Evangelical growth is worldwide phenomenon
The Presbyterian Layman, December 10, 1998
Evangelical Christians are the main force behind the growth of Christianity, according to Patrick Johnstone, author of The Church is Larger Than You Think.
Johnstone’s assessment of the growth in evangelical Christianity was reported in the November-December issue of Good News magazine, a journal that promotes evangelical renewal in the United Methodist Church.
The magazine story quoted Johnstone as identifying the following trends:
1. Evangelical Christianity has grown slowly but steadily in the West, while the rest of Western Christianity has shrunk significantly;
2. The real growth of Evangelical Christianity in recent years has been in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. In 1960, non-Western Evangelicals were about half as numerous as those in the West; in the year 2000 they will be four times, and in 2010, seven times as numerous;
3. Although Christianity as a whole is growing slightly slower than Islam, Protestant Christianity is expanding faster than Islam at 2.9 percent per year, which is almost double the rate of population growth-currently at 1.7 percent;
4. The Roman Catholic Church is expanding more slowly than the population, which means that the percentage of Catholics in the population is decreasing. This is mainly due to the secularization in Europe and the trend to Evangelicalism in Latin America;
5. Protestantism is growing almost twice as fast as the world population, but this is almost entirely due to Evangelicals. Non-Evangelical Protestant churches are shrinking significantly. “Liberal theology is being preached in ever-shrinking churches in increasingly empty church buildings.”
6. Evangelical Christianity is expanding more than three times as fast as the world population, and is hence the only religious group in the world with significant growth through conversion, at a rate almost double that of Islam.