A new Pew Research Center report has found that Christianity remains the world’s largest faith, but Islam is now outpacing it in growth—especially when it comes to new converts and demographic momentum.
According to Pew’s “How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020” study, the number of Christians worldwide grew by 6% over the last decade, reaching 2.3 billion in 2020. But here’s the catch: Christians (of all denominations, counted as one group) did not keep pace with global population growth from 2010 to 2020. As a result, Christianity’s share of the world’s population actually fell by 1.8 percentage points, down to 28.8%.
Meanwhile, Islam is on a different trajectory. Muslims are now the fastest-growing religious group on the planet. Their numbers jumped by 21%—from 1.7 billion to 2.0 billion—between 2010 and 2020. That’s twice as fast as the rest of the world’s population, which expanded by 10% during the same decade. The Muslim share of the global population rose by 1.8 points, now making up 25.6% of humanity.
What’s driving these changes? Pew points to a mix of high birth rates in Muslim-majority countries, migration, and significant religious “switching”—a term the report uses to describe people changing their religious identity, often from Christianity to no religion, but also to Islam in some regions.
“Large numbers of Christians around the world ‘switch’ out of religion to become religiously unaffiliated,” the study notes, especially in Europe and the Americas.
The biggest shift for Christianity came from Africa and Europe. Sub-Saharan Africa is now home to the largest number of Christians, surpassing Europe for the first time. The region now accounts for 31% of the world’s Christians, while Europe’s share has dropped to 22%. In the U.S.—still the country with the largest Christian population—Christians now make up 64% of the population, down from 78% in 2010.
Most countries around the world still have Christian majorities. But due to widespread disaffiliation, there are now fewer Christian-majority countries and more countries with a religiously unaffiliated majority than there were in 2010.
However, it’s important to note this massive study looked at changes in religious affiliation from 2010 to 2020. And while the numbers haven’t bounced back, since 2021 the decline of Christianity in America has plateaued, as well as the rise of the nones—which means the world’s faith map is still in flux.
Title: Islam’s Growth Outpaces Christianity Worldwide
URL: https://relevantmagazine.com/current/world/islams-growth-outpaces-christianity-worldwide/
Source: REL ::: RELEVANT
Source URL: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/rss/relevantmagazine.xml
Date: June 10, 2025 at 05:40PM
Feedly Board(s): Religion