The face of religion is changing. The Pew Research Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank based in Washington D.C., recently offered formal projections based on six years of research and data from censuses and population registers from around the world. Here are their findings of how religions may change over the next 35 years.
Religions Covered in the Study
Eight major groups were covered in this projection:
- Buddhists
- Jews
- Muslims
- Christians
- Hindus
- Adherents of folk religions
- Adherents of other religions
- Unaffiliated
Subsets were not covered because the data for certain groups, such as Catholics, Sunni Muslims, or Orthodox Jews, are not readily available from many countries. Thus, the projections are based on the larger religious group. There were 70 countries in which the data was sufficient to make projections. These projections are based on population trends, such as birth and death rates. Political upheavals, natural disasters, or scientific discoveries were not accounted for and could definitely change the findings.
Which Religions Are Growing?
Currently, Christians make up about 31 percent of the world’s population, with Muslims next at 23.2 percent. It’s anticipated that over the next four decades, the Muslim population will increase to around 30 percent, while the Christian population won’t change much. Each of the other groups except Buddhists will increase over time, but they may not keep up with population growth. This means that their global population percentage will decrease, even though they have gained more members.
Much of this projection is based on fertility rates. Muslims are growing much faster than any other group because they have an average of 3.1 children per woman. The global average is 2.5, and Hindus, Christians, and Jews are all in this range. Buddhists have the lowest child-per-woman rate at 1.6, which accounts for their lack of growth.
What About Religion-Switching?
Those projections seem to assume that the child would follow in the parent’s religion. The Pew Research Group attempted to include switching as part of their projections, but the data is much scarcer in many countries. One interesting projection is that Christians may lose more people to switching than other religions. They are expected to experience the largest loss. Even though it’s anticipated that 40 million individuals may change their religion to Christianity, even more, 106 million, will leave.
International migration patterns are another issue that will change religious projections. It can be hard to predict these patterns. In the next few months, Canada is accepting 25,000 refugees from Syria, and there are thousands more which will be relocated. Many may not change their religious affiliation, but there is a chance that they might.
What Can We Do With This Information?
Over the past few weeks, Islamophobia has been headlining the news. There are fundamentalists in every religious organization. If Muslim is one of the fastest growing religions in the next four decades, it could soon overtake the number of Christians. It would be beneficial to understand their beliefs and become friends to stop the spread of phobia and hate.
In some countries, such as the United Kingdom, Australia, France, and New Zealand, it’s projected that Christians will no longer be in the majority. Leaders should be thinking about how this may change their laws and procedures that are based in biblical traditions.
In North America, the fastest growing groups are Muslims and followers of other religions. Christians are expected to decline by about 78 percent over the next four decades. It’s going to be important to work together, no matter what religious or non-religious beliefs each person holds. It can’t be assumed that your neighbor is Christian. We have to become more accepting of those who don’t follow the same theology. Don’t make the divide wider than it has to be. Get informed and learn about your neighbor to live in peace.