DAWN Fridayfax 2003 #7

Global Christianity

Empirical facts and figures

"World Christian Trends" is a collection of trends and observations of global Christianity published by American missions statistician Prof. David Barrett and Todd Johnson. Here are some excerpts:

1. Every year, churches around the world perform US$ 1.1 billion worth of research in 3,000 languages, covering 180 religious topics. 10 million questionnaires are sent out.

2. 70 million followers of Christ have been martyred, equally spread across the past 20 centuries and all 238 nations of the Earth.

3. The five most dangerous of all Christian vocations (over 3% murder rates) are: bishops, evangelists, catechists, colporteurs, foreign missionaries.

4. Books primarily about Jesus in today's libraries number 175,000 different titles in 500 languages, increasing by 4 newly published every day.

5. Emboldened by lax procedures, trusted church treasurers are embezzling $16 billion out of church funds each year, but only 5% ever get found out.

6. Christians spend more on the annual audits of their churches and agencies ($810 million) than on all their workers in the non-Christian world.

7. The total cost of Christian outreach averages $330,000 for each and every newly baptised person.

8. Despite Christ's command to evangelize, 67% of all humans from AD 30 to the present day have never even heard of his name.

9. 648 million Christians today (called Great Commission Christians)are active in Christ's world mission; 1,352 million Christians ignore this mission.

10. Every person in the world belongs to, on average, 10 distinct and separate (and often conflicting) religions.

11. Organized Christianity has total contact with 3,590 religions, but no contact at all with 353 other religions and their over 500 million adherents.

12. 14 million converted Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims have opted to remain within those religions in order to witness for Christ as active believers in Jesus as Lord.

13. Heads of the 50 major Christian World Communions, with 1.5 billion members, have met annually since 1957 for serious 3-day dialogue.

14. A huge new Christian non-confessional megabloc, the Independents/ Postdenominationalists, is growing rapidly and numbers 19% of all Christians.

15. These 386 million Independents in 220 countries have no interest in and no use for historical denominationalist Christianity.

16. From only 3 million in AD 1500, evangelicals have grown to 648 million worldwide, 54% being Non-Whites.

17. The country with the fastest Christian expansion ever is China, now at 10,000 new converts every day.

18. Everywhere on Earth can now easily be targeted with at least 3 of the 45 varieties of effective evangelism.

19. Christian triumphalism - not as pride in huge numbers, but as publicised self-congratulation - is rampant in most churches, agencies and ministries.

20. 124 million new souls begin life on Earth each year, but Christianity's 4,000 foreign mission agencies baptize only 4 million new persons a year.

21. 91% of all Christian outreach/evangelism does not target non-Christians but targets other Christians in nominally Christian countries, cities, peoples, populations, or situations.

22. There are 818 unevangelized ethnolinguistic peoples which have never been targeted by any Christian agency.

23. Over 20 centuries, Christians have announced 1,500 plans to evangelise the world; most failed; 250 plans focused on AD 2000 fell massively short of their stated goals.

24. The 3 nations of over 1 million population in which evangelism is least cost-effective are Japan, Switzerland and Denmark.

25. The 3 nations of over 1 million population in which evangelism is most cost-effective are Mozambique, Ethiopia and Tanzania.

26. Mainland China's Christians have thousands of trained workers poised to begin evangelizing the world soon after AD 2000.

27. Most Christian bodies insist on full accountability to the last cent in finance, but ignore or even decry statistics about Christian workers and ministries.

28. It costs Christians 700 times more money to baptise converts in rich World C countries such as Switzerland than in poor World A countries such as Nepal.

29. From only one million in AD 1900, Pentecostals/ Charismatics/ Neocharismatics have mushroomed to 524 million affiliated (602 million including unaffiliated believers).

30. Each year,180 million Bibles and New Testaments are wasted - lost, destroyed or disintegrated - due to incompetence, hostility, bad planning, or inadequate manufacture.

31. Each year, 600,000 full-time ordained workers (clergy, ministers, missionaries) reach retiring age; 150,000 then discover that their employers provide no old-age pensions.

32. Some 250 of the 300 largest international Christian organizations regularly mislead the Christian public by publishing demonstrably incorrect or falsified progress statistics.

33. Despite predictions of the collapse of religion, long-term trends indicate that Christians and members of other religions are likely to number over 87% of the world's population in AD 2200.

Source: World Christian Trends; Pasadena: William Carey Library. Orders via E-mail: gabriel@OMlit.om.org

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