Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that answer the question.
Query: How many Christians are in the world?
According to Christian Today, there were 2.4 billion Christians around the world in 2015. And according to a 2012 Pew Research Center survey, if current trends continue, Christianity will remain the world's largest religion by year 2050. By 2050, the Christian population is expected to exceed 3 billion. Many charismatic movements are growing in Africa, Latin America, Muslim world, and Asia.Other religions:
Christianity is one of the recognized religions in Israel and is practiced, as of December 2016, by more than 169,000 Israeli citizens (about 2.0% of the population). They include 133,000 Arab Christians who are mostly adherents of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church (about 60% of Israeli Christians) or the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, as well as Latin Rite Catholics, with small numbers of Maronites, Arameans, Copts, and Protestants, about 25,000 Orthodox Christians from the former Soviet Union (Russian Orthodox) and smaller minorities of Assyrians and Armenians. A certain number of Israelis also practice Messianic Judaism—usually considered a syncretist form of Christianity, with estimates of several thousands, but exact numbers of such are not available.
Comprising over 700 denominations and a large number of independent churches, there is no central authority governing Pentecostalism; however, many denominations are affiliated with the Pentecostal World Fellowship. There are over 279 million Pentecostals worldwide, and the movement is growing in many parts of the world, especially the global South. Since the 1960s, Pentecostalism has increasingly gained acceptance from other Christian traditions, and Pentecostal beliefs concerning Spirit baptism and spiritual gifts have been embraced by non-Pentecostal Christians in Protestant and Catholic churches through the Charismatic Movement. Together, Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity numbers over 500 million adherents. While the movement originally attracted mostly lower classes in the global South, there is an increasing appeal to middle classes. Middle class congregations tend to be more adapted to society and withdraw strong spiritual practices such as divine healing.
In the , Catholics constituted 22.6% of the population, the Anglicans 13.3%, and the Uniting Church had 3.7%. Post-war immigration has grown the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia and there are large and growing Pentecostal groups, such as Sydney's Hillsong Church. According to the , Queensland (56.03%) and New South Wales (55.18%) had Christian majorities, while the lowest proportion of Christians were found in the Northern Territory (47.69%) and the Australian Capital Territory (45.38%).
According to the 2009 Census data, there are very few Christians outside the Slavic and Germanic ethnic groups:
The next largest minority population is the Christian population (2%), many of whom live with Jewish communities. Rather than have their own education and medical institutions they have integrated into state institutions. The Christian population in Israel is the only Christian population in the Middle East that has grown in the last half century. Christians choose to live in Israel because they have freedom of speech and the freedom to practice religion.
The number of members of the Eastern Orthodox Church in each country has been subject to a lot of debate. Each study performed that seeks to discover the number of adherents in a country may use different criteria, and be submitted to different populations. As such, some numbers may be inflated, and therefore inaccurate. Examples of this are Greece and Russia, where estimates of adherence to Eastern Orthodoxy may reach 80-98%, but where surveys found lower percentages professing Eastern Orthodoxy or belief in God. The likely reason for this disparity is that many people in these majority Eastern Orthodox countries will culturally identify with the Eastern Orthodox Church, especially if they were baptized as children, even if they are not currently practicing. This includes those who may be irreligious, yet culturally identify with the Eastern Orthodox Church, or for whom Eastern Orthodox Christianity is listed on official state records. Other cases of incongruent data also might be due to counting ethnic groups from Eastern Orthodox countries rather than actual adherents. A case of this is the United States, which has large numbers of immigrants from Eastern Orthodox countries. The Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions often reported large numbers of members, which together would total 2-3 million across the country. However, a 2010 study by Alexei Krindatch sought data from each parish, with the specific criteria of annual participation. This study produced the "Atlas of American Orthodox Christian Churches", and discovered that there were only about 817,000 Eastern Orthodox Christians actively practicing their faith (that is to say, attending church services on a regular basis) in the United States. The study explained that such a difference was due to a variety of circumstances, for example the higher numbers having counted all people who self-identify as Eastern Orthodox on a census regardless of active participation, or all people belonging to ethnic groups originating in Eastern Orthodox countries. This study, while initially controversial, proved groundbreaking, and has since been officially approved for use by the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America.
However, a minority interpret biblical passages differently and argue that homosexuality can be seen as morally acceptable. This approach has been taken by a number of denominations in North America, notably the United Church of Canada (2.8 million members), the United Church of Christ (1.1 million members), the Moravian Church (825,000 members), the Anglican Episcopal church, the Anglican Church of Canada (800,000 members), the Liberal Catholic Church, Friends General Conference, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (1.9 million members), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (3.9 million members) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. Relatively many denominations had taken this approach in Europe including united, reformed and Lutheran churches: the Evangelical Church in Germany (24.5 million members), Church of Sweden (6.6 million members), Church of Norway, Church of Denmark, Protestant Church of the Netherlands (3.9 million members), Church of Iceland, United Protestant Church in Belgium, United Protestant Church of France, Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches, Methodist Church of Great Britain (330,000 members) and Church of Scotland.
The CIA Factbook lists Honduras as 97% Catholic and 3% Protestant. Commenting on statistical variations everywhere, John Green of Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life notes that: "It isn't that ... numbers are more right than [someone else's] numbers ... but how one conceptualizes the group." Often people attend one church without giving up their "home" church. Many who attend evangelical megachurches in the US, for example, attend more than one church. This shifting and fluidity is common in Brazil where two-fifths of those who were raised evangelical are no longer evangelical and Catholics seem to shift in and out of various churches, often while still remaining Catholic.
The Christian population in Israel has increased significantly with the immigration of many mixed families from the former Soviet Union (1989-late 1990s) and by the influx of some 10,000 Christian Maronites from Lebanon in 2000. Recently a further increase in Christianity came with arrival of many foreign workers and asylum seekers, some of Christian background (for instance from the Philippines and South Sudan). As a result, numerous churches have opened in Tel Aviv.
Evangelical Friends regard Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour, and have similar religious beliefs to other evangelical Christians. They believe in, and hold a high regard for, the penal substitution of the atonement of Christ on the Cross at Calvary, biblical infallibility, and the need for every person to personally experience a relationship with God. They believe that the purpose of the Evangelical Friends Church is to evangelise the unsaved people of the world, to spiritually transform them through God's love and through social service to others. Evangelical Friends regard the Bible as the infallible and self-authenticating Word of God. The statement of faith of Evangelical Friends International is comparable to the statement of faith of other Evangelical churches. Evangelical Friends who are members of Evangelical Friends International are mainly located in the U.S., Central America, and Asia. Beginning in the 1880s, some Friends began using outward sacraments in their Sunday services, first in Evangelical Friends Church–Eastern Region (then known as Ohio Yearly Meeting [Damascus]). Friends Church–Southwest Region has also approved the practice of using the outward sacraments in their Sunday services. In places where Evangelical Friends are engaged in missionary work, such as in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, adult baptism by immersion in water is carried out. This practice differs from most other Quaker branches of the Religious Society of Friends. , EFCI claims to represent more than 140,000 Friends, roughly 39% of the total number of Friends worldwide.
According to a 2016 survey of religion in Ukraine held by the Razumkov Center, approximately 73.5% of the population of central Ukraine declared to be believers, while 4.8% declared to be non-believers, and 2.6% declared to be atheist. Of the total population, 86.5% were Christians (76.7% Eastern Orthodox, 6.5% simply Christians, 1.9% Latin Rite Catholics, 1.0% members of various Protestant churches, and 0.4% members of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church), 0.3% were Jewish, and 0.1% were Muslims. Not religious and other believers not identifying with any of the listed major religious institutions constituted about 12.8% of the population.
From the survey about 8.8% of the Australian population attended a church in one of the covered denominations in a given week in 2001.
The Catholic Church represents the highest number of church attenders, with over 50 percent. Whilst church attendance is generally decreasing the Catholic Church attendance in Australia is declining at a rate of 13 percent. Pentecostal denominations such as Australian Christian Churches (formerly Assemblies of God) and Christian City Churches continue to grow rapidly, growing by over 20 per cent between 1991 and 1996. Some Protestant denominations such as the Baptist Union of Australia and the Churches of Christ in Australia grew at a smaller rate, less than 10 per cent, between 1991 and 1996. McCrindle Research has found that Pentecostals grew to a larger denomination (12%) than Anglicans (11%) in 2014. Roy Morgan Research has found in a survey of 4840 Australians between October and December 2013 that 52.6% of Australians were Christian, while 37.6% had no religion.
Christianity is the predominant religion in Austria. At the 2001 census, 73.6% of the country's population was Catholic. , the number of Catholics has dropped to 56.9% of the population, according to data provided by the Austrian Catholic Church itself. There is a much smaller group of Evangelicals, totalling about 4.7% of the population in 2001, shrunk to 3.3% in 2018. Since 2001, these two historically dominant religious groups in Austria recorded losses in the number of adherents. The Catholic Church reported an absolute drop of 15.7%, the Evangelical Lutheran and Evangelical Reformed churches of 1.3%. In relative numbers the losses of the smaller Evangelical churches account for 33.7%, compared to Catholic losses which account for 21.9%, since their maximum in 1971.
Christian Arabs comprise about 9% of the Arab population in Israel. Approximately 70% reside in the north, in Jish, Eilabun, Kafr Yasif, Kafr Kanna, I'billin, Shefa-'Amr. Some Druze villages, such as Hurfeish and Maghar, have small Christian Arab populations. Nazareth has the largest Christian Arab population. The near entirety of Haifa's Arab minority is Christian as well. There are 117,000 or more Christian Arabs in Israel (and more than 35,000 non-Arab Christians). As of 2014 the Melkite Greek Catholic Church was the largest Christian community in Israel, where about 60% of Israeli Christians belonged to the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, while around 30% of Israeli Christians belonged to the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem.
Christianity is the largest religion in the Republic of Ireland based on baptisms. Irish Christianity is dominated by the Catholic Church, and Christianity as a whole accounts for 82.3% of the Irish population. Most churches are organized on an all-Ireland basis which includes both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Irish travellers have traditionally adopted a very particular attitude to the Catholic Church, with a focus on figures such as "healing priests". More generally a tradition of visions continues, often outside of Church sanction.
Currently, North Africa is primarily Muslim: Islam is the state religion of Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. While the practice and expression of other faiths is guaranteed by law, the same legal framework tends to restrict minority religions from actively seeking conversion to their religion, or even building or repairing churches. Converts to Christianity may be investigated and searched by the authorities as well as punished. There is some evidence that there has been an increase in conversions to Christianity among North African Muslims in recent years, even though in many cases the government will not change the religion from Islam on any citizens' identity cards. Despite this, the total number of Christians remains very low relative to the populations of these countries. In 2009, the percentage of Christians in Algeria was less than 2%. In this same survey, the UNO counted 100,000 Roman Catholics and 45,000 Protestants in the country. Although Christians are a religious minority in Algeria, churches built during French rule can still be found.
The concept of hegemony describes the ways in which a dominant group, in this case mainly U.S. Protestant Christians, disseminate their "dominant" social constructions as common sense, normative, or even universal, even though most of the world's inhabitants are not Christian. Christian hegemony also accepts Christianity as part of the natural order, even at times by those who are marginalized, disempowered, or rendered invisible by it. Thus, Christian hegemony helps to maintain the marginality of other religions and beliefs. According to Beaman, "the binary opposition of sameness/difference is reflected in Protestant/minority religion in which mainstream Protestantism is representative of the 'normal'".
As of 2018, according to a survey held by the Razumkov Center, 71.7% of the total respondents declared to be believers, while 11.5% were uncertain whether they believed or not, 5.3% were uninterested in beliefs, 4.7% were unbelievers, 3.0% were atheists, and a further 3.7% found it difficult to answer the question. A 2018 survey conducted by the Razumkov Centre found that 71.7% of the population declared themselves believers. About 67.3% of the population declared adherence to one or another strand of Orthodox Christianity (28.7% of the Kiev Patriarchate, 23.4% just Orthodox, 12.8% of the Moscow Patriarchate, 0.3% Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, and 1.9% other types of Orthodoxy), 7.7% just Christians, 9.4% Greek Rite Catholics, 2.2% Protestants and 0.8% Latin Rite Catholics. Judaism was the religion of the 0.4%; while Buddhism, Paganism and Hinduism were each the religions of 0.1% of the population. A further 11.0% declared themselves non-religious or unaffiliated.
Islam and Christianity are the most widely practiced religions among the people of Pristina. In the 2011 census, 97.3% of the population of the city was counted as Muslim and 0.8% as Christian including 0.59% as Roman Catholic and 0.24% as Eastern Orthodox. The remaining 1.9% of the population reported having no religion, or another religion, or did not provided an adequate answer.
Pristina has centres of worship for a multitude of faiths for its population. The Cathedral of Pristina is perhaps the largest cathedral in Kosovo and is named in honour of the Albanian Roman Catholic nun and missionary, Mother Teresa. Some of the mosques of Pristina, among others the Imperial Mosque and Çarshi Mosque, are centuries old and were built during the Middle Ages by the Ottomans.
Both Christianity and Judaism believe in some form of judgment. Most Christians (the exception is Full Preterism) believe in the future Second Coming of Jesus, which includes the Resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgment. Those who have accepted Jesus as their personal saviour will be saved and live in God's presence in the Kingdom of Heaven, those who have not accepted Jesus as their saviour, will be cast into the Lake of Fire (eternal torment, finite torment, or simply annihilated), see for example The Sheep and the Goats.
ㅌ is one of the Korean hangul. The Unicode for ㅌ is U+314C.
ㅅ is one of the Korean hangul. The Unicode for ㅅ is U+3137.
In 2009, according to the U.S. Census Bureau there were more than 48 million Hispanics in the U.S. Another report foresees the Hispanic or Latino population rising from 16% today to 30% by 2050. There is no doubt ministry to Hispanic populations should be one of the greater priorities of any church in the U.S. if that church wants to become a vital part of society in the future. Yet churches are often unsure of how to deal with immigration and the problems of immigrant communities. For instance, almost a quarter of the Hispanic/Latino population which are illegal aliens and if churches truly want to serve and welcome “the strangers among their midst,” this is one issue which must be faced. Among U.S. Christians, there is much quandary as to how to do this. For instance, Evangelical Christians were asked, by Christianity Today, how illegal aliens should be dealt with. A whopping 82% know that the Bible verses on “welcoming the stranger” (Matthew 25:31-46) has much to do with how we should deal with immigrants. However, within that same group, were varying opinions regarding how to deal with illegal immigration. Fifty four (54%) percent said the government should adopt policies giving illegal immigrants a better “path to citizenship” while 31% say there should be blanket amnesty while 15% say the current laws have to be enforced. The issue of illegal immigrants and how U.S. Christians think of the issue reflects the general uncertainty around the more general issue of changing demographics and the role churches will play in the lives of these people.
Many millions of Middle Eastern Christians currently live in the diaspora, elsewhere in the world. These include such countries as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, the United States and Venezuela among them. There are also many Middle Eastern Christians in Europe, especially in the United Kingdom, France (due to its historical connections with Lebanon, Egypt, Syria), and to a lesser extent, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Russia, and the Netherlands.