich countries of the West. The number of Christians in France for example may look like it is growing if we count 85% of France as Christian, but it is in fact declining due to the doubling of non-believers since 1980, as we showed in TWL #249.
Let’s look at Christianity by region to get a better idea. This is only a quick survey and is not meant to be comprehensive.
Europe
The trends in Europe show a clear decline. In the UK, church attendance falls every year and is down 40% since 2009. In Italy, church attendance has halved since 2005. In France, the number of Christian believers has fallen by over half since 1950. In Spain, the share of non-believers has grown from less than 10% in 1980 to 41% in 2023. On the whole, about 65% of Christian Europeans believe in God or another higher power, but only 27% believe in God as described in the Bible. About 30% of Europeans say that “science makes religion unnecessary.”
Read the rest of this piece at The Wednesday Letter.
Sami J. Karam is an analyst and writer. He is the publisher of The Wednesday Letter (TWL), and is the founder and editor of populyst.net and the creator of the populyst index™. Before populyst, he was the founder and manager of the Seven Global funds and a fund manager at leading asset managers in Boston and New York.
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