Research: Protestantism and Evangelicalism rising and growth worldwide

Jamespampanga

From 500 Million to 800 Million up to 1 Billion Protestants Worldwide. (Growth especially in Russia, China, Latin America and Africa.)

There are about 800 million Protestants worldwide, among approximately 2.2 billion Christians. These include 300 million in Sub-Saharan Africa, 260 million in the Americas, 140 million in Asia-Pacific region, 100 million in Europe and 2 million in Middle East-North Africa. Protestants account for nearly forty percent of Christians worldwide and more than one tenth of the total human population. Various estimates put the percentage of Protestants in relation to the total number of world's Christians at 33%, 36%, 36.7%,and 40%, while in relation to the world's population at 11.6% and 13%.

In European countries which were most profoundly influenced by the Reformation, Protestantism still remains the most practiced religion. These include the Nordic countries and the United Kingdom. In other historical Protestant strongholds such as Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Latvia, Estonia and Hungary, it remains one of the most popular religions. Although Czech Republic was the site of one of the most significant pre-reformation movements, there are only few Protestant adherents;mainly due to historical reasons like persecution of Protestants by the Catholic Habsburgs, restrictions during the Communist rule, and also the ongoing secularization. Over the last several decades, religious practice has been declining as secularization has increased. According to a 2012 study about Religiosity in the European Union in 2012 by Eurobarometer, Protestants made up 12% of the EU population.[65] According to Pew Research Center, Protestants constituted nearly one fifth (or 17.8%) of the continent's Christian population in 2010. Clarke and Beyer estimate that Protestants constituted 15% of all Europeans in 2009, while Noll claims that less than 12% of them lived in Europe in 2010.

Changes in worldwide Protestantism over the last century have been significant. Since 1900, Protestantism has spread rapidly in Africa, Asia, Oceania and Latin America.That caused Protestantism to be called a primarily non-Western religion. Much of the growth has occurred after World War II, when decolonization of Africa and abolition of various restrictions against Protestants in Latin American countries occurred. According to one source, Protestants constituted respectively 2.5%, 2%, 0.5% of Latin Americans, Africans and Asians. In 2000, percentage of Protestants on mentioned continents was 17%, more than 27% and 5.5%, respectively.According to Mark A. Noll, 79% of Anglicans lived in the United Kingdom in 1910, while most of the remainder was found in the United States and across the British Commonwealth. By 2010, 59% of Anglicans were found in Africa.[51] In 2010, more Protestants lived in India than in the United Kingdom or Germany, while Protestants in Brazil accounted for as many people as Protestants in the United Kingdom and Germany combined. Almost as many lived in each of Nigeria and China as in all of Europe. China is home to world's largest Protestant minority.

Protestantism is growing in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania, while remaining stable or declining in Anglo America and Europe, with some exceptions such as France, where it was eradicated after the abolition of the Edict of Nantes by the Edict of Fontainebleau and the following persecution of Huguenots, but now is claimed to be stable in number or even growing slightly According to some, Russia is another country to see a Protestant revival.

In 2010, the largest Protestant denominational families were historically Pentecostal denominations (10.8%), Anglican (10.6%), Lutheran (9.7%), Baptist (9%), United and uniting churches (unions of different denominations) (7.2%), Presbyterian or Reformed (7%), Methodist (3.4%), Adventist (2.7%), Congregationalist (0.5%), Brethren (0.5%), The Salvation Army (0.3%) and Moravian (0.1%). Other denominations accounted for 38.2% of Protestants.

United States is home to approximately 20% of Protestants.According to a 2012 study, Protestant share of U.S. population dropped to 48%, thus ending its status as religion of the majority for the first time. The decline is attributed mainly to the dropping membership of the Mainline Protestant churches, while Evangelical Protestant and Black churches are stable or continue to grow.

By 2050, Protestantism is projected to rise to a proportion of around half of the world's total Christian population. According to other experts such as Hans J. Hillerbrand, Protestants will be as numerous as Catholics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestantism#Spread_and_demographics

jagaruga

Well, we Catholics don't claim we're the true church just because marami kami.

Jamespampanga

Russia and Latin America turning to Protestant?

RIO DE JANEIRO — In 1990, an American anthropologist wrote a controversial book: “Is Latin America Turning Protestant?”
Two decades later, that same provocative question can be asked of Russia.

Who will win: The Church of the Golden Domes? Or the Church of the Catacombs?

Before I grapple with Russia, let’s look at what is happening in Brazil, a country steeped in centuries of Catholicism.

On Thursday night, the crowd on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach gave a powerful vote for Catholicism.

My sons William and Alexander and I were lost in a happy, singing river of more than 1 million young people — Catholic faithful who came to welcome pope Francis, Latin America’s first pope. On Sunday morning, that figure was topped as some reporters estimated that 3 million people attended the pope’s farewell mass.

But the new pope’s first international visit had a strategic element. It was clearly aimed at countering the explosive growth of Protestantism in what long has been called “the world’s most populous Catholic country.”

In 1960, 93 percent of Brazilians identified themselves as Catholics. Today, 58 percent do.

In 1960, 4 percent of Brazilians identified themselves as Protestants. Today, nearly 25 percent do.

Five centuries after Portuguese explorers dropped anchor in this lovely harbor, Catholics now are the minority in South America’s third largest city, population 6.3 million.

In Brazil, Protestant Evangelicals make up a powerful bloc of 73 deputies in Brazil’s Congress. Last month, Evangelicals fielded 800,000 followers for an annual “March for Jesus” through central Sao Paulo. In this environment, Brazilian politicians have banished the phrase “Protestant sects” from their public vocabulary.

In Russia, the Kremlin takes an opposite strategy.

Since returning to the Kremlin last year as president, Vladimir Putin seems determined to restore the Orthodox Church to the official status it enjoyed during the time of the Czars. Increasingly, Protestant churches are kept underground. But they are expanding rapidly.

Last month, President Putin signed into law vaguely worded “defense of religion” legislation. In theory, this protects from “insults” Russia’s four religions deemed “historic” by a 1997 law – Christian Orthodoxy, Judaism, Buddhism and Islam.

Last weekend, any illusion that the law covered Islam disappeared when 263 Central Asians were detained in Moscow for gathering in an informal prayer house and partaking the traditional “Iftar” dinner to break the Ramadan fast. Although there are about 1 million Muslims in Moscow today, the city has only four mosques. City officials deny construction permits, saying most Muslims in Moscow are guest workers who will go home.

Instead, official support for the Orthodox Church can be seen everywhere – from the restoration of golden domed churches, to President Putin’s televised attendance at Orthodox Easter services, to the pre-election comment last year by Patriarch Kirill that Putin’s leadership of Russia is “a miracle of God.”

The patriarch recently was given use of lodgings inside the Kremlin, a unique privilege enjoyed during the time of the Czars.

As the Orthodox Church exerts increasing influence over the Russian state, admirals of Russia’s Pacific Fleet nearly dropped traditional images of Neptune, the Roman god of the sea, from last Sunday’s Navy Day celebrations. A local Orthodox leader had warned that pagan gods should have no place “at a celebration of an Orthodox Christian Navy.”

Meanwhile, Russian Protestants increasingly hold religious services in living rooms as their pastors are routinely denied permits to build churches. Visas for foreign missionaries are rare. Russia’s anti-Protestant actions are regularly chronicled in Forum 18 News Service, a website based in Oslo, Norway.

But out of sight does not mean out of mind.

Despite the efforts of Russian police and prosecutors, Protestantism keeps growing in Russia.

Last Easter, as is customary, Russian police were deployed to every Orthodox church in the land. They kept order and conducted a census. According to Interior Ministry statistics, about 4 million Russians attended Easter services at Russian Orthodox churches. That is 2.7 percent of the population in Russia, a nation where around 65 percent of survey respondents call themselves Orthodox. According to a survey made last April by the Public Opinion Foundation, about half of Russians who call themselves Orthodox admit they have never opened a Bible.

Russia’s Justice Ministry has registered 14,616 Orthodox parishes, 4,409 Protestant parishes, and 234 Catholic parishes. But Anatoly Pchelintsev, a religion specialist and professor at the Russian State Humanitarian University, estimates that for every registered Protestant congregation, there are at least two unregistered ones.

Pchelintsev, who edits the Religion and Law publication here, concludes that Russia has about 15,000 Protestant congregations, roughly equal to the number of Russian Orthodox ones. He says the number of Catholic parishes is roughly the same as the official number.

In Siberia, long a land of dissenters and discontents, there are believed to be more Protestants in church on Sunday mornings than Russian Orthodox. On one recent visit to Khabarovsk, the second largest city of the Russian Far East, I went to a packed Baptist church, only a kilometer from a sparsely attended Russian Orthodox Cathedral. The massive Cathedral had been built with federal funds.

What is to be done?

In the 16th Century, the Russian Orthodox Church rejected the Protestant Reformation that swept Northern Europe. In the 17th century, minor reforms by Patriarch Nikon triggered the Great Schism, provoking millions of “Old Believers” to reject Moscow’s Patriarch. Some moved as far away as Alaska.

But with the vast majority of contemporary Russians rarely entering churches, many feel the Orthodox Church will have to change — or end up with the declining demographics of Brazil’s Catholic Church.

On Friday, a push for change came from an unexpected corner: Alexander Lukashenko, the archconservative president of Belarus, a country where half the population is nominally Orthodox.

“As the world is undergoing change, therefore the Church must change also,” said Lukashenko, who has received awards from the Belarusian Orthodox Church. “I think we are on the threshold of reforms in the Orthodox Church.”

“Our church should begin a reform, step-by-step, beginning with the church language,” he continued, referring to Old Church Slavonic, a 1,000 year old liturgical language unintelligible to most Russians and Byelorussians.

“The prayers, services and sermons are too long,” Lukashenko continued. “Adults and the elderly just cannot endure them. One should be brief, succinct and more modern.”

“I am against the practice of people coming in, listening to a sermon standing on their feet and having no opportunity at all to sit,” he said, referring to Russian Orthodox churches that have no chairs or pews. “The practice of building huge cathedrals is no good either. Churches must be cozy and warm, and they must not oppress believers.”

Oddly, similar advice came the next day from the far side of the planet.

In a meeting on Saturday in Rio de Janeiro, Pope Francis addressed 300 active and retired Brazilian cardinals and bishops, giving the longest speech of his four-month-old pontificate.

“We have labored greatly and, at times, we see what appear to be failures,” the pope said in a veiled reference to the millions of Brazilians who have abandoned Catholicism for Protestantism. “We feel like those who must tally up a losing season as we consider those who have left us or no longer consider us credible or relevant.”

Then, warming to the central theme of his speech, he said: “At times we lose people because they don’t understand what we are saying, because we have forgotten the language of simplicity and import an intellectualism foreign to our people. For ordinary people the mystery enters through the heart.”

For Russia, the future offers a choice: Will Russia’s Orthodox Church compete with Protestantism, or try to crush it?

http://blogs.voanews.com/russia-watch/2013/07/30/is-russia-turning-protestant/

Jamespampanga

Why Protestant are more popular in China than Catholics?

Questions abound over the recent vicious actions of the Chinese government towards Christians in the prosperous Zhejiang Province just south of Shanghai. The actions of the government during the fortnight after Easter against both Protestants and Catholics are unprecedented in recent decades and, justifiably, have received world attention.

As with all actions in a country as vast as China, whose government could never be accused of transparency, it is difficult to discover who is making the decisions and what they hope to achieve. But one issue that has surprised many people outside China is both the size of its Christian population and the ruthlessness, born only of fear, that the government’s violence displays.

A recent claim by a US-based Chinese academic to London’s Telegraph newspaper – that China would have the largest Christian population in the world by 2030 – was not only exaggerated but also factually wrong. Will Brazil (200 million Christians) and Nigeria (85 million Christians), for example, simply stop producing Christians in the next 15 years?

The reality is that no one knows how many Christians there are in China. In fact, there’s good reason why Christians do not declare their growth. Just look at what’s happened in Zhejiang in the last fortnight, where the growth of the Christian community has been declared “unsustainable” by the authorities who have command of assessments of the “sustainability” of faith communities.

Put your head up as a Christian in China and it will be cut off. Catholics have maintained a standard figure for their own numbers for three decades. It was 12 million in 1980, 12 million in 1990, 12 million in 2000 and – surprise, surprise – it was 12 million in 2010. No one in any religion declares real figures in China. It only attracts government attention and then persecution.

That there is a massive growth spurt among Christians in China is indisputable. What has not been addressed is what has made the exponential growth among Protestants possible, far outstripping the growth among Catholics.

But it’s not something the officials know anything about because they have such a rudimentary and uninformed view of what Christianity is that they are the last to know what’s happening. For example, only the Chinese government thinks that Protestants and Catholics are separate religions.

They are two of the five it recognizes along with Buddhism, Islam and its homegrown religion, Daoism. No one else in the world thinks Protestants and Catholics are anything but parts of Christianity.

Whatever one is to make of the uninformed view that the Chinese authorities have, Protestant Christianity is growing far more quickly and extensively than Catholicism. Why?

Maybe the Chinese authorities have something to tell us. After Mao Zedong’s victory in 1949, China was established along lines that the Communists learned about from their then friends, the Soviet Union, and the real maker of 20th Century Communism, Vladimir Lenin, the founder and first father of the Soviet Union.

The Chinese Government manages religious groups through the Religious Affairs Bureau, a department of the Communist Party’s United Front organization for controlling the country’s disparate movements, groups and institutions such as Protestants and Catholics.

The Catholic Church in China, divided as it remains, is caught: its strength is its weakness. Everywhere in the world and with local variations in China, its universality (with an accepted pattern of worldwide relationships), its institutions (parishes, seminaries, welfare services, publishing houses), its statuses (clergy and religious) and its ceremonies (the sacraments) are visible and remain the continuous and coherent identifications that draw or repel membership and participation.

In a Communist country, they are an easy target for a Leninist administration intent on detailed control. And then, when some comply with government structures while other Catholics see those acting in such a way as cowardly and cooperating with the enemy, many form the view that rather than complicate their lives, they leave the established and regulated Church well alone.

The same applied to Protestant denominations and was institutionalized through the three self- movements (self–government, self–financing and self-propagation; or no foreign missioners). This approach run through the United Front’s Religious Affairs Bureau captured the attention and controlled the practices of Protestant Christians throughout the People’s Republic.

But the recent explosion in Protestant Christian numbers has happened outside this rubric. Most of the buildings, churches and Christian gathering points have been built on local initiative without government authorization. And most of the communities around the often triumphalist buildings that have been damaged or demolished in recent times in China began life as small communities of little more than a dozen people – gathering in friend’s homes outside the net of government supervision.

Protestant Christianity, in contrast to the institution-based approach to community building familiar to Catholics, has thrived on its nimble, light-footed and adaptable response to local opportunities. In China, it has grown out of small communities sharing prayer, Bible study and videos at home or in a work place. At times, Christian businessmen and manufacturers have workplace Christian groups that form and meet for prayer and Bible study on their business premises.

Meeting all over Eastern China in clusters of no more than 12, groups gather for what Catholics would call primary evangelization. Two-hour Bible study programs conducted over two to three months and often aided by a Chinese version of the Alpha Course provide a neat and compact way to introduce Christianity. The Alpha Course is a 12-part video series first created by an Anglican priest in London, Nicky Gumble, that has gone worldwide and has a Catholic version.

These groups are unencumbered and unregulated by the Religious Affairs Bureau. Multiply the dozen members of these groups by thousands of such small groups in homes and work places and you reach hundreds of thousands pretty quickly. But when you get to that scale, as China has in the last 20 years, it’s not long until you need a larger, dedicated building – a church. That’s where these emergent communities have run into the brick wall of the Religious Affairs Bureau and the fear that the entire Chinese political leadership has had of any group, especially a religious one, that it can’t control.

http://www.ucanews.com/news/why-protestants-are-more-popular-than-catholics-in-china/70850

Jamespampanga

This growth continue that data shows that Protestantism and Evangelicalism is silently growing rapidly as the years go by through the effort of missionaries and local churches establish around the world and even underground churches.

It it will continue to grow and rise in other continents... But again as we see this rise we should always be focus on teachings because doctrine is important especially if it is from the Bible. (As majority of Protestant beliefs on the Biblical teachings of the Bible such as Bible Authority, Justification by faith, Trinity and Universal Priesthood of the Believers).

TLG

Jamespampanga wrote: »

In 2010, the largest Protestant denominational families were historically Pentecostal denominations (10.8%), Anglican (10.6%), Lutheran (9.7%), Baptist (9%), United and uniting churches (unions of different denominations) (7.2%), Presbyterian or Reformed (7%), Methodist (3.4%), Adventist (2.7%), Congregationalist (0.5%), Brethren (0.5%), The Salvation Army (0.3%) and Moravian (0.1%). Other denominations accounted for 38.2% of Protestants.

Why so many denominations? James saan ka sa mga yan???

Jamespampanga

When in terms of major doctrines hindi magkakaiba iba yan they follow the same foundation from the Bible.

As a Baptist we do not tied ourselves to others sa mga minor doctrines... But we ourselves as believers of Jesus Christ continue to share the gospel and the truth of the Word of God especially sa mga kababayan nating pinoy.

RavlaM

Jamespampanga wrote: »

When in terms of major doctrines hindi magkakaiba iba yan they follow the same foundation from the Bible.

As a Baptist we do not tied ourselves to others sa mga minor doctrines... But we ourselves as believers of Jesus Christ continue to share the gospel and the truth of the Word of God especially sa mga kababayan nating pinoy.

Mahilig kang magbanggit ng Bible.. Paano mo nalaman na katotohanan ang nakasulat sa Biblia.

TLG

Jamespampanga wrote: »

When in terms of major doctrines hindi magkakaiba iba yan they follow the same foundation from the Bible.

Is infant baptism a major doctrine james? and what is your position on this?

Jamespampanga

The Infant Baptism is not one of our doctrine.

Kasi we baptize believers na nakakaunawa ng sa Salita ng Diyos at makakapagdecide na upang mamili ng kanilang faith after receiving Jesus Christ.

Pero yung isang musmos na walang kamuwang muwang sa Salita ng Diyos tapos babautismuhan mo eh mali yun eh paano gusto pala niya maging muslim or protestante?

We do this for Church membership and we do this through immersion kung paanong tinuro ng mga Apostol sa tamang pagbabautismo.

TLG

Jamespampanga wrote: »

The Infant Baptism is not one of our doctrine.

Is it a major doctrine or not? Kunyari kaming mga katoliko naniniwala dito... malaking issue ba ito or not?

Jamespampanga

If doctrine ang pag uusapan yes it matters especially sasabihin mo that infant baptism is connected to salvation?

The child has not on the full age para maunawaan ang mga bagay ukol sa pananampalataya na ang kaligtasan ay matatamo lamang kay Kristo Hesus.

TLG

Jamespampanga wrote: »

If doctrine ang pag uusapan yes it matters especially sasabihin mo that infant baptism is connected to salvation?

The child has not on the full age para maunawaan ang mga bagay ukol sa pananampalataya na ang kaligtasan ay matatamo lamang kay Kristo Hesus.

Hahahaha... boom! Panis! So aminado ka na major doctrine ang infant baptism...maturuan nga ulit kita at maipakita na talagang wala kang alam sa mga protestante na tulad mo

Sabi mo "When in terms of major doctrines hindi magkakaiba iba yan they follow the same foundation from the Bible."


Alam mo ba ang lutheran church na isa sa mga prostestant church na binangggit mo sa itaas ay naniniwala sa infant baptism?

Gusto mo proof? basa
http://www.orlutheran.com/html/trinfbap.html

Jamespampanga

We do not teach that and even evangelicals do not teach that infant baptism being one of the major doctrine of other religion in relation to salvation ay mas itinuturo ng simbahang katoliko.

Baptist are not Lutherans who are still in traditions and some teachings na hindi ayon sa Bibliya.

TLG

You are spitting non-sense and contradictions james

Jamespampanga wrote: »

In 2010, the largest Protestant denominational families were historically Pentecostal denominations (10.8%), Anglican (10.6%), Lutheran (9.7%), Baptist (9%), United and uniting churches (unions of different denominations) (7.2%), Presbyterian or Reformed (7%), Methodist (3.4%), Adventist (2.7%), Congregationalist (0.5%), Brethren (0.5%), The Salvation Army (0.3%) and Moravian (0.1%). Other denominations accounted for 38.2% of Protestants.

Jamespampanga wrote: »

When in terms of major doctrines hindi magkakaiba iba yan they follow the same foundation from the Bible.

Biglang kambyo

Jamespampanga wrote: »

Baptist are not Lutherans who are still in traditions and some teachings na hindi ayon sa Bibliya.

Jamespampanga

Lutherans affirms 5 Sola according to the teachings of the Bible.

Though Lutherans ay protestant denomination it still has different views pagdating sa mga doctrine nila na iba sa mga Evangelicals like Infant Baptism and Eucharist.

They are still tied to Catholic Beliefs and Tradition but consider themselves Protestant.

Jamespampanga

Denominations ang pinag uusapan natin dito TLG and denominations has different church views in major and minor doctrines but most of the Protestant especially evangelicals views on the foundation through the Bible teachings.

So you must understand first why and how? and what are differences na mas malaki naman ang pagkakaiba nito sa mga Catholic Teachings.

TLG

Kaya nga huwag basta-basta maniwala sa mga protestante..sila sila mismong iba iba ang paniniwala!

Jamespampanga

Bakit tingin mo ba naniniwala kami sa mga doktrina ng mga Katoliko? I thank God for the religious freedom that he gave at nakikita na ng mas nakararaming tao ang katotohanan as the years go by through the Word of God sa iba't ibang panahon at sa iba't ibang lugar.

As Evangelicals and Protestantism continues to grow and will soon overcome the Roman Catholic Church and Islam.

TLG

lahat ng protestante na humiwala sa simbahan gaya ng mga luthero, baptist, INC at iba eh naniniwala na lahat sila totoo james kahit magkakaiba ang paniniwala nila sa mga major doctrines!

Jamespampanga

We do not claim that most of the protestant denomination are true one nasa katuruan pa rin yan in Major Doctrine.

The clear picture is ay humiwalay sila dahil sa nakikita nilang malaking katuruan ng Roman Catholic Church at pagkakaroon ng mas kalayaan para pumili ng Pananampalataya at opportunity na mabasa ang Bibliya.

Na noong Dark Ages at Spanish Time here in the Philippines puro repression ng pari ng hindi naniniwala sa kanila maging ang gobyernong pinapalakad nila.