Professor Philip Jenkins writing in The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, says predictions that Muslims will far outnumber Christians in the future betray an ignorance of the explosive growth of Christianity outside of the West. For instance, in 1900, there were approximately 10 million Christians in Africa. By 2000, there were 360 million. By 2025, conservative estimates see that number rising to 633 million, with 640 million in Latin America and 460 million in Asia.

According to Jenkins, the percentage of the world’s population that is, at least by name, Christian will be roughly the same in 2050 as it was in 1900. By the middle of this century, there will be three billion Christians in the world – one and a half times the number of Muslims. In fact, by 2050 there will be nearly as many Pentecostal Christians in the world as there are Muslims today.

And these changes will be more than demographic. Jenkins points out that who he calls “Southern Christians” – those living in Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia – are far more conservative, theologically and morally, than their counterparts in the West. Thus, as Christianity becomes more Southern, it becomes more biblically orthodox.

Source: CBN News

Bible Study: Colossians 1:10

PRAISE No matter how bad things seem at home, God is at work throughout the world.