5 takeaways from a major new report on religion around the world

Yahoo

2 days ago

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When people hear that researching religion is part of my job, they often ask me very specific questions about faith-related issues that have been in the news.
After I disappoint them by not immediately knowing the answers, I turn to Google for help. My job has made me a search engine expert, not a religion expert.
The questions that still trip me up even when I've got a strong internet connection are about the religious makeup of faraway countries.
It's hard for me to quickly find info about religious life in the Czech Republic or New Zealand and then talk about what that info means for the athlete or politician who's grabbing headlines in the U.S.
But now, I've got an exciting new tool in my trivia tool belt.
On Monday, Pew Research Center released an interactive website that shows the religious makeup of nearly every country in the world in a single (very large) table.
Once you're on the page, it takes only a few seconds to confirm that New Zealand was 40.3% Christian in 2020 or that the Czech Republic is dominated by religious 'nones.'
Pew's interactive table was released alongside a new report discussing how the global religious landscape changed from 2010 to 2020.
Based on more than 2,700 censuses and surveys, the report provides an in-depth look at 201 countries and territories — and plenty of fodder for conversations with your friends.
Here are five key takeaways from Pew's new analysis of the global religious landscape.
Christianity is the world's largest faith group, but it's not keeping pace with global population growth. In 2010, 30.6% of the world identified as Christian. By 2020, that figure had fallen to 28.8%.
Islam is the fastest growing religious group. 'The number of Muslims increased by 347 million (from 2010 to 2020) — more than all other religions combined,' researchers wrote.
Sub-Saharan Africa is now the region of the world where most Christians live. In 2010, Europe held that title.
As of 2020, the United States has the second-largest number of religiously unaffiliated residents. China has the most.
The growth of Islam from 2010 to 2020 was mostly due to natural population growth, while the decline of Christianity stemmed, in large part, from religious switching. 'Religious 'switching' — especially people shedding their religious identity after having been raised as Christians — explains much of the unaffiliated population's growth between 2010 and 2020," Pew reported.
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Hidden Christianity is a unique form of Christianity practiced on some of Japan's rural islands.
It gets its name from the fact that its earliest practitioners really were hiding their faith to avoid persecution.
'Hidden Christians were forced to hide all visible signs of their religion after the 1614 ban on Christianity and the expulsion of foreign missionaries. Households took turns hiding precious ritual objects and hosting the secret services that celebrated both faith and persistence,' according to The Associated Press.
Early practitioners disguised their Christian icons by making them appear to be Buddhist. Even after it was safe to be openly Christian again, many families continued these secretive practices, in part because they wanted to honor loved ones who'd risked their lives and in part because they didn't fit in with mainstream Christians, the AP reported.
'Many Hidden Christians rejected Catholicism after the persecution ended because Catholic priests refused to recognize them as real Christians unless they agreed to be rebaptized and abandon the Buddhist altars that their ancestors used,' the article said.
Hidden Christianity may soon be just a memory in Japan, since most current practitioners are quite old and most young people who grew up with the traditions have moved to cities and either don't want to or can't access the gatherings.
A controversial research project featuring faith leaders using psychedelic drugs was released last month after a long delay. The report showed that nearly all of the members of the clergy who took part described their experiences with psilocybin as some of the most spiritually significant of their lives, but health and religion experts don't agree on what type of additional research or policy proposals that finding should inspire, according to Religion News Service.
Which groups face the most discrimination in the United States? Pew Research Center recently asked Americans to weigh in, and the survey report offers an in-depth look at how people's political views influence their thoughts about discrimination.
My Deseret News colleague Krysyan Edler recently wrote about the inspiring life of Caroline Klein, the chief communications officer for Smith Entertainment Group. After being diagnosed with cancer in her thirties, Klein committed to living every day like there might not be a tomorrow. 'Nothing about my situation is sad to me, but I want to make sure that when I'm gone, I've left people with a lot of great memories that bring them joy, too,' she said.
After years of daydreaming about getting back into tennis, I finally started a summer tennis class on Saturday. It felt so good! Take this as the nudge you need to do that thing you've been dreaming about.