Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Pentecostals represent a very small proportion of Asia’s population of nearly 4 billion people. This contrasts sharply with pentecostalism’s share of the population in parts of Africa and Latin America, which often exceeds 10-20 percent. According to 2005 figures from the World Christian Database, pentecostals represent 3.5% of Asia’s population, or about 138 million people. […]
Origins and Growth 1880s-1910s: American Presbyterians and Methodists establish the first resident Protestant missions in the mid-1880s. A 1907 revival in Pyongyang involves more than a thousand adults and children, some of whom receive charismatic gifts, fueling nationwide evangelism. By 1910, there are more than 150,000 Protestants in the country (I. Kim 2003: 34, 41; […]
Pentecostalism and related charismatic movements represent one of the fastest-growing segments of global Christianity. At least a quarter of the world’s 2 billion Christians are thought to be members of these lively, highly personal faiths, which emphasize such spiritually renewing “gifts of the Holy Spirit” as speaking in tongues, divine healing and prophesying. Even more […]
Origins and Growth 1700-1900: In the 1700s, German Lutherans and British Baptists establish Protestant missions in southern and western India (Frykenberg 2003). In 1860, revivals in the U.S. and Europe inspire an Indian Anglican to lead a pentecostal revival in southern India (Burgess 2001: 87-88). In the 1860s and 1870s, Protestant churches in southern India […]
Summary of Findings The Democrats’ big win on Nov. 7 has gotten a highly favorable response from the public. In fact, initial reactions to the Democratic victory are as positive as they were to the GOP’s electoral sweep of Congress a dozen years ago. Six-in-ten Americans say they are happy that the Democratic Party won […]
Pew Research Center Washington, D.C. In his recent article in Foreign Affairs, Walter Russell Mead argues that as U.S. evangelicals exert increasing political influence, they are becoming a powerful force in foreign affairs. In recent years, evangelicals have voted overwhelmingly Republican, helping to put conservatives at the helm of U.S. foreign policy, while focusing their […]
The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life today released the results of a 10-country survey of pentecostal and charismatic Christians, two large and fast-growing groups whose socially conservative views are impacting religion and politics worldwide.
Origins and Growth 1890s-1905: In 1895, a former Baptist preacher establishes a church in Johannesburg, which eventually joins the Christian Catholic Church in Zion founded by faith healer John Alexander Dowie in Zion City, Chicago. In 1904, Dowie sends a missionary to oversee his growing South African flock, which by 1905 has about 5,000 members, […]