Likewise, Orthodox and historically Protestant populations have declined globally. If Roman Catholicism has grown only marginally and Orthodox and Protestant numbers have declined, how are we to understand the massive growth in numbers of Christians in the Global South? The most significant growth was among independents (i.e., African Independent Churches and Chinese house churches), which increased from 1.7 percent of all Christians in 1910 to 16.6 percent in 2010.
India’s cities are likewise growing at an astounding rate. The nation’s capital, Delhi, grew from 2.85 million in 1965 to 30 million in 2020. The city grows by roughly 700,000 inhabitants per year and is estimated to grow to 43 million by 2035. India’s minister for housing and urban affairs claims that in order to keep up with the growth, “between now and 2030, we need to build something like 700 to 900 million square meters of urban space every year, which means one Chicago every year.”
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While the percentage of Christians in the Middle East declined overall, several countries—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—had an influx of Christians since 1970. These Christian populations were not new local converts but Christian migrants from places like the Philippines and South Korea moving to the Middle East for work. The Christian population in Bahrain, for example, rose from 4 percent in 1970 to a projected 13 percent in 2025, almost entirely because of immigration.
Another form of Christianity that resonates in the Global South and is therefore growing in places like Africa is prosperity churches. Preachers of the prosperity gospel are so called because they teach that material wealth and physical health are signs of God’s spiritual blessing and that poverty and disease are evidence of sin or lack of faith. At the extreme, preachers suggest that one can demonstrate faith and unlock the blessings of heaven by tithing or giving to the church, sowing a seed to reap a financial harvest or healing. Many evangelical Christians consider prosperity preaching dangerous, self-serving, and a threat to true Christianity.
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"İki yıl oldu sen gideli, değil mi? Bir göresim geldi ki, kendi kendime nasıl olsa çıkar gelir diyordum bir gün."
Taken together, Renewalists grew nearly four times faster than both the Christian population and the world population from 1910 to 2010. As a result, Renewalists at the time of this writing made up between 25 and 30 percent of all Christians. In 2010 Latin America had the largest number of Renewalists in the world (especially Brazil), but Africa was close behind and may soon take the lead. The region in which Renewalists were growing the fastest was Asia. The five countries with the most Renewalists were Brazil, the United States, China, Nigeria, and the Philippines.
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Reklam