Between 1991 and 2008, the share of Russian adults identifying as Orthodox Christian rose from 31% to 72%, according to data from the International Social Survey Programme. During the same period, the share of Russia’s population that does not identify with any religion dropped from 61% to 18%.
When Benedict XVI was elected pope in 2005, religious observance among Europeans had been in decline for decades, and he set out to stem the tide of secularization. How successful was he? Pew Research polls indicate that during his papacy, religious observance among Catholics in France, Germany, Spain and Italy remained low but fairly stable.
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.
Introduction Over the past two decades, the number of Muslims living in Western Europe has steadily grown, rising from less than 10 million in 1990 to approximately 17 million in 2010.[1. Figures are from a forthcoming Pew Forum report that estimates growth rates among Muslim populations worldwide and provides population projections for 2020 and 2030. […]
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