Statistics behind converting - need info

[Sloga]

Me and my friend today were debating about which religion gets the most converts annually. Of course, I said Islam and he said Catholicsm (  ).  Anyways, now im iinterested in who's right and also where Orthodoxy falls in this. Does anyone have info,links or books that mention this?

Sloga

[pensateomnia]

For such things, the easiest to access and most comprehensive site on the Web is http://www.adherents.com/

[pensateomnia]

For a very general summary of probably the most comprehensive print resource, check this out: http://www.adherents.com/misc/WCE.html

It's about Barrett's World Christian Encyclopedia, published by Oxford University Press. Here's the meat of the matter:

Barrett's encyclopedia shows immense global shifts between 1900 and 2000 in various faiths' shares of the global population. Though Christianity became the first truly universal religion in terms of geography and remained the biggest, it lost a bit of market share. Second-ranking Islam expanded considerably and Hinduism somewhat, while Buddhism declined. Chinese and other folk faiths dropped precipitously, as did Judaism.

The non-religious or atheistic category, negligible in 1900, claimed nearly a fifth of the world's people at one point but has declined since European Communism's fall.

[Αριστοκλής]

Just remember that most of these figures, at least those I've seen, do not count 'lost' numbers - only converts.

[falafel333]

I think this is what you could be looking for...The stats are dated 2001, World Christian Trends, William Carey Library, David Barrett and Todd Johnson:

*Note percentages are of world population

My interpretation of the data below for the decade of 1990-2000 indicates that if total increase rates of the religion are taken into consideration then Islam would be growing faster than Christianity with a rate of 2.13 annual change for Islam and 1.36 annual change for Christianity. However, a close study of the data would indicate that Islam has a large number of adherents which are added to the faith by natural birth. Therefore, if one were to look solely at the conversion rate Chrsitianity would be the fastest growing religion, more than tripling Islam in its annual conversion rate.

Besides the Independents, Pentecostals/Charismatics seem to be the fastest growing Christian sect for that period. Catholicism suffered big losses.

Animists and Shamanists suffered the biggest losses.

Hindus also suffered big losses as well as Atheists, Nonreligious, Jews and various Asian religions.

1900
Christians: 558,131,572 = 34.5% (Orthodox: 115,844,210 = 7.2%)
Muslims: 199,940,924 = 12.3%

1970
Christians: 1,236,373,744 = 33.5% (Orthodox: 139,661,574 = 3.8%)
Muslims: 553,527,803 = 15.0%

mid-1990
Christians: 1,747,461,964 = 33.2% (Orthodox: 203,765,600 = 3.9%)
Muslims: 962,357,235 = 18.3%

Annual change, 1990—2000
Christians: Natural=22,708,799 Conversion=2,501,396 Total=25,210,195 Rate=1.36
(Orthodox: Natural=750,901 Conversion=385,410 Total=1,136,311 Rate=0.54)
Muslims: Natural=21,723,118 Conversion=865,558 Total=22,588,676 Rate=2.13

mid-1995
Christians: 1,877,425,923 = 33.1% (Orthodox: 209,624,412 = 3.7%)
Muslims: 1,070,198,775 = 18.9%

mid-2000
Christians: 1,999,563,838 = 33.0% (Orthodox: 215,128,717 = 3.6%)
Muslims: 1,188,242,789 = 19.6%

mid-2025
Christians: 2,616,670,052 = 33.4% (Orthodox: 252,715,940 = 3.2%)
Muslims: 1,784,875,653 = 22.8%

mid-2050
Christians: 3,051,564,342 = 34.3% (Orthodox: 266,806,050 = 3.0%)
Muslims: 2,229,281,610 = 25.0%

[Sloga]

Thank you brother, this is excactly what I was looking for. There may be more Christian converts, but as you can see, the rate of conversion to Islam is growing steadily...and less and less are converting to Orthodoxy. Thank you once again.

[falafel333]

More stats from the Encyclopedia Britannica:

mid-2004
Christians: 2,106,962,000 = 33.0% (Orthodox: 218,427,000 = 3.4%)
Muslims: 1,283,424,000 = 20.1%

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