Some Statistics on Religious Growth and Decline

Statistics on Religion
Christianity Today

Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra tells us that "Here's the Best Prediction Yet of How Christianity and Islam Will Change Worldwide by 2050" (Christianity Today, April 2, 2015):

Christianity will gain three times more converts than any other world religion in the coming decades. Yet it will also lose 11 times more members than any other. If fertility rates, the size of youth populations, and rates of religion switching remain the same, Christianity will still be the largest religion in the world in 2050, according to a detailed report released today by the Pew Research Center.

But Islam will be gaining fast, nearly neck-and-neck with Christianity "possibly for the first time in history," and potentially eclipsing Christianity after 2070. The numbers are the "first formal demographic projections using data on age, fertility, mortality, migration and religious switching for multiple religious groups around the world," said Pew.

But this isn't counting China and India:

Since there is a lack of reliable data in China and India regarding conversions, Pew doesn't include it, CSGC [Center for the Study of Global Christianity] stated. But that doesn't mean the conversions aren't happening.

"On-the-ground contacts in China and India consistently report that Christianity is growing due to conversions, and many of these Christians are organized in 'underground' or secret communities," CSGC said. That explains why CSGC's projection for the number of Christians in both China and India in 2050 is 330 million, compared to Pew’s projection of 108 million.

That makes quite a difference. Read the article.