The number of Muslims in the world will nearly
match the number of Christians by 2050.
That’s the main headline from “The Future of
World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050,” a
study released in April by the Pew Research Center. If current
population trends continue, the report says, Muslim ranks will increase by 73
percent (to 2.8 billion) — more than twice the growth rate of Christians, who
will expand by 35 percent, to 2.9 billion. Total world population is projected
to reach 9.3 billion by mid-century.
Other projections for 2050:
-- Hindus
will increase by 34 percent to nearly 1.4 billion.
-- Four
of every 10 Christians will live in sub-Saharan Africa.
-- While
remaining majority Hindu, India will become home to more Muslims than any other country, topping Indonesia.
-- Atheists,
agnostics and others who affiliate with no particular religion will decline as
a share of the world population, even as they increase in numbers and influence
in North America and Europe.
It’s
important to keep two things in mind about this study (and others like it).
First, it’s more a demographic survey than a religious one. Muslims are
increasing primarily because of fertility rates and young populations in
regions where they predominate, not because non-Muslims are converting to
Islam. Second, terms such as “Muslim” and “Christian” are broadly defined.
“The
projections are based on the number of people who self-identify with
each religious group, regardless of their level of observance,” the report
emphasizes. “What it means to be Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish or
a member of any other faith may vary from person to person, country to country
and decade to decade.”
Still,
the projections highlight the global church’s challenge for the next
generation.
“The
chief contenders for the hearts and souls of those living in the 21st century
will be Muslims, evangelical Christians and secularists,” predicted Patrick
Johnstone, British mission leader and former editor of “Operation World,” in an
interview I conducted with him in 2012.
“Who
is going to be the most successful?” Johnstone asked. “Islam is growing,
largely by biological growth, not by conversion. Evangelicals are growing
massively by conversion. Secularists are adding to their number every year, but
are dying as a breed, because they are not having enough children to replace
themselves.”
Evangelical
Christian faith, once based largely in the United States and Europe, spread far
beyond its traditional strongholds in the second half of the 20th century. The
expansion was fueled by the post-World War II missionary movement — which made Christian disciples among a myriad of
peoples, who are now taking the gospel to others —
along with the spread of education and communication. The end of Western
colonial power in many countries, initially a challenge to churches born of
missionary efforts, actually spurred the global Christian movement by forcing
national Christian groups to depend on God and themselves — not outsiders.
“One
day in eternity, I think we will look back and see God’s hand in so many
things,” Johnstone observed. “[M]any people thought, with the missionaries and
the colonial regimes gone, Christianity would be pushed out. It did the exact
opposite. It became indigenous and exploded. In many countries that are now
broken politically, the churches became the source of stability and hope for
the future.”
To
continue to advance, however, the evangelical movement must avoid pride and
complacency, Johnstone warned.
“Are
the very successes of evangelicalism sowing the seeds of its spiritual demise
by grieving the Spirit of God through pride, division, disobedience, carnality,
moral laxity, theological error or prayerlessness?” he asked. “Nominalism is
not the preserve of more traditional churches —
it is increasingly a problem for third- and fourth-generation evangelicals.”
He
also urged U.S. and other Western churches and mission agencies to pursue
“multi-polar global leadership” with their Asian, African and Latin American
brothers and sisters. “Wherever you look in the Christian world in the 21st
century, mission teams and strategies that remain mono-ethnic are not going to
survive,” Johnstone said. “I sometimes jokingly say that the perfect
multicultural team would have a Brazilian evangelist, a Korean church planter,
a Chinese to manage the accounts, an Australian to mend anything that's broken
and an American to handle planning and goals.”
Good
advice. The church also needs to put away its fear of Muslims and share the
gospel with them in the love of Christ. In some places that will require
life-and-death risk.
In
other places, notably America, it requires only a willingness to be a friend.
