Belief in Christ still the biggest
By Barney Zwartz – The Age Newspaper
December 13, 2010
CHRISTIANITY remains the world’s biggest religion, but Islam is catching up while non-belief increased enormously over the past century but is now in sharp decline, according to the Christian Research Association.
Australian religious trends of rising agnosticism and declining Christianity contradict most of the world, the association reports in its December bulletin.
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.
Christians made up 34.8 per cent of the world’s 1.75 billion people in 1910, and 33.2 per cent of the 6.9 billion today. But where 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 per cent in 1910 to 22.4 per cent today, and Hindus from 12.7 to 13.7 per cent. Agnostics have risen from 0.2 to 9.3 per cent or 640 million people, while atheists have risen from less than 0.1 per cent to 2 per cent, or 138 million.



















