Christianity is the largest and fastest growing religion the world
I heard it again last night. I was listening to a sermon and the speaker said, "It is just going to get darker and darker till Jesus comes."
Really?
I don't think it squares with the facts
I don't think it agrees with the Bible.
I think it has a damaging effect on our faith.
Fact: Christianity is the world's largest religion with about 2 billion adherents, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth
Note this is all Christians, rather loosely defined. 1.15 of them are Roman Catholic. Pentecostalism is by far and away the fastest growing segment of Christianity world wide with nearly 500% growth between 2000 and 2005. In America the fastest growing group is under the category "Generic" -- Nondenominational Christian. I assume this includes churches like Willowcreek and Northpoint.
Christianity is not only the largest, but, in terms of sheer numbers, it is the fastest growing, with 25 million new adherents a year. By percentage growth, other groups win out.
This includes the kids of each faith. If we break it out by converts that are not our kids, the situation looks even better. 2.5 million new Christians by conversion (meaning, not our kids) each year--around triple the next competitor.
We don't see this in North America because most of the growth of world Christianity is outside of the United States. The center of Christianity is moving from the West to the East.
Christianity should enjoy a worldwide boom in the new century, but the vast majority of believers will be neither white nor European, nor Euro-American. According to the respected World Christian Encyclopedia, some 2 billion Christians are alive today, about one-third of the planetary total. The largest single bloc, some 560 million people, is still to be found in Europe. Latin America, though, is already close behind with 480 million.
Africa has 360 million, and 313 million Asians profess Christianity. North America claims about 260 million believers. If we extrapolate these figures to the year 2025, and assume no great gains or losses through conversion, then there would be around 2.6 billion Christians, of whom 633 million would live in Africa, 640 million in Latin America, and 460 million in Asia. Europe, with 555 million, would have slipped to third place.2 Africa and Latin America would be in competition for the title of most Christian continent. About this date, too, another significant milestone should occur, namely that these two continents will together account for half the Christians on the planet. By 2050, only about one-fifth of the world's 3 billion Christians will be non-Hispanic Whites.3 Soon, the phrase "a White Christian" may sound like a curious oxymoron, as mildly surprising as "a Swedish Buddhist." Such people can exist, but a slight eccentricity is implied. -- The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (Philip Jenkins)
This trend is predicted to continue into the future:
But far from Islam being the world's largest religion by 2020 or so, as Huntington suggests, Christianity will still have a massive lead, and will maintain its position into the foreseeable future. By 2050, there should still be about three Christians for every two Muslims worldwide. Some 34 percent of the world's people will then be Christian, roughly what the figure was at the height of European world hegemony in 1900. -- The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (Philip Jenkins)
Here are some more interesting stats: http://www.gordonconwell.edu/sites/default/files/IBMR2010.pdf
This is what Jesus said would happen. He said the kingdom would start small like a seed and grow and grow and grow until it was a huge plant. He said it would start in only a small part of the batch of dough and grow to take over the batch of dough. He said the gates of hell will not prevail against us.
It is an important point because Jesus also said it will be done for you according to your faith. If you think you can or think you cannot, either way you are right. If we think we are losers we tend to act like losers and we get loser results.
Embrace the belief: the kingdom of God is forcefully advancing! (Matt11.12)