Giving a share of one’s income to the church has been a part of European tradition for centuries. Today, several countries continue to collect a “church tax” on behalf of officially recognized religious organizations, in some cases levying the tax on all registered members.
Household size and composition often vary by religious affiliation, data from 130 countries and territories reveals. Muslims and Hindus have larger households than Christians and religious “nones,” influenced in part by regional norms.
The European continent today is split in public attitudes toward religion, minorities and social issues such as gay marriage and legal abortion.
The majority of Europe’s Christians are non-practicing, but they differ from religiously unaffiliated people in their views on God, attitudes toward Muslims and immigrants, and opinions about religion’s role in society.
Concentrated in Europe, Orthodox Christians have declined as share of the global Christian population, from 20% in 1910 to 12% today. But the Ethiopian community is highly observant and growing.
As Protestants prepare to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, two new surveys show the theological differences that split Western Christianity in the 1500s have diminished.
A comprehensive demographic study finds that there are 2.18 billion Christians of all ages around the world, representing nearly a third of the estimated 2010 global population of 6.9 billion. Christians are also geographically widespread, and no single region can indisputably claim to be the center of global Christianity.
Evangelical Protestant leaders who live in the Global South generally are optimistic about the prospects for evangelicalism in their countries: 71% expect that five years from now the state of evangelicalism in their countries will be better than it is today. But those who live in the Global North expect that the state of evangelicalism in their countries will either stay about the same (21%) or worsen (33%) over the next five years.
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