There are two primary reasons for this conclusion. While both Christianity and Islam are flourishing in sub-Saharan Africa, present data suggest that neither faith is likely to expand as rapidly in this region in the years ahead as it did in the twentieth century, except possibly through natural population growth. Christianity will likely show little change, from 34.5% in 1900 to 34.2% by 2050, having passed through a low point of around 32% in 2015. Islam will likely see the greatest growth, more than doubling its share of the world’s population in 150 years (from 12.4% in 1900 to a projected 29.2% in 2050). In 1900, these two religions represented less than 50% of the world’s population it appears that by 2050, they will claim over 63% (table 1). Two religions-Christianity and Islam-dominate religious demographics at present and seem poised to continue that dominance in the future. Thus, from this second point of view (1970–present), there has been a global religious resurgence in recent years, and it seems likely to continue into the future. Although the number of atheists and agnostics continues to rise in the Western world, the current growth of a variety of religions in China, in particular (where the vast majority of the nonreligious live today), bodes well for future demographic growth of religion. The early part of this shift (between 19 in the larger context of 1990–2020) is due largely to the collapse of Communism in the former Soviet Union, which was accompanied by the re-legalization of, and return of many people to, religious bodies of many kinds. Since then, the percentage of religionists has risen steadily and is expected to exceed 91% by 2050. However, hidden in this 120-year trend is a profound turn-around in the religious composition of the world’s population.Įxamining the data more closely, one can see that the raw percentage of nonreligious people peaked around 1970 at approximately 19.2% (80.8% being religious). In 1900, virtually 100% of the world’s population was religious, but by 2020 this figure had fallen to 88.5%. Thus, over the twentieth century, religionists’ share of the global population declined steadily, while Communism, with its ardent promotion of atheism, expanded and secularization continued in the West. By 2020, they numbered in the hundreds of millions and represented 11.5% of the world’s population. Comparing today’s situation to that of 120 years ago, the answer must be a resounding “no.” In 1900 the world was home to very few atheists and agnostics. In examining the future of religion, a natural place to begin is with the question of whether there has been or currently is a global resurgence of religion. In documenting that resurgence, this chapter focuses on presenting and commenting on the findings of future projections for the world’s religions. However, several decades on, the strongest evidence shows that the global trend of religious resurgence is likely to continue into the near and, perhaps, distant future. By contrast, in the mid-twentieth century the demise of religion was a near-accepted fact inside and outside the academic community. Keywords: demography religions projections atheists agnostics Christians Muslims Hindus Buddhists fertility conversions immigrationįor many, the most surprising finding of the tables and graphs in this chapter will be the projected continued resiliency of world religions into the future.
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