CHRISTIANITY remains the world’s biggest religion, but Islam is catching up, Australian newspaper The Age reported.
Quoting the Christian Research Association’s report in its December bulletin, the newspaper said Australian religious trends of rising agnosticism and declining Christianity contradict most of the world.
The bulletin quotes the findings of the Centre for the Study of Global Christianity, which compares the state of global religions in 1910 and 2010.
In 1910, Christians made up 34.8 percent of the world’s 1.75 billion people. Today, Christianity makes up only 33.2 percent of the 6.9 billion world population. While a century ago most Christians lived in Europe and north America today most live in Africa and south America.
Muslims have risen from 12.6 percent in 1910 to 22.4 percent today while Hindus have risen from 12.7 percent to 13.7 percent. Agnostics have risen from 0.2 to 9.3 percent or 640 million people, while atheists have risen from less than 0.1 percent to 2 percent or 138 million.
In China, both Christianity and Islam were growing at a fast rate. Of the 2.3 billion Christians worldwide Catholics make up over half the total number, followed by the fast-rising Pentecostals with 600 million.
