The World is Getting More Religious

The Number of Believers Grows Faster than the Number of Non-Believers

Virginia Beach/Richmond, January 31 (idea) ­ The world is getting more religious. While the number of believers is growing faster than the world population, the non-religious and atheists are lagging behind.

Statisticians David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson in the USA count one in three of the 6.28 billion humans as Christians (2.1 billion). One in five (1.3 billion) are Muslims. The 849 million Hindus account for 13.5 per cent of the world population and the 371 million Buddhists for 5.9 per cent.

Almost 15 per cent (938 million) are non-religious and atheists. Their annual growth rate of 0.8 and 0.2 per cent is well below the increase of the world population: 1.2 per cent.

Muslims record by far the fastest annual growth (2.1 per cent), followed by Hindus (1.5 per cent). The number of Christians continues to grow by less than 1,3 per cent only slightly faster than the world population. The number of Buddhists is rising by one per cent.

Although nearly five billion Bibles and Scripture portions are distributed annually, the Gospel has not reached one in four persons (26.3 per cent), according to Barrett and Johnson.

END

Evangelical news agency idea. Wolfgang Polzer

http://www.idea.de

Related Articles:

• Review: The Faith of Leap: Embracing a Theology of Risk, Adventure & Courage, Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch, Baker, 2011
• Why do Ex-College students Leave Christianity?
• Effective Evangelism: 18 Obstacles
• WAS JESUS GOD?
• COUNTRY CLUB TO MISSION BASE: THE STRATEGIC ROLE OF THE PASTOR

This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.