Tuesday; December 30
I am about to make some
very general statements using broad terms, but if you bear with me, I do have a
point to make. So, let’s start with a
question – where in the world are the most Christians? (Again, I am not going to define or debate the
term “Christian” – let’s accept it in general terms.) If you are like me, you probably assume that
North America in general and the United States in particular is the epicenter
of Christianity. However, that isn’t
exactly true. According to the Pew
Research Center, there were some 2 billion “Christians” around the world in
2020 (by the way, that’s an increase of almost 6% over 2010). With this in mind, some 237 million of them
live in North America. That sounds like
a lot, until you realize that about 500 million of them live in Europe, 546
million live in Latin American counties and almost 700 million live in
Sub-Saharan Africa. Interestingly, the
greatest growth of Christianity between 2010 and 2020 was in Africa (a growth
rate of over 31%). Now, let’s go back to
the initial discussion – where is the hub of Christianity? We are blessed to live in the United States
where Christianity is accepted, but we had better not be too arrogant about
being the center of the Christian world.
There are a lot more believers around the world than here at home!
It is easy to
overestimate the importance of American Christianity but let’s be careful not
to look down our noses at other parts of the world. Who knows, maybe someday soon Christian
believers from outside North America might look at us a mission field! Let’s maintain our faith and search out areas
to preach the gospel. When we work
together with other areas of the world, we might start to gain more ground on
those who profess to be unbelievers.
Think About It!