Always ready to give a defense for the hope that is in you.

Counting the Church

Bonus section · Appendix

Counts of professing Christians from AD 70 to 2025, each set beside the number of people alive at the time wherever the sources allow, with its source, how it was made and, where one was published, its range.

Population series from the United Nations, the US Census Bureau, Gapminder, HYDE and Maddison; counts of Christians from the World Christian Database at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, the Pew Research Center and the RCS-Dem dataset; and the historians and social scientists behind the early and medieval estimates, from Harnack and Stark to Ehrman and Jenkins.

How each number was made: every plotted number carries one of these marks.

Counted

Counted in a census, a survey or a church database.

Model

The output of a growth model, not a record of anyone.

Reconstruction

A scholar's estimate built from indirect evidence.

Interpolated

A straight line drawn between two published figures.

Derived

Worked out here from sourced numbers, such as a count divided by a population.

Reported

Read only in a secondary source that quotes the original.

What a count can say

Every Christian figure on this page tries to measure people who professed Christ or were listed as belonging to a church. The newest come from church records and from censuses and surveys in which people name their own religion; the oldest are scholars' estimates. None of them counts new birth. Paul wrote of “a remnant according to the election of grace” (Romans 11:5), and no census can find where that line runs.

Luke kept count all the same. About three thousand souls were added on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:41), and soon the number of the men who believed was about five thousand (Acts 4:4). He names who did the adding: “the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved” (Acts 2:47). A count records who was baptized and who names Christ; God alone knows which of them He has made alive.

A count also needs a second number beside it: how many people were alive at the time (the denominator). Without it, growth in the number of Christians and growth in the human race look alike. The sociologist Rodney Stark's model, drawn on the Roman slide in Class 1, has about 6.3 million Christians in AD 300, 10.5 percent of a Roman Empire he takes as 60 million people. The whole world then held about 228 million on HYDE, a reconstruction of world population from archaeology and old records, so the same 6.3 million is about 2.8 percent of the world. The Class 1 slide draws both shares for each year, with the empire's size in its legend and the world's population under each date.

AD 70 to 2025, against the world

Stark's model has about 2,700 Christians in AD 70, in a world of about 236 million. The World Christian Database, kept by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, projects about 2.6 billion for mid 2025, in a world the United Nations projects at about 8.2 billion. On an ordinary scale the first thousand years of the Christian count would lie flat along the bottom, so figure 1 draws both lines on a scale where each step up is ten times the one below it (a logarithmic scale).

Figure 2 divides the one line by the other. Christians were at least 12 percent of the world by 400, if Bart Ehrman's figure of 30 million for the Roman Empire alone is near the truth. From 500 to 1500, on the one reconstruction that covers those centuries, the share stayed between about 13 and 18 percent. It passed a fifth by 1700, reached about 34 percent by 1900, and has stayed within a point of 32 percent from 1970 to 2025.

The count grew from about 558 million Christians in 1900 to about 2.6 billion in 2025, more than four and a half times. The world grew about five times in the same years, from about 1.6 billion people to about 8.2 billion, so the share in 2025 sits a little below the share in 1900.

Figure 1. Professing Christians and the world, AD 70 to 2025

World population and the number of professing Christians, drawn on a scale where each step up is ten times the one below it (a logarithmic scale). The Christian band runs from the lowest to the highest figure, published or computed here, where more than one exists. The world band spans the series in the US Census Bureau's table of historical estimates through 1950 and the earlier UN revisions after it, widened to take in the plotted line where that falls outside them.

What to notice: The gap between the two lines is the share. It closes fast before 400 and holds nearly steady from 500 to 1500; between 1800 and 1900 it narrows again.

Divided by: Nothing: a count.

Caveats:

• Through 400 the Christian line covers the Roman Empire alone, from growth models and one reported anchor, not from any count. Barrett and Johnson's worldwide totals for those centuries are listed beside it and left out of the band.
• The models begin below Luke's figures for Jerusalem (Acts 2:41; 4:4).
• From 500 to 1700 the Christian line rests on one reconstruction, transcribed from the lowest figures available. The one other total, Jenkins's for about 1000, adds to 47 to 55 million, and his figures for Asia and Africa also come from Barrett.
• World population before 1800 is itself a reconstruction, and the Census Bureau's table spans 170 to 400 million at AD 1.
• RCS-Dem's own world totals for 1900 and 1910 fall below the world band. Figures 5 and 7 divide by its 1900 continent totals, which add to 1,548 million.
• No year between 1800 and 1900 has a Christian figure, so the line between them is straight.
• The 2025 figures are forecasts from trend, not counts.

World population

Year	Value	Low	High	Status	Source
AD 70	235,617,184			Interpolated	HYDE 3.3 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2023), via Our World in Data, "Population"
AD 100	237,052,192			Reconstruction	HYDE 3.3 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2023), via Our World in Data, "Population"
AD 150	238,907,176			Interpolated	HYDE 3.3 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2023), via Our World in Data, "Population"
AD 200	240,762,160	190,000,000	256,000,000	Reconstruction	HYDE 3.3 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2023), via Our World in Data, "Population"
AD 250	234,232,504			Interpolated	HYDE 3.3 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2023), via Our World in Data, "Population"
AD 300	227,702,848			Reconstruction	HYDE 3.3 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2023), via Our World in Data, "Population"
AD 350	234,699,928			Interpolated	HYDE 3.3 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2023), via Our World in Data, "Population"
AD 400	241,697,008	190,000,000	241,697,008	Reconstruction	HYDE 3.3 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2023), via Our World in Data, "Population"
AD 500	253,395,808	190,000,000	253,395,808	Reconstruction	HYDE 3.3 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2023), via Our World in Data, "Population"
AD 600	271,638,944	200,000,000	271,638,944	Reconstruction	HYDE 3.3 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2023), via Our World in Data, "Population"
AD 700	278,346,080	207,000,000	278,346,080	Reconstruction	HYDE 3.3 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2023), via Our World in Data, "Population"
AD 800	285,870,176	220,000,000	285,870,176	Reconstruction	HYDE 3.3 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2023), via Our World in Data, "Population"
AD 900	311,142,688	226,000,000	311,142,688	Reconstruction	HYDE 3.3 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2023), via Our World in Data, "Population"
1000	323,462,624	254,000,000	345,000,000	Reconstruction	HYDE 3.3 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2023), via Our World in Data, "Population"
1100	397,889,888	301,000,000	397,889,888	Reconstruction	HYDE 3.3 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2023), via Our World in Data, "Population"
1200	444,653,984	360,000,000	450,000,000	Reconstruction	HYDE 3.3 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2023), via Our World in Data, "Population"
1300	456,248,096	360,000,000	456,248,096	Reconstruction	HYDE 3.3 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2023), via Our World in Data, "Population"
1400	442,309,216	350,000,000	442,309,216	Reconstruction	HYDE 3.3 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2023), via Our World in Data, "Population"
1500	503,051,104	425,000,000	540,000,000	Reconstruction	HYDE 3.3 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2023), via Our World in Data, "Population"
1600	516,147,616	516,147,616	579,000,000	Reconstruction	HYDE 3.3 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2023), via Our World in Data, "Population"
1700	595,456,896	595,456,896	679,000,000	Reconstruction	HYDE 3.3 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2023), via Our World in Data, "Population"
1800	983,104,755	813,000,000	1,125,000,000	Reconstruction	Gapminder Population v7 (2022), via Our World in Data, "Population"
1850	1,275,602,897	1,128,000,000	1,402,000,000	Reconstruction	Gapminder Population v7 (2022), via Our World in Data, "Population"
1900	1,627,273,655	1,550,000,000	1,762,000,000	Reconstruction	Gapminder Population v7 (2022), via Our World in Data, "Population"
1910	1,767,417,985	1,750,000,000	1,767,417,985	Reconstruction	Gapminder Population v7 (2022), via Our World in Data, "Population"
1950	2,493,092,852	2,400,000,000	2,558,000,000	Counted	United Nations, World Population Prospects 2024, via Our World in Data
1970	3,694,683,794	3,694,683,794	3,695,390,000	Counted	United Nations, World Population Prospects 2024, via Our World in Data
2000	6,171,702,992	6,148,899,000	6,171,702,992	Counted	United Nations, World Population Prospects 2024, via Our World in Data
2010	7,021,732,143	6,895,890,000	7,021,732,143	Counted	United Nations, World Population Prospects 2024, via Our World in Data
2020	7,887,001,289	7,840,953,000	7,887,001,289	Counted	United Nations, World Population Prospects 2024, via Our World in Data
2025	8,231,613,067	8,191,988,000	8,231,613,067	Model	United Nations, World Population Prospects 2024, via Our World in Data

Professing Christians

Year	Value	Low	High	Status	Source
AD 70	2,744	2,048	2,744	Model	Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton, 1996), ch. 1, Table 1.1
AD 100	7,530	7,400	9,173	Model	Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton, 1996), ch. 1, Table 1.1
AD 150	40,496	36,242	60,822	Model	Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton, 1996), ch. 1, Table 1.1
AD 200	217,795	156,581	279,030	Model	Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton, 1996), ch. 1, Table 1.1
AD 250	1,171,356	676,491	1,200,000	Model	Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton, 1996), ch. 1, Table 1.1
AD 300	6,299,832	2,000,000	15,000,000	Model	Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton, 1996), ch. 1, Table 1.1
AD 400	30,000,000	26,100,000	30,000,000	Reported	Bart D. Ehrman, The Triumph of Christianity (2018), pp. 141-155 and 248-254
AD 500	37,800,000			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
AD 600	40,400,000			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
AD 700	40,570,000			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
AD 800	40,870,000			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
AD 900	40,830,000			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
1000	44,670,000			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
1100	51,960,000			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
1200	65,710,000			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
1300	83,910,000			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
1400	56,730,000			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
1500	75,890,000			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
1600	100,440,000			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
1700	130,110,000			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
1800	204,980,000			Reconstruction	Johnson, Barrett and Crossing, "Christianity 2013: Renewalists and Faith and Migration", International Bulletin of Missionary Research 37:1 (2013), table "Status of Global Mission, 2013, in the Context of AD 1800-2025"
1900	558,346,000	537,267,157	558,346,000	Reconstruction	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
1910	611,810,000	611,810,000	620,665,000	Reconstruction	Pew Research Center, Global Christianity (December 2011)
1970	1,216,131,000	1,132,280,655	1,230,548,000	Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
2000	1,987,905,000	1,808,915,596	1,993,436,000	Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
2010	2,262,586,000	2,061,122,600	2,262,586,000	Counted	Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Christianity in its Global Context, 1970-2020 (Gordon-Conwell, June 2013)
2020	2,519,505,000	2,268,860,000	2,526,029,000	Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
2025	2,645,317,000			Model	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)

Figure 2. Professing Christians as a share of the world, AD 70 to 2025

Each year's Christian figure divided by the world's population in the same year. The band runs from the lowest to the highest Christian figure, published or computed here, each divided by the same world total.

What to notice: The share sits between about 13 and 18 percent from 500 to 1500, reaches about a third by 1900, and stays within a point of 32 percent from 1970 on. The count is higher in 2025 than at any earlier date, though it fell by about a third in the fourteenth century.

Divided by: The world's population in the same year.

Caveats:

• Before 1800 the world line is HYDE, the highest published world series from 400 to 900 and at 1100, 1300 and 1400, and the Christian totals from 500 to 1700 were transcribed as the lowest available, so medieval shares sit at the low end of what the sources allow. On McEvedy and Jones's world figures the share at 1300 would be about 23 percent, not 18.
• The band shows the spread of the Christian figures only; each is divided by the same world total.
• Through 400 the plotted Christian figure covers only the Roman Empire, so its share of the world is a floor.
• From 500 to 1700 there is no stronger band, because one reconstruction covers those centuries and the one other total, Jenkins's for about 1000, rests on Barrett for Asia and Africa. The fainter band there comes from the range in the world's population alone.
• Gordon-Conwell prints 34.5 percent for 1900 on its own world total; divided by the plotted world line the same count is 34.3 percent.

Professing Christians as a percentage of the world

Year	Percent	Low	High	Status	Source
AD 70	0.0012	0.00087	0.0012	Model	Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton, 1996), ch. 1, Table 1.1
AD 100	0.0032	0.0031	0.0039	Model	Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton, 1996), ch. 1, Table 1.1
AD 150	0.017	0.015	0.025	Model	Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton, 1996), ch. 1, Table 1.1
AD 200	0.09	0.065	0.12	Model	Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton, 1996), ch. 1, Table 1.1
AD 250	0.5	0.29	0.51	Model	Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton, 1996), ch. 1, Table 1.1
AD 300	2.8	0.88	6.6	Model	Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton, 1996), ch. 1, Table 1.1
AD 400	12.4	10.8	12.4	Reported	Bart D. Ehrman, The Triumph of Christianity (2018), pp. 141-155 and 248-254
AD 500	14.9			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
AD 600	14.9			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
AD 700	14.6			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
AD 800	14.3			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
AD 900	13.1			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
1000	13.8			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
1100	13.1			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
1200	14.8			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
1300	18.4			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
1400	12.8			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
1500	15.1			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
1600	19.5			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
1700	21.9			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
1800	20.9			Reconstruction	Johnson, Barrett and Crossing, "Christianity 2013: Renewalists and Faith and Migration", International Bulletin of Missionary Research 37:1 (2013), table "Status of Global Mission, 2013, in the Context of AD 1800-2025"
1900	34.3	33.0	34.3	Reconstruction	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
1910	34.6	34.6	35.1	Reconstruction	Pew Research Center, Global Christianity (December 2011)
1970	32.9	30.6	33.3	Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
2000	32.2	29.3	32.3	Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
2010	32.2	29.4	32.2	Counted	Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Christianity in its Global Context, 1970-2020 (Gordon-Conwell, June 2013)
2020	31.9	28.8	32.0	Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
2025	32.1			Model	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)

The first four centuries, where no total was counted

No count of the empire's Christians survives. The nearest thing is a letter of 251 from Cornelius, bishop of Rome, listing 155 clergy and more than 1,500 widows and poor people the church fed (Eusebius, Church History 6.43), and the church historian Adolf Harnack built his estimate of at least 30,000 Christians in the city on it. Every figure for the whole empire is a model, where a scholar picks a starting number and a growth rate and lets the rate do the rest, or a reasoned guess.

For AD 300 the published figures run from Ehrman's 2 to 3 million up to the 7.5 to 15 million the church historian Ludwig von Hertling gave in 1934, and figure 3 sets every other estimate between them. The historian Keith Hopkins's figures are Stark's curve rounded, so those two names are one model, and Hopkins called them “guesstimates, not facts.”

The largest gap in percentage points falls at 350. Stark's model reaches about 33.9 million, 56.5 percent of the empire, the bar the Class 1 slide stripes because it falls after 315, the last year Stark checked his model against a record. Stark calls his projections very plausible through 350 and judges his model invalid after it, since growth must have declined rapidly at some point during the fourth century. For 350 he cites Harnack on Christian writers claiming a majority. The page he cites has the martyr Lucian, early in the fourth century, saying almost the greater part of the world was Christian, and Harnack reads it as short of half, though about half in several places. Jorge Lucero, a computer scientist at the University of Brasília, reports the growth rate per decade that Ehrman assigns to each period. Compounded here, those rates give about 9.3 million at 350, and Lucero's own curve, evaluated here, gives about 9.7 million: about 15 and 16 percent of the empire.

The figures for 400 agree because they share one anchor, Ehrman's 30 million, half the empire. Lucero calls it the accepted estimate and fitted his curve to it, and the curve gives 26.1 million. A map-maker's transcription of David Barrett and Todd Johnson, choosing the lowest figures he found, has 25.3 million Christians in the whole world by 400, about 42 percent of the empire even if all of them lived inside it.

Against the world all of these are small: even von Hertling's 15 million is under 7 percent of the people alive in 300. The empire's own size is a guess as well, 50 to 60 million in most estimates and 75 million at the peak the historian Kyle Harper puts in the middle of the second century, and every share of the empire moves with it.

Stark starts from 1,000 Christians in AD 40 and Ehrman from 20 in AD 30, both far below the three thousand Luke records added in one day at Jerusalem (Acts 2:41). Stark set aside two of Luke's later figures, the five thousand men (Acts 4:4) and the “many thousands” of Jews who believed (Acts 21:20), writing that they are not statistics: had there been that many converts, Jerusalem, which probably held no more than twenty thousand people, would have been the first Christian city. Luke, who drew on eyewitnesses (Luke 1:2), is the only ancient writer to give numbers for those years. Stark tested his curve against the papyrologist Roger Bagnall's count of Christian names in Egyptian papyri, a record from one province, and the two rose together at six dates between 239 and 315. The test ends before 350, and Stark called his numbers “estimates, not recorded fact.”

Harnack refused to put a percentage on the empire and sorted its provinces instead, judging from bishops' seats, church councils, accounts of martyrs and letters (figure 4). His first class, where Christians were nearly half the people and theirs was the most widespread religion, holds Asia Minor, Armenia, Cyprus, the city of Edessa (now Şanlıurfa) and the European shore of the Sea of Marmara near modern Istanbul. His last class includes middle and upper Gaul and the frontier provinces from Belgica to Raetia (from Belgium to the Alps), with not more than 10,000 Christians among them.

Figure 3. Christians in the Roman Empire, AD 100 to 400: the estimates side by side

Each estimate for AD 100, 200, 250, 300, 350 and 400, as a share of an empire of 60 million and as a share of the world. Where an author gives only a range, the range is drawn as a bar with no point inside it; where an author gives only limits, as Harnack and Gibbon do for 300, the limits are drawn as a floor or a cap.

What to notice: For 300 the estimates run from 2 million to 15 million, and none comes near half the empire. At 350 Stark's model gives 56.5 percent of the empire, while Ehrman's rates and Lucero's curve give about 15 and 16 percent; against the world even the highest figure for 300 stays under 7 percent.

Divided by: The Roman Empire's population, taken as 60 million, and the world's population in the same year.

Caveats:

• Stark and Hopkins are one model, because Hopkins rounds Stark's curve.
• Stark's rate gives about 182 million for 400, more than the empire held; he calls that total impossible and judges his model invalid after 350, so none is drawn.
• Ehrman's figures are read only as Lucero reports them. His rates at every year, and Lucero's curve at every year but 300 and 400, are computed here from what Lucero prints.
• The empire's size is 50 to 60 million in most estimates; Harper's 75 million is a peak in the middle of the second century. Every share of the empire moves with that choice.
• Barrett and Johnson count Christians everywhere, inside the empire and beyond it, so their line does not compare with the others.

Christians in the Roman Empire by estimate; the empire is taken as 60,000,000 people

Year	Estimate	Value	Low	High	Status	Source
AD 100	Stark (1996)	7,530			Model	Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton, 1996), ch. 1, Table 1.1
AD 100	Hopkins (1998)	7,400			Model	Keith Hopkins, "Christian Number and its Implications" (JECS 1998; Sociological Studies in Roman History, 2018, Table 12.1)
AD 100	Ehrman's rates, compounded	8,389			Derived	Bart D. Ehrman, The Triumph of Christianity (2018), pp. 141-155 and 248-254
AD 100	Lucero (2021)	9,173			Model	Jorge C. Lucero, "Subexponential growth of early Christianity" (arXiv 2111.08833, 2021)
AD 100	Barrett and Johnson (2001), worldwide	800,000			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
AD 200	Stark (1996)	217,795			Model	Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton, 1996), ch. 1, Table 1.1
AD 200	Hopkins (1998)	210,000			Model	Keith Hopkins, "Christian Number and its Implications" (JECS 1998; Sociological Studies in Roman History, 2018, Table 12.1)
AD 200	Ehrman's rates, compounded	156,581			Derived	Bart D. Ehrman, The Triumph of Christianity (2018), pp. 141-155 and 248-254
AD 200	Lucero (2021)	279,030			Model	Jorge C. Lucero, "Subexponential growth of early Christianity" (arXiv 2111.08833, 2021)
AD 200	Barrett and Johnson (2001), worldwide	4,660,000			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
AD 250	Stark (1996)	1,171,356			Model	Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton, 1996), ch. 1, Table 1.1
AD 250	Hopkins (1998)	1,100,000			Model	Keith Hopkins, "Christian Number and its Implications" (JECS 1998; Sociological Studies in Roman History, 2018, Table 12.1)
AD 250	Ehrman's rates, compounded	676,491			Derived	Bart D. Ehrman, The Triumph of Christianity (2018), pp. 141-155 and 248-254
AD 250	Lucero (2021)	1,035,590			Model	Jorge C. Lucero, "Subexponential growth of early Christianity" (arXiv 2111.08833, 2021)
AD 250	Lane Fox (1987)	1,200,000			Derived	Robin Lane Fox (1987), p. 317, as quoted by Stark (1996)
AD 300	Stark (1996)	6,299,832			Model	Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton, 1996), ch. 1, Table 1.1
AD 300	Hopkins (1998)	6,000,000			Model	Keith Hopkins, "Christian Number and its Implications" (JECS 1998; Sociological Studies in Roman History, 2018, Table 12.1)
AD 300	Ehrman (2018), stated figures		2,000,000	3,000,000	Reported	Bart D. Ehrman, The Triumph of Christianity (2018), pp. 141-155 and 248-254
AD 300	Ehrman's rates, compounded	2,922,711			Derived	Bart D. Ehrman, The Triumph of Christianity (2018), pp. 141-155 and 248-254
AD 300	Lucero (2021)	3,400,000			Model	Jorge C. Lucero, "Subexponential growth of early Christianity" (arXiv 2111.08833, 2021)
AD 300	Harnack (1908), limits only		at least 3,000,000 to 4,000,000	below 30,000,000	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
AD 300	MacMullen (1984)	5,000,000			Reported	Ramsay MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire (1984), as reported by Stark (1996)
AD 300	von Hertling (1934)		7,500,000	15,000,000	Reported	Ludwig von Hertling (1934), as reported by Stark (1996)
AD 300	Gibbon (1776-1788), at most			below 3,000,000	Derived	Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1788), as reported by Stark (1996)
AD 300	Goodenough (1931)	6,000,000			Reported	Erwin R. Goodenough (1931), as reported by Stark (1996)
AD 300	Barrett and Johnson (2001), worldwide	14,010,000			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps
AD 350	Stark (1996)	33,882,008			Model	Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton, 1996), ch. 1, Table 1.1
AD 350	Hopkins (1998)	32,000,000			Model	Keith Hopkins, "Christian Number and its Implications" (JECS 1998; Sociological Studies in Roman History, 2018, Table 12.1)
AD 350	Ehrman's rates, compounded	9,281,937			Derived	Bart D. Ehrman, The Triumph of Christianity (2018), pp. 141-155 and 248-254
AD 350	Lucero (2021)	9,669,871			Model	Jorge C. Lucero, "Subexponential growth of early Christianity" (arXiv 2111.08833, 2021)
AD 400	Ehrman (2018), stated figures	30,000,000			Reported	Bart D. Ehrman, The Triumph of Christianity (2018), pp. 141-155 and 248-254
AD 400	Ehrman's rates, compounded	29,477,546			Derived	Bart D. Ehrman, The Triumph of Christianity (2018), pp. 141-155 and 248-254
AD 400	Lucero (2021)	26,100,000			Model	Jorge C. Lucero, "Subexponential growth of early Christianity" (arXiv 2111.08833, 2021)
AD 400	Barrett and Johnson (2001), worldwide	25,320,000			Reported	David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200 (2001), century totals as transcribed by Brilliant Maps

Figure 4. Harnack's four classes of province, around AD 300

Adolf Harnack's judgment of how thickly Christians lived in each province around 300, placed on the Mediterranean. The first class is nearly half the people and the fourth hardly any; the four provinces he declined to judge are marked as unjudged, and places outside the map's frame are listed beside it.

What to notice: The first class gathers in and around Asia Minor. The last holds inland and northern Gaul, the Rhine and Alpine provinces and Piedmont, with the towns of Philistia and lands on and beyond the frontier.

Divided by: Each province's own people, judged in words rather than numbers.

Caveats:

• Harnack gives classes, not percentages. For the whole empire he gives only limits: at least three to four million Christians, and well short of half the people.
• Each mark sits at a named town or near the centre of a named region, placed for this map and not taken from Harnack.
• An unjudged province means Harnack gave no opinion, not that it had no Christians.
• India and Britain lie outside the map's frame and are listed beside it.
• Harnack says he is not quite certain of Spain.

Harnack's class for each province, around AD 300

Province	Harnack's class	Status	Source
Asia Minor	Class 1	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Thrace opposite Bithynia (the province Europa)	Class 1	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Armenia	Class 1	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Cyprus	Class 1	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Edessa	Class 1	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Antioch and Coele-Syria	Class 2	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Alexandria and Egypt	Class 2	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
The Thebaid (Upper Egypt)	Class 2	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Rome	Class 2	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Lower Italy and the coasts of Middle Italy	Class 2	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Africa Proconsularis	Class 2	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Numidia	Class 2	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Spain	Class 2	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Coasts of Achaia, Thessaly and Macedonia, and the islands	Class 2	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
The southern coast of Gaul	Class 2	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Palestine	Class 3	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Phoenicia	Class 3	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Arabia (the Roman province)	Class 3	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Parts of Mesopotamia	Class 3	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Interior of Achaia	Class 3	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Interior of Macedonia	Class 3	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Interior of Thessaly	Class 3	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Epirus	Class 3	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Dardania	Class 3	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Dalmatia	Class 3	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Moesia	Class 3	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Pannonia	Class 3	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Northern Middle Italy and eastern Upper Italy	Class 3	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Mauretania	Class 3	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Tripolitana	Class 3	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
The towns of ancient Philistia	Class 4	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
North and north-west coasts of the Black Sea	Class 4	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Western Upper Italy (Piedmont)	Class 4	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Middle and Upper Gaul	Class 4	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Belgica	Class 4	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Germany (the Rhine provinces)	Class 4	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Raetia	Class 4	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Persia (outside the empire)	Class 4	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
India (outside the empire) (outside the map's frame)	Class 4	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Scythia (outside the empire)	Class 4	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Britain (outside the map's frame)	Not judged	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Noricum	Not judged	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Cyrenaica	Not judged	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331
Crete	Not judged	Reconstruction	Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 2, trans. James Moffatt (1908), pp. 324-331

AD 500 to 1700: one reconstruction

From 500 to 1700 the Christian line rests on one set of century totals, which a map-maker transcribed from Barrett and Johnson's World Christian Trends (2001) and, in his words, “some other online sources,” choosing the lowest numbers he found. His page does not say which figures are Barrett and Johnson's own, though his total for 1800 matches Gordon-Conwell's exactly. The one other total is the historian Philip Jenkins's for about 1000, in The Lost History of Christianity (2008), which adds to 47 to 55 million against the line's 45 million. The charts draw no band across these centuries, though the doubt may be wide.

On those numbers Christians held between about 13 and 15 percent of the world from 500 to 1200 and about 18 percent by 1300. Both halves push that share low: the Christian totals are the lowest the map-maker found, and the world line is HYDE, the highest published world series for most of these centuries. On the world figures in Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones's Atlas of World Population History (1978) the share at 1300 would be about 23 percent. Then the count fell from about 84 million to about 57 million by 1400, a loss of about a third, while the world's population fell about 3 percent on HYDE's figures and about 13 percent on the demographer Jean-Noël Biraben's.

The fall comes in the century of the Black Death and of the collapse of the churches of Asia that Jenkins describes. On Barrett's figures, which he cites, Asia's Christians went from 21 million in 1200 to 3.4 million in 1500, so for Asia and Africa, Jenkins and the line count as one witness. The evidence that does not come from Barrett is Asia Minor's: 373 bishops' seats in 1050 and three bishops about 1450, from Speros Vryonis's history of the region.

1900 to 2025, continent by continent

The Class 13 slide of Christians by continent draws each continent's count for 1900 and 2020 and prints under each bar the share of its people who were Christian, and figure 5 draws the populations themselves beside the counts. Africa had about 9.6 million Christians among about 101 million people in 1900, and about 754 million among about 1.55 billion in 2025. The count grew about 78 times and the population about 15 times, so the share went from about one person in ten to about one in two (figure 7).

Europe and Northern America went the other way as shares, though their counts rose across the century. Europe's Christians grew from about 381 million to about 552 million, and their share of Europe's people fell from about 94 percent to about 74. Northern America's grew from about 79 million to about 272 million, and their share fell from about 97 percent to about 70. Both edge down after 2020 on Gordon-Conwell's table. On the count of the Pew Research Center, which takes only those who name the faith, Europe's Christians fell from about 554 million to about 505 million between 2010 and 2020, and those of the United States and Canada from about 266 million to about 238 million.

The Class 13 plate titled The Center of Gravity Moves South divides by the world's Christians, not the world's people, so it shows where professing Christians live, and figure 6 draws the same measure from Gordon-Conwell's counts. About two in three lived in Europe in 1900 and about one in five in 2025. Africa's part grew from under 2 percent in 1900 to about 29 in 2025, and by 2020 it was the largest of any continent.

Asia rose from about 2.5 percent Christian to about 8.6, a small share of a continent where about 417 million Christians now live. Pew puts its Asia-Pacific region at 5.9 percent in 2020. Gordon-Conwell's own Middle East, a region of 17 countries, fell from 12.7 percent Christian in 1900 to about 4 percent in 2025, while the number of Christians there more than tripled.

Figure 7 marks all three counters where they overlap, and they differ at both ends: the Religious Characteristics of States dataset (RCS-Dem), pooled from several dozen sources, puts Northern America at about 80 percent Christian in 1900 against Gordon-Conwell's 97, and for 2020 Pew gives 62.9 against Gordon-Conwell's 72. Figure 8 carries RCS-Dem's figures down to single countries: the lands that became Nigeria went from 1 percent Christian in 1900 to 49 in 2015.

Figure 5. Christians and everyone else, by continent, 1900 and 2025

For each continent, the number of professing Christians beside the whole population, in 1900 and in 2025. The 1900 populations come from RCS-Dem and the 2025 populations from the United Nations.

What to notice: Africa's Christians grew about 78 times while its people grew about 15 times. Europe's and Northern America's Christians grew too, but their populations grew faster.

Divided by: Nothing: a count.

Caveats:

• The Class 13 slide draws Gordon-Conwell's 2025 edition, as this figure does, for 1900 and 2020, with the share of each continent's people who were Christian under each bar; this figure runs to 2025 and draws the populations themselves.
• The Middle East is Gordon-Conwell's own region of 17 countries; it overlaps Asia and Africa and is not added to them.
• The 1900 populations are RCS-Dem's, which sum to 1,548 million, below the 1,627 million on the world line.
• Gordon-Conwell's Europe includes all of Russia.
• The 2025 figures are forecasts from trend, not counts.

Christians and whole population by continent

Region	Year	Christians	Population	Status	Source
Africa	1900	9,640,000	100,835,768	Reconstruction	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell); Davis Brown and Patrick James, Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project, Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem 2.0), regions file
Africa	2025	754,229,000	1,549,867,575	Model	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell); United Nations, World Population Prospects 2024, via Our World in Data
Asia	1900	21,966,000	889,815,312	Reconstruction	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell); Davis Brown and Patrick James, Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project, Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem 2.0), regions file
Asia	2025	416,786,000	4,835,320,061	Model	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell); United Nations, World Population Prospects 2024, via Our World in Data
Europe, including Russia	1900	380,647,000	404,932,622	Reconstruction	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell); Davis Brown and Patrick James, Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project, Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem 2.0), regions file
Europe, including Russia	2025	551,934,000	744,398,837	Model	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell); United Nations, World Population Prospects 2024, via Our World in Data
Latin America and the Caribbean	1900	62,002,000	64,434,181	Reconstruction	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell); Davis Brown and Patrick James, Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project, Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem 2.0), regions file
Latin America and the Caribbean	2025	620,116,000	667,888,546	Model	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell); United Nations, World Population Prospects 2024, via Our World in Data
Northern America	1900	79,254,000	81,883,767	Reconstruction	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell); Davis Brown and Patrick James, Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project, Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem 2.0), regions file
Northern America	2025	271,779,000	387,528,406	Model	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell); United Nations, World Population Prospects 2024, via Our World in Data
Oceania	1900	4,837,000	6,237,159	Reconstruction	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell); Davis Brown and Patrick James, Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project, Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem 2.0), regions file
Oceania	2025	30,472,000	46,609,646	Model	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell); United Nations, World Population Prospects 2024, via Our World in Data
Middle East (17 countries)	1900	5,803,000	45,557,784	Reconstruction	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell); Gapminder Population v7 (2022), via Our World in Data, "Population"
Middle East (17 countries)	2025	20,386,000	507,924,199	Model	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell); United Nations, World Population Prospects 2024, via Our World in Data

Figure 6. Where the world's professing Christians lived, by continent, 1900 to 2025

Each continent's professing Christians as a share of all the professing Christians in the world, in 1900, 1970, 2000, 2020 and 2025: Gordon-Conwell's count for the continent divided by its world total for the same year, both from its 2025 edition.

What to notice: Europe held about two in three of the world's professing Christians in 1900 and about one in five in 2025, while Africa's part grew from under 2 percent to about 29. By 2020 more lived in Africa than on any other continent. Europe's count still rose, from about 381 million to about 552 million; its part fell because the other continents' counts rose faster.

Divided by: All professing Christians in the world.

Caveats:

• The Middle East is Gordon-Conwell's own region of 17 countries. It overlaps Asia and Africa, so it is left out of the stack, and the six continents add to the whole.
• Every share here is a share of Christians, not of people. Latin America's part of the world's Christians grew from about 11 percent to about 23 while the share of its own people who are Christian fell a little, from about 96 percent to about 93 (figure 7).
• The 1900 counts are reconstructions and the 2025 counts are forecasts from trend.
• The Class 13 plate this figure answers follows Pew's 2011 report, a century ago against 2010, is marked Proportions illustrative, and uses Pew's regions, which are not these continents.

Each region's professing Christians as a percentage of all the world's professing Christians

Region	Year	Share of all Christians (%)	The region's Christians	The world's Christians	Status	Source	In the stack
Africa	1900	1.7	9,640,000	558,346,000	Derived; Count: Reconstruction	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Africa	1970	11.3	137,866,000	1,216,131,000	Derived; Count: Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Africa	2000	19.3	383,463,000	1,987,905,000	Derived; Count: Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Africa	2020	26.3	663,664,000	2,519,505,000	Derived; Count: Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Africa	2025	28.5	754,229,000	2,645,317,000	Derived; Count: Model	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Asia	1900	3.9	21,966,000	558,346,000	Derived; Count: Reconstruction	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Asia	1970	8.0	97,390,000	1,216,131,000	Derived; Count: Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Asia	2000	14.1	281,094,000	1,987,905,000	Derived; Count: Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Asia	2020	15.3	385,052,000	2,519,505,000	Derived; Count: Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Asia	2025	15.8	416,786,000	2,645,317,000	Derived; Count: Model	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Europe, including Russia	1900	68.2	380,647,000	558,346,000	Derived; Count: Reconstruction	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Europe, including Russia	1970	40.3	490,507,000	1,216,131,000	Derived; Count: Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Europe, including Russia	2000	28.3	562,062,000	1,987,905,000	Derived; Count: Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Europe, including Russia	2020	22.5	566,985,000	2,519,505,000	Derived; Count: Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Europe, including Russia	2025	20.9	551,934,000	2,645,317,000	Derived; Count: Model	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Latin America and the Caribbean	1900	11.1	62,002,000	558,346,000	Derived; Count: Reconstruction	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Latin America and the Caribbean	1970	22.2	269,960,000	1,216,131,000	Derived; Count: Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Latin America and the Caribbean	2000	24.3	482,856,000	1,987,905,000	Derived; Count: Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Latin America and the Caribbean	2020	23.8	600,589,000	2,519,505,000	Derived; Count: Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Latin America and the Caribbean	2025	23.4	620,116,000	2,645,317,000	Derived; Count: Model	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Northern America	1900	14.2	79,254,000	558,346,000	Derived; Count: Reconstruction	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Northern America	1970	16.6	202,363,000	1,216,131,000	Derived; Count: Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Northern America	2000	12.8	254,063,000	1,987,905,000	Derived; Count: Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Northern America	2020	10.9	273,627,000	2,519,505,000	Derived; Count: Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Northern America	2025	10.3	271,779,000	2,645,317,000	Derived; Count: Model	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Oceania	1900	0.87	4,837,000	558,346,000	Derived; Count: Reconstruction	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Oceania	1970	1.5	18,045,000	1,216,131,000	Derived; Count: Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Oceania	2000	1.2	24,366,000	1,987,905,000	Derived; Count: Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Oceania	2020	1.2	29,589,000	2,519,505,000	Derived; Count: Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Oceania	2025	1.2	30,472,000	2,645,317,000	Derived; Count: Model	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	Yes
Middle East (17 countries)	1900	1.0	5,803,000	558,346,000	Derived; Count: Reconstruction	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	No
Middle East (17 countries)	1970	0.69	8,428,000	1,216,131,000	Derived; Count: Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	No
Middle East (17 countries)	2000	0.77	15,403,000	1,987,905,000	Derived; Count: Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	No
Middle East (17 countries)	2020	0.78	19,546,000	2,519,505,000	Derived; Count: Counted	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	No
Middle East (17 countries)	2025	0.77	20,386,000	2,645,317,000	Derived; Count: Model	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)	No

Figure 7. Each continent's Christians as a share of its own people, 1900 and 2025

Gordon-Conwell's count divided by each continent's population in 1900 and 2025, with marks for the Pew and RCS-Dem figures nearest in time. Where Gordon-Conwell prints its own percentage, that figure sits beside the computed one.

What to notice: Africa moves from about 10 percent to about 49 while Europe and Northern America fall from over 90 to between 70 and 75. Where Pew's mark sits well below Gordon-Conwell's, as it does for Europe, Northern America and Latin America in 2020, the gap follows in part what each counts: Gordon-Conwell starts from church membership, which can include people who would not name the faith in a survey, and Pew counts only those who do.

Divided by: Each continent's own population in the same year.

Caveats:

• Figure 6 divides each continent's Christians by all the world's Christians instead, the measure of the Class 13 plate.
• Pew's regions are its own: sub-Saharan Africa leaves out North Africa, and Asia-Pacific includes Oceania.
• Pew's marks are for 1910, 2010 and 2020, and RCS-Dem's end in 2015. Pew's 1910 marks are its own reading of Gordon-Conwell's data, not a separate count.
• Pew revised its own 2010 figures in its 2025 report, so its marks are grouped by report.
• The 1900 shares divide by RCS-Dem's populations, which reproduce Gordon-Conwell's printed 1900 percentages to within about a point.

Christians as a percentage of each region's own people

Region	Year	Percent	Counter	Status	Source
Africa	1900	9.6 (printed 9.0)	Gordon-Conwell	Derived	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Africa	2025	48.7 (printed 49.3)	Gordon-Conwell	Derived	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Africa	1900	8.8	RCS-Dem	Reconstruction	Davis Brown and Patrick James, Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project, Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem 2.0), regions file
Africa	2015	48.0	RCS-Dem	Reconstruction	Davis Brown and Patrick James, Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project, Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem 2.0), regions file
Asia	1900	2.5 (printed 2.0)	Gordon-Conwell	Derived	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Asia	2025	8.6 (printed 8.7)	Gordon-Conwell	Derived	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Asia	1900	2.1	RCS-Dem	Reconstruction	Davis Brown and Patrick James, Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project, Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem 2.0), regions file
Asia	2015	7.4	RCS-Dem	Reconstruction	Davis Brown and Patrick James, Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project, Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem 2.0), regions file
Europe, including Russia	1900	94.0 (printed 95.0)	Gordon-Conwell	Derived	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Europe, including Russia	2025	74.1 (printed 74.5)	Gordon-Conwell	Derived	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Europe, including Russia	1910	94.5	Pew	Reconstruction	Pew Research Center, Global Christianity (December 2011)
Europe, including Russia	2010	76.2	Pew	Counted	Pew Research Center, Global Christianity (December 2011)
Europe, including Russia	2010	74.6	Pew	Counted	Pew Research Center, How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020 (June 2025)
Europe, including Russia	2020	67.1	Pew	Counted	Pew Research Center, How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020 (June 2025)
Europe, including Russia	1900	94.1	RCS-Dem	Reconstruction	Davis Brown and Patrick James, Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project, Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem 2.0), regions file
Europe, including Russia	2015	66.0	RCS-Dem	Reconstruction	Davis Brown and Patrick James, Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project, Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem 2.0), regions file
Latin America and the Caribbean	1900	96.2 (printed 95.2)	Gordon-Conwell	Derived	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Latin America and the Caribbean	2025	92.8 (printed 91.9)	Gordon-Conwell	Derived	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Latin America and the Caribbean	2010	90.1	Pew	Counted	Pew Research Center, How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020 (June 2025)
Latin America and the Caribbean	2020	84.6	Pew	Counted	Pew Research Center, How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020 (June 2025)
Latin America and the Caribbean	1900	90.5	RCS-Dem	Reconstruction	Davis Brown and Patrick James, Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project, Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem 2.0), regions file
Latin America and the Caribbean	2015	88.3	RCS-Dem	Reconstruction	Davis Brown and Patrick James, Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project, Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem 2.0), regions file
Northern America	1900	96.8 (printed 97.1)	Gordon-Conwell	Derived	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Northern America	2025	70.1 (printed 70.9)	Gordon-Conwell	Derived	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Northern America	2010	77.2	Pew	Counted	Pew Research Center, How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020 (June 2025)
Northern America	2020	62.9	Pew	Counted	Pew Research Center, How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020 (June 2025)
Northern America	1900	79.9	RCS-Dem	Reconstruction	Davis Brown and Patrick James, Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project, Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem 2.0), regions file
Northern America	2015	67.5	RCS-Dem	Reconstruction	Davis Brown and Patrick James, Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project, Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem 2.0), regions file
Oceania	1900	77.6 (printed 77.4)	Gordon-Conwell	Derived	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Oceania	2025	65.4 (printed 65.3)	Gordon-Conwell	Derived	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Oceania	1900	74.8	RCS-Dem	Reconstruction	Davis Brown and Patrick James, Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project, Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem 2.0), regions file
Oceania	2015	61.2	RCS-Dem	Reconstruction	Davis Brown and Patrick James, Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project, Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem 2.0), regions file
Middle East (17 countries)	1900	12.7 (printed 12.7)	Gordon-Conwell	Derived	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Middle East (17 countries)	2025	4.0 (printed 4.1)	Gordon-Conwell	Derived	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
The Americas (Pew 2011)	1910	95.9	Pew	Reconstruction	Pew Research Center, Global Christianity (December 2011)
The Americas (Pew 2011)	2010	86.0	Pew	Counted	Pew Research Center, Global Christianity (December 2011)
Sub-Saharan Africa (Pew)	1910	9.1	Pew	Reconstruction	Pew Research Center, Global Christianity (December 2011)
Sub-Saharan Africa (Pew)	2010	62.7	Pew	Counted	Pew Research Center, Global Christianity (December 2011)
Sub-Saharan Africa (Pew)	2010	61.7	Pew	Counted	Pew Research Center, How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020 (June 2025)
Sub-Saharan Africa (Pew)	2020	62.0	Pew	Counted	Pew Research Center, How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020 (June 2025)
Asia-Pacific (Pew)	1910	2.7	Pew	Reconstruction	Pew Research Center, Global Christianity (December 2011)
Asia-Pacific (Pew)	2010	7.0	Pew	Counted	Pew Research Center, Global Christianity (December 2011)
Asia-Pacific (Pew)	2010	6.1	Pew	Counted	Pew Research Center, How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020 (June 2025)
Asia-Pacific (Pew)	2020	5.9	Pew	Counted	Pew Research Center, How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020 (June 2025)
Middle East and North Africa (Pew)	1910	9.5	Pew	Reconstruction	Pew Research Center, Global Christianity (December 2011)
Middle East and North Africa (Pew)	2010	3.8	Pew	Counted	Pew Research Center, Global Christianity (December 2011)
Middle East and North Africa (Pew)	2010	3.3	Pew	Counted	Pew Research Center, How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020 (June 2025)
Middle East and North Africa (Pew)	2020	2.9	Pew	Counted	Pew Research Center, How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020 (June 2025)

Figure 8. Christians as a share of each country, 1900 and 2015

Two world maps shading each country by the percentage of its people RCS-Dem counts as Christian, one for 1900 and one for 2015.

What to notice: The largest change is south of the Sahara, where much of the map moves from under a tenth to over half. Across much of northern and western Europe the share falls.

Divided by: Each country's own population in 1900 and in 2015.

Caveats:

• The Class 13 teaching map is a Wikimedia Commons map credited to Pew Research Center data, headed 2008 data and credited 2010; this figure uses RCS-Dem's figures.
• RCS-Dem pools many sources, and its figures differ from Pew's and Gordon-Conwell's, most sharply in parts of southern Africa: RCS-Dem puts Eswatini at 25 percent and Botswana at 33 in 2015, where Pew puts them at 93 and 82 percent in 2020.
• Most places in 1900 were colonies or parts of empires and are measured as roughly the land that later became the country. A few codes stand for the whole state of 1900 instead: Russia is the Russian Empire, the United Kingdom includes Ireland, and Turkey is the Ottoman state.
• Entities RCS-Dem gives no country code, such as Austria-Hungary and the princely states of India, are left out. Korea in 1900 is shaded from RCS-Dem's rows for the lands of today's two Koreas; its row for the Korean state of 1900 has no code.
• Israel, Malaysia, Slovakia, Vietnam and Yemen have no figure for 1900 and are marked as having none, though the land around them is shaded.
• Percentages are rounded to whole numbers.

Percent Christian by country code, rounded to a whole number, from Davis Brown and Patrick James, Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project, Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem 2.0), countries file; a blank cell means the file has no figure for that year

Country code	1900	2015
ABW	95	80
AFG	0	0
AGO	1	93
AIA	99	85
ALB	28	21
AND	90	76
ANT	76
ARE	0	13
ARG	89	90
ARM	54	96
ASM	100	87
ATG	99	76
AUS	95	59
AUT	94	68
AZE	21	3
BDI	0	88
BEL	98	67
BEN	1	43
BES	18	63
BFA	0	26
BGD	0	1
BGR	82	80
BHR	0	15
BHS	94	91
BIH	65	47
BLR	86	58
BLZ	81	75
BMU	99	61
BOL	81	93
BRA	94	86
BRB	83	71
BRN	1	12
BTN	0	1
BWA	11	33
CAF	0	69
CAN	97	57
CHE	99	70
CHL	96	88
CHN	0	8
CIV	0	38
CMR	0	47
COD	1	95
COG	3	89
COK	99	93
COL	77	95
COM	0	0
CPV	99	95
CRI	100	89
CUB	89	59
CUW	95	80
CYM	99	82
CYN	79	7
CYP	78	69
CZE	90	6
DEU	99	64
DJI	1	2
DMA	98	82
DNK	100	81
DOM	93	95
DZA	12	0
ECU	88	95
EGY	11	11
ERI	15	46
ESH	1	0
ESP	97	72
EST	97	29
ETH	37	64
FIN	100	76
FJI	86	69
FLK	95	61
FRA	99	65
FRO	100	88
FSM	63	99
GAB	6	79
GBR	97	60
GEO	80	85
GHA	6	60
GIB	93	82
GIN	0	9
GLP	98	94
GMB	4	4
GNB	4	12
GNQ	5	88
GRC	97	86
GRD	98	92
GRL	90	96
GTM	98	87
GUF	93	84
GUM	99	91
GUY	51	65
HKG	2	14
HND	97	91
HRV	90	91
HTI	26	37
HUN	96	48
IDN	1	10
IMN	96	65
IND	1	2
IRL	99	88
IRN	1	0
IRQ	3	1
ISL	100	85
ISR		2
ITA	97	80
JAM	94	67
JOR	6	2
JPN	0	1
KAZ	5	21
KEN	0	81
KGZ	3	7
KHM	1	3
KIR	79	97
KNA	92	77
KOR	1	35
KOS	12	3
KWT	0	9
LAO	1	3
LBN	76	32
LBR	11	41
LBY	1	2
LCA	98	81
LIE	99	84
LKA	10	8
LSO	13	90
LTU	85	83
LUX	97	68
LVA	93	74
MAC	8	7
MAR	1	0
MCO	97	83
MDA	85	99
MDG	39	54
MDV	0	0
MEX	99	93
MHL	54	90
MKD	61	59
MLI	0	3
MLT	94	94
MMR	1	8
MNE	94	77
MNG	0	3
MNP	60	81
MOZ	0	53
MRT	0	0
MSR	89	88
MTQ	93	91
MUS	32	30
MWI	2	79
MYS		9
MYT	0	1
NAM	9	91
NCL	70	72
NER	0	0
NGA	1	49
NIC	85	88
NIU	100	66
NLD	95	40
NOR	99	87
NPL	0	2
NRU	20	75
NZL	91	44
OMN	0	4
PAK	0	2
PAN	91	87
PCN	100	82
PER	94	93
PHL	81	92
PLW	64	87
PNG	3	69
POL	85	88
PRI	98	91
PRK	0	0
PRT	100	88
PRY	97	95
PSE	9	2
PYF	93	89
QAT	0	10
REU	34	87
ROU	94	90
RUS	84	48
RWA	0	90
SAU	0	4
SDN	1	5
SEN	2	6
SGP	3	20
SHN	100	96
SLB	17	98
SLE	5	13
SLV	95	83
SMR	100	92
SOM	0	0
SPM	98	89
SRB	77	94
SSD	0	58
STP	3	82
SUR	56	46
SVK		72
SVN	95	81
SWE	99	62
SWZ	1	25
SXM	9	74
SYC	96	91
SYR	16	5
TCA	93	69
TCD	0	35
TGO	1	48
THA	1	1
TJK	1	1
TKL	100	99
TKM	1	1
TLS	9	86
TON	98	95
TTO	70	63
TUN	2	0
TUR	31	0
TUV	100	72
TWN	0	5
TZA	2	55
UGA	7	85
UKR	90	85
URY	63	55
USA	79	69
UZB	1	1
VAT	100	100
VCT	90	90
VEN	90	93
VGB	90	81
VIR	96	82
VNM		8
VUT	23	88
WLF	80	97
WSM	98	99
YEM		0
YMD	1
ZAF	40	62
ZMB	0	82
ZWE	4	55

Why the counters disagree, and what corrects them

For 2020 Gordon-Conwell counts about 2.52 billion Christians and Pew about 2.27 billion, a gap of about 250 million people that on its face makes every figure look arbitrary.

Part of the gap comes from what each counter counts. Gordon-Conwell takes the widest group, which its tables call professing Christians plus secret believers (those who hold the faith in hiding): church members of every tradition and Christians who belong to no church. Pew takes anyone who names Christianity as their religion in a census or survey, so a person on a church's rolls who tells a survey he has no religion can count for Gordon-Conwell and not for Pew. RCS-Dem estimates the followers of every denomination from several dozen sources, Barrett's among them. Another part is disagreement over the same people: Pew's 2025 report stopped adjusting for Christians in China and India who may not report their faith, and puts China at 1.8 percent Christian in 2020.

What matters in an estimate is whether anything corrects it when it is wrong. For the modern figures something does: censuses and surveys keep coming, and each edition of the Gordon-Conwell table revises its own past (figure 9). Most changes are small and run both ways. The largest in people is Pew's world count for 2010, cut by about 37 million between its two reports, and its Asia-Pacific figure alone fell by about 32 million, 11 percent of the region's figure, in the report that dropped the adjustment.

The oldest figures have no census behind them and none coming. They may be right, and the charts mark them as models or a single reconstruction so that no one reads them as counted.

These counts try to take in every professing Christian alive. Paul describes God's foundation as sealed with two sayings: “The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (2 Timothy 2:19). The Lord alone knows the first; the second is addressed to every person these counts include.

Figure 9. The same number, edition by edition

Six figures as successive editions of the Gordon-Conwell table and Pew's two reports printed them: Christians in Africa and in Europe in 2020, in the world in 1970, 2010 and 2020, and in Pew's Asia-Pacific region in 2010.

What to notice: Most changes are small and run both ways. Africa's 2020 count rose by about 7 million across three editions, and Europe's fell by about 7 million. The largest in people is Pew's world count for 2010, cut by about 37 million between its two reports; its Asia-Pacific figure alone fell by about 32 million, 11 percent of the region's own figure.

Divided by: Nothing: a count.

Caveats:

• Later editions also rest on a newer UN population revision, and a count built as a share of population moves with it.
• The 1970 series joins the 2013 journal table, the 2013 report and the later editions.
• Pew revised its own 2010 figures in its 2025 report, the same report in which it stopped adjusting for Christians in China and India who may not report their faith.

The same figure in successive editions

Figure	Edition	Value	Source
Christians in Africa in 2020, by edition of the Gordon-Conwell table	Status of Global Christianity 2024	661,349,000	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2024, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Christians in Africa in 2020, by edition of the Gordon-Conwell table	Status of Global Christianity 2025	663,664,000	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Christians in Africa in 2020, by edition of the Gordon-Conwell table	Status of Global Christianity 2026	668,451,000	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2026, in the Context of 1900-2075 (World Christian Database)
Christians in Europe in 2020, by edition of the Gordon-Conwell table	Status of Global Christianity 2024	573,692,000	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2024, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Christians in Europe in 2020, by edition of the Gordon-Conwell table	Status of Global Christianity 2025	566,985,000	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Christians in Europe in 2020, by edition of the Gordon-Conwell table	Status of Global Christianity 2026	567,040,000	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2026, in the Context of 1900-2075 (World Christian Database)
Christians in the world in 1970, by edition of the Gordon-Conwell table	2013 journal table (International Bulletin of Missionary Research)	1,228,972,000	Johnson, Barrett and Crossing, "Christianity 2013: Renewalists and Faith and Migration", International Bulletin of Missionary Research 37:1 (2013), table "Status of Global Mission, 2013, in the Context of AD 1800-2025"
Christians in the world in 1970, by edition of the Gordon-Conwell table	Christianity in its Global Context (2013)	1,228,609,000	Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Christianity in its Global Context, 1970-2020 (Gordon-Conwell, June 2013)
Christians in the world in 1970, by edition of the Gordon-Conwell table	2015 journal table (International Bulletin of Missionary Research)	1,230,548,000	Johnson, Zurlo, Hickman and Crossing, "Christianity 2015: Religious Diversity and Personal Contact", International Bulletin of Missionary Research 39:1 (2015)
Christians in the world in 1970, by edition of the Gordon-Conwell table	Status of Global Christianity 2023	1,216,131,000	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2023, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Christians in the world in 1970, by edition of the Gordon-Conwell table	Status of Global Christianity 2024	1,216,131,000	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2024, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Christians in the world in 1970, by edition of the Gordon-Conwell table	Status of Global Christianity 2025	1,216,131,000	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Christians in the world in 1970, by edition of the Gordon-Conwell table	Status of Global Christianity 2026	1,222,867,000	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2026, in the Context of 1900-2075 (World Christian Database)
Christians in the world in 2020, by edition of the Gordon-Conwell table	Status of Global Christianity 2024	2,521,460,000	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2024, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Christians in the world in 2020, by edition of the Gordon-Conwell table	Status of Global Christianity 2025	2,519,505,000	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900-2050 (Gordon-Conwell)
Christians in the world in 2020, by edition of the Gordon-Conwell table	Status of Global Christianity 2026	2,526,029,000	Zurlo, Johnson and Crossing, Status of Global Christianity, 2026, in the Context of 1900-2075 (World Christian Database)
Christians in the world in 2010, by Pew report	Pew, Global Christianity (2011)	2,184,060,000	Pew Research Center, Global Christianity (December 2011)
Christians in the world in 2010, by Pew report	Pew, How the Global Religious Landscape Changed (2025)	2,147,230,000	Pew Research Center, How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020 (June 2025)
Christians in Pew's Asia-Pacific region in 2010, by Pew report	Pew, Global Christianity (2011)	285,120,000	Pew Research Center, Global Christianity (December 2011)
Christians in Pew's Asia-Pacific region in 2010, by Pew report	Pew, How the Global Religious Landscape Changed (2025)	253,420,000	Pew Research Center, How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020 (June 2025)

What a survey can see

The remnant is real, and God knows who belongs to it: “The Lord knoweth them that are his” (2 Timothy 2:19). Paul used “remnant” for the Israelites who believed in his day (Romans 11:5), and it is borrowed here for the point they share with believers now: God chose them by grace, and he knows them. A survey shows less: what share of the people who call themselves Christians say they go to church and pray, and what share agree with set statements about Christ and the gospel. The Pew Research Center reports Christians' answers on all three, country by country. The State of Theology, a survey Ligonier Ministries commissions, puts more than thirty statements to adults in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, and this page draws on five of them.

When the servants in the parable of the tares (weeds sown among wheat) offered to gather them up, the householder answered, “Let both grow together until the harvest” (Matthew 13:30). Jesus explained, “The field is the world” (Matthew 13:38) and “the reapers are the angels” (Matthew 13:39). The separating belongs to that harvest and to the angels. A survey separates nobody: it reports what share of those who called themselves Christians gave an answer.

The Second London Confession (1677, adopted 1689) sets the church God knows beside the church people can see. Chapter 26.1 calls the universal church invisible “with respect to the internal work of the Spirit”: it is “the whole number of the Elect”, all whom God has chosen. Chapter 26.2 reads: “All persons throughout the world, professing the faith of the Gospel, and obedience unto God by Christ, according unto it; not destroying their own profession by any Errors everting the foundation, or unholyness of conversation, are and may be called visible Saints; and of such ought all particular Congregations to be constituted.”

Naming oneself a Christian to an interviewer is the barest form of the act of profession. Attendance and prayer are a narrow part of “obedience unto God by Christ”. The belief statements ask about parts of the foundation that errors can overturn (evert is an old word for overturn), though the confession lists no doctrines there: the surveyors wrote the statements, and this page chose which to show. No survey measures “unholyness of conversation”, an unholy manner of life, and attendance does not stand in for holiness (figure 10).

In Pew's 2024 survey, 90 percent of the Christians interviewed in Nigeria said they go to church at least weekly, as did 82 percent in Kenya and 78 percent in Ghana. In Germany and Sweden 9 percent did, and in Hungary 8 percent. The United States, at 37 percent in Pew's 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study, and the United Kingdom, at 25 percent, lie between (figures 11 and 12). Daily prayer runs from 83 percent of Christians in Kenya to 14 percent in Sweden and Hungary.

Among adults who named a Christian tradition, 84 percent in the United States (2025), 68 percent in Canada (2025) and 40 percent in the United Kingdom (2026) agreed that “Biblical accounts of the physical (bodily) resurrection of Jesus are completely accurate. This event actually occurred.” For “God counts a person as righteous not because of one’s works but only because of one’s faith in Jesus Christ” the figures are 69, 59 and 34 percent. Among those who also attend church at least monthly, agreement on the resurrection is 93, 87 and 78 percent (figures 13 and 14).

In 2006, 80 percent of the Christians Pew surveyed in Nigeria and 54 percent in the United States completely agreed that “Belief in Jesus Christ is the only way to be saved from eternal damnation.” In Kenya, 96 percent of Christians surveyed in 2006 agreed completely or mostly with that sentence, and in 2008-09, 42 percent of a different sample chose “My religion is the one, true faith leading to eternal life” over “Many religions can lead to eternal life”. The later question asked about the respondent's own religion and offered a choice between two statements (figure 15).

Two things check these figures. Ligonier has put the same resurrection statement to American adults six times since 2014, and agreement has stayed between 64 and 68 percent. Pew corrects its reports: in September 2026 it revised a published figure for daily prayer among American Christians to 60 percent. Neither can check what every round shares, that each figure is what people said about themselves. Where Americans were counted at services instead, in one Ohio county and 18 Catholic dioceses, the counts came to a little over half what surveys implied (Hadaway, Marler and Chaves, 1993). No survey sees what the LORD sees: “man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7), and a narrower layer is still a count of profession, not of new birth.

Elijah counted what he could see: “I, even I only, am left” (1 Kings 19:14). God answered, “Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel” (1 Kings 19:18). At Corinth the Lord told Paul, “I have much people in this city” (Acts 18:10), and Paul stayed a year and six months teaching there (Acts 18:11). Pew's 9 percent for weekly churchgoing among Swedish Christians in 2024 is what they told Pew, and it does not say how many in Sweden the Lord knows as his.

Figure 10. Chapter 26.2 of the Second London Confession, phrase by phrase, beside what a survey can see

Each phrase of the confession's description of visible saints, what it tests, the layer a survey could stand for, the data this page has for it, and where that data falls short. Chapter 26.1 has no row: it describes the church of the elect, all whom God has chosen, which the confession calls invisible.

What to notice: Profession, practice and belief each have some survey data, all of it partial. The test of conduct, unholyness of conversation, has none, and neither has a congregation's judgment of the people it knows.

Divided by: Nothing: a table of the confession's phrases.

Caveats:

• The confession lists no doctrines under “Errors everting the foundation”, errors that overturn it. Ligonier and Pew wrote the questions. This page chose five of the State of Theology's statements, on Christ's deity and resurrection, righteousness by faith, the Bible and salvation through Christ alone, and three of Pew's items.
• A survey asks strangers whether they agree with set wording. The confession asks whether a profession has been overturned by error or by the manner of a life, which a congregation judges of people it knows, “in and by their profession and walking” (26.6).
• Attendance and prayer are a narrow part of obedience, and people report them about themselves.
• The text is the 1677 printing as the Documents page gives it, with its spelling.

The Second London Confession (1677, adopted 1689), chapter 26: each phrase of 26.2 beside what a survey can see

Phrase of 26.2	What it tests	Layer	Data on this page	Where the data falls short
All persons throughout the world	Persons in any nation, not the members of one denomination	Place	Pew's 2024 survey reports Christians in 27 countries; The State of Theology covers three	This page has belief figures for Christians in 39 countries and none for the rest
professing the faith of the Gospel	The act of profession, and what is professed	Profession, with belief for its content	Pew counts as Christian anyone who names Christianity as his religion; The State of Theology asks which tradition a person belongs to	Naming the faith records the act; whether what is professed is the faith of the gospel needs the belief statements
and obedience unto God by Christ, according unto it	Obedience, as part of what is professed	Practice	Weekly church attendance and daily prayer	Attendance and prayer are a narrow part of obedience, and people report them about themselves
not destroying their own profession by any Errors everting the foundation	Whether error has overturned the profession (evert is an old word for overturn)	Belief	Five State of Theology statements in three countries; three Pew items, each put to Christians in a different set of countries, 38 in all	The confession lists no doctrines here, so the statements are the surveyors' wording and this page's selection, and agreeing to set wording is a different test from not having overturned a profession
or unholyness of conversation	Whether an unholy manner of life has overturned the profession (conversation, in the older sense of the word)	Conduct	None	No survey measures it, and attendance does not stand in for holiness of life
are and may be called visible Saints	The name for those who meet the tests above	None: the confession's name for those who meet every test, which no survey layer is	None	No survey applies every test, since none measures conduct, and a fixed list of statements can count out someone the confession would not. Visible saints are not the same company as the church of 26.1, whose number is known to God
and of such ought all particular Congregations to be constituted	A congregation's judgment of people it knows, who show their obedience “in and by their profession and walking” (26.6)	Outside what a survey does	None	A survey puts fixed questions to strangers and judges no one

Chapter 26.1 has no row: the confession calls the church of the elect invisible, with respect to the internal work of the Spirit. Paragraphs 26.3 to 26.15, on the mixture in churches, Christ's headship and the order of a congregation, are left out because no survey bears on them.

The whole chapter is on the Documents page: The Second London Confession (1677, adopted 1689), chapter 26.

Figure 11. Weekly church attendance and daily prayer among Christians, 27 countries, 2024

The share of the Christians interviewed in each country who said they go to church at least weekly, beside the share who said they pray at least daily, from Pew's Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey; the United States is from Pew's 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study. Countries are sorted by weekly attendance.

What to notice: Weekly attendance runs from 90 percent of Christians in Nigeria to 8 percent in Hungary. In each of the four African and four Asian countries more than half said they attend weekly, and in no European country did more than 36 percent. Prayer does not always follow attendance: in Poland 36 percent attend weekly and 19 percent pray daily.

Divided by: Christians interviewed in each country.

Caveats:

• Fieldwork ran from January to May 2024 in 26 countries, by telephone, face to face or, in Australia, online. The United States figures come from the Religious Landscape Study, July 2023 to March 2024, answered online and on paper, which asked about attending in person. Pew reports that telephone surveys and online or paper surveys give significantly different results on how often people attend, so the United States row is not strictly comparable with the rows gathered by interview.
• Christians are respondents who named Christianity as their religion. The samples run from 208 Christians in Singapore to 979 in Poland, with 23,186 in the United States. At those sizes each figure outside the United States could be several points off either way.
• Both measures are what respondents said about themselves, and the survey cannot check either. In the United States, people counted at services in one Ohio county and 18 Catholic dioceses came to a little over half what surveys implied (Hadaway, Marler and Chaves, 1993), so where churchgoing is expected a reported attendance figure is more likely too high than too low.
• Pew also surveyed Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Tunisia and Turkey and reports no Christian figures for them, because it shows only groups with large enough samples.
• Pew's earlier surveys of some of these countries give different levels, sometimes by ten points or more, so compare countries within this survey.

Weekly attendance and daily prayer among Christians, sorted by weekly attendance. Base: Christians; fieldwork 2024, except where a row names its own source.

Country	Weekly or more (%)	Daily or more (%)	Christians interviewed	Interviewed by	Source	Note
Nigeria	90	77	641	face to face	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Kenya	82	83	889	face to face	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Ghana	78	70	782	face to face	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Sri Lanka	77	76	218	face to face	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Singapore	69	61	208	phone	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
South Korea	68	59	337	phone	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
South Africa	59	69	967	face to face	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Philippines	52	79	957	face to face	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Brazil	49	82	806	face to face	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Colombia	46	78	847	face to face	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Mexico	45	50	822	face to face	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
United States	37	60	23,186	online and paper	Pew Research Center (2025), "Decline of Christianity in the U.S. Has Slowed, May Have Leveled Off" (2023-24 Religious Landscape Study)	From the 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study, reprinted in the 2024 topline. Attendance was asked as "Aside from weddings and funerals, how often do you attend religious services in person?", with "seldom" in place of "less often than that" and no "every day"; prayer was asked as "Outside of attending religious services, how often do you pray?" The report prints the same figures on pages 165 (attendance), 159 (importance) and 73 (prayer).
Poland	36	19	979	face to face	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Peru	34	61	919	face to face	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Canada	31	48	568	phone	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Italy	25	44	795	phone	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
United Kingdom	25	30	446	phone	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Argentina	23	48	757	face to face	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Australia	23	31	840	online panel	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Netherlands	23	38	389	phone	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Chile	19	52	703	face to face	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Spain	18	35	544	phone	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Greece	17	43	856	phone	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
France	15	25	458	phone	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Germany	9	20	491	phone	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Sweden	9	14	492	phone	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Hungary	8	14	799	face to face	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release

What Pew asked, and the answers counted. The number of Christians interviewed is from the N column beside each Christian row of Q23 to Q25

Measure	Question	Answers counted	Where Pew prints it
Weekly attendance	Aside from weddings and funerals, how often, if at all, do you go to church?	Weekly or more: every day, more than once a week or once a week	Q24, Pew's total column, topline pages 5 to 7
Daily prayer	Outside of attending religious services, do you pray several times a day, once a day, a few times a week, once a week, a few times a month, less often than that, OR never?	Daily or more: several times a day or once a day	Q25, Pew's total column, topline pages 8 to 10

Surveyed, with no Christian figure reported: Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Israel, Tunisia, Turkey. These nine countries were surveyed, but Pew's table of results has no Christian row for them; the report shows only religious groups with large enough samples. Tunisia was also not asked the attendance and prayer questions.

Christians here are respondents who identify as Christian when asked their religion. The survey covered 36 countries, and Christians are reported in 27. Pew's earlier surveys of the same countries give different levels, sometimes by ten points or more, so compare countries within this survey.

Figure 12. Weekly church attendance among Christians, by country, 2024

A world map shading each of the 27 countries where Pew reports Christians by the share of the Christians interviewed there who said they go to church at least weekly. The nine countries Pew surveyed without reporting Christians are marked as surveyed, and every other country as having no figure here.

What to notice: Nigeria and Kenya are the only countries in the top band, where 80 percent or more said they attend weekly. Seven are in the bottom band, under 20 percent: Chile, Spain, Greece, France, Germany, Sweden and Hungary. A hatched country is not a low one: it was not in this survey, like most of the world.

Divided by: Christians interviewed in each country.

Caveats:

• A hatched or dotted country has no figure here, which says nothing about how many Christians live there or how often they attend.
• One national sample shades the whole country, so differences within a country do not show, and a country within a few points of a band's edge could belong in the next band.
• The United States is shaded from the Religious Landscape Study of 2023-24, answered online and on paper, which asked about attending in person; every other country is from 2024.
• Attendance is what respondents said about themselves, and a study that counted people at American services found fewer there than surveys implied (Hadaway, Marler and Chaves, 1993).

Weekly church attendance among Christians, as the map shades each country. Base: Christians; fieldwork 2024, except where a row names its own source. A country not listed has no figure here.

Country	Country code	Weekly or more (%)	On the map	Source
Argentina	ARG	23	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Australia	AUS	23	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Brazil	BRA	49	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Canada	CAN	31	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Chile	CHL	19	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Colombia	COL	46	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
France	FRA	15	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Germany	DEU	9	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Ghana	GHA	78	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Greece	GRC	17	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Hungary	HUN	8	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Italy	ITA	25	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Kenya	KEN	82	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Mexico	MEX	45	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Netherlands	NLD	23	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Nigeria	NGA	90	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Peru	PER	34	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Philippines	PHL	52	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Poland	POL	36	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Singapore	SGP	69	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
South Africa	ZAF	59	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
South Korea	KOR	68	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Spain	ESP	18	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Sri Lanka	LKA	77	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Sweden	SWE	9	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
United Kingdom	GBR	25	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
United States	USA	37	Shaded	Pew Research Center (2025), "Decline of Christianity in the U.S. Has Slowed, May Have Leveled Off" (2023-24 Religious Landscape Study)
Bangladesh	BGD		Surveyed, no Christian figure reported	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
India	IND		Surveyed, no Christian figure reported	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Indonesia	IDN		Surveyed, no Christian figure reported	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Israel	ISR		Surveyed, no Christian figure reported	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Japan	JPN		Surveyed, no Christian figure reported	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Malaysia	MYS		Surveyed, no Christian figure reported	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Thailand	THA		Surveyed, no Christian figure reported	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Tunisia	TUN		Surveyed, no Christian figure reported	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release
Turkey	TUR		Surveyed, no Christian figure reported	Pew Research Center (2025), Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey topline, May 6, 2025 release

Figure 13. Five statements about Christ, the gospel and the Bible in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, 2025 and 2026

The share affirming each of five State of Theology statements, by disagreeing with the first and agreeing with the other four, among all adults, adults who name a Christian tradition, adults who attend church at least monthly, and adults who do both. The statements are “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.”, “Biblical accounts of the physical (bodily) resurrection of Jesus are completely accurate. This event actually occurred.”, “God counts a person as righteous not because of one’s works but only because of one’s faith in Jesus Christ.”, “The Bible is 100% accurate in all that it teaches.” and “Only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their Savior receive God’s free gift of eternal salvation.”

What to notice: In every country the share affirming each statement is higher among adults who name a Christian tradition than among all adults, and higher again among those who also attend monthly, with one exception: the deity statement in the United Kingdom stands at 23 percent both among all adults and among those who name a Christian tradition. Among those who name a Christian tradition and attend monthly, 93 percent in the United States, 87 in Canada and 78 in the United Kingdom affirm the resurrection statement, and 59, 46 and 50 percent reject “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God”.

Divided by: The adults in each group, in each country.

Caveats:

• Online panels weighted to each country's adults: 3,001 American adults in January 2025, 3,005 Canadian adults in October 2025, and 5,177 UK adults in January 2026, including 1,000 extra interviews with practising Christians, which the weighting scales back to their share of adults.
• Each figure adds the strongly and somewhat answers the site's explorer displays for that group; the white papers round their own totals, which can differ by a point.
• Naming a Christian tradition means giving a church affiliation the survey files under one of its Christian traditions, four in the United States and three each in Canada and the United Kingdom. Christians filed under Other are left out, and in the United Kingdom the Other Denominations option also holds people of other religions and none.
• In the United Kingdom attendance was asked only of people who identify as Christian.
• The first statement joins two claims, that Jesus was a great teacher and that he was not God. Someone who denies either half can reject it, and someone who holds that Jesus is God may still agree because of the first half, so its answers read less cleanly than the other four. In the United States and Canada the fifth statement offered no not sure answer; in the United Kingdom it did, and 37 percent of UK adults chose it.
• The site also shows each tradition on its own. Those groups are not drawn, because the statements are applied to respondents of every tradition alike.
• Every answer is what the respondent said.

Percent affirming each statement, by group

Country	Statement	Answer counted	All adults (%)	Adults who name a Christian tradition (%)	Adults who attend church at least monthly (%)	Adults who name a Christian tradition and attend church at least monthly (%)
United States	Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.	Strongly or somewhat disagree	40	50	54	59
United States	Biblical accounts of the physical (bodily) resurrection of Jesus are completely accurate. This event actually occurred.	Strongly or somewhat agree	65	84	90	93
United States	God counts a person as righteous not because of one’s works but only because of one’s faith in Jesus Christ.	Strongly or somewhat agree	56	69	77	80
United States	The Bible is 100% accurate in all that it teaches.	Strongly or somewhat agree	49	66	76	78
United States	Only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their Savior receive God’s free gift of eternal salvation.	Strongly or somewhat agree	57	75	81	84
Canada	Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.	Strongly or somewhat disagree	26	33	36	46
Canada	Biblical accounts of the physical (bodily) resurrection of Jesus are completely accurate. This event actually occurred.	Strongly or somewhat agree	48	68	78	87
Canada	God counts a person as righteous not because of one’s works but only because of one’s faith in Jesus Christ.	Strongly or somewhat agree	43	59	68	76
Canada	The Bible is 100% accurate in all that it teaches.	Strongly or somewhat agree	37	52	66	72
Canada	Only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their Savior receive God’s free gift of eternal salvation.	Strongly or somewhat agree	40	55	70	76
United Kingdom	Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.	Strongly or somewhat disagree	23	23	50	50
United Kingdom	Biblical accounts of the physical (bodily) resurrection of Jesus are completely accurate. This event actually occurred.	Strongly or somewhat agree	23	40	79	78
United Kingdom	God counts a person as righteous not because of one’s works but only because of one’s faith in Jesus Christ.	Strongly or somewhat agree	21	34	63	63
United Kingdom	The Bible is 100% accurate in all that it teaches.	Strongly or somewhat agree	14	24	58	57
United Kingdom	Only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their Saviour receive God’s free gift of eternal salvation.	Strongly or somewhat agree	16	27	64	64

The three surveys

Country	Survey	Research firm	Fieldwork	Adults surveyed	Mode	Sources
United States	The State of Theology 2025	Lifeway Research	January 6 to 15, 2025	3,001	online panel	Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research (2025), "The State of Theology 2025" white paper; Lifeway Research (2025), "The State of Theology 2025" report, commissioned by Ligonier Ministries; Ligonier Ministries, thestateoftheology.com, United States 2025: key findings and data explorer
Canada	The State of Theology Canada	Lifeway Research	October 16 to 30, 2025	3,005	online panel	Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research (2026), "The State of Theology Canada" white paper (the 2025 study); Lifeway Research (2026), "The State of Theology Canada" report, commissioned by Ligonier Ministries; Ligonier Ministries, thestateoftheology.com, Canada: key findings and data explorer (labelled CA 2026)
United Kingdom	The State of Theology UK 2026	Whitestone Insight	January 23 to 27, 2026	5,177	online panel	Ligonier Ministries, thestateoftheology.com, United Kingdom 2026: key findings and data explorer; Ligonier Ministries (2026), "The State of Theology: UK Results Now Available"

Each group as the site's data explorer filters it

Country	Group	Explorer filter	Source
United States	All adults	no filter (all groups show "All")	Ligonier Ministries, thestateoftheology.com, United States 2025: key findings and data explorer
United States	Adults who name a Christian tradition	AFFILIATION = Evangelical, Black Protestant, Mainline, Roman Catholic	Ligonier Ministries, thestateoftheology.com, United States 2025: key findings and data explorer
United States	Adults who attend church at least monthly	CHURCH ATTENDANCE = Several Times a Week, Once a Week, Once to Twice a Month	Ligonier Ministries, thestateoftheology.com, United States 2025: key findings and data explorer
United States	Adults who name a Christian tradition and attend church at least monthly	AFFILIATION = Evangelical, Black Protestant, Mainline, Roman Catholic; CHURCH ATTENDANCE = Several Times a Week, Once a Week, Once to Twice a Month	Ligonier Ministries, thestateoftheology.com, United States 2025: key findings and data explorer
Canada	All adults	no filter (all groups show "All")	Ligonier Ministries, thestateoftheology.com, Canada: key findings and data explorer (labelled CA 2026)
Canada	Adults who name a Christian tradition	AFFILIATION = Evangelical, Mainline, Roman Catholic	Ligonier Ministries, thestateoftheology.com, Canada: key findings and data explorer (labelled CA 2026)
Canada	Adults who attend church at least monthly	CHURCH ATTENDANCE = At Least Once a Week, Once to Twice a Month	Ligonier Ministries, thestateoftheology.com, Canada: key findings and data explorer (labelled CA 2026)
Canada	Adults who name a Christian tradition and attend church at least monthly	AFFILIATION = Evangelical, Mainline, Roman Catholic; CHURCH ATTENDANCE = At Least Once a Week, Once to Twice a Month	Ligonier Ministries, thestateoftheology.com, Canada: key findings and data explorer (labelled CA 2026)
United Kingdom	All adults	no filter (all groups show "All")	Ligonier Ministries, thestateoftheology.com, United Kingdom 2026: key findings and data explorer
United Kingdom	Adults who name a Christian tradition	AFFILIATION = Anglican, Other Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox	Ligonier Ministries, thestateoftheology.com, United Kingdom 2026: key findings and data explorer
United Kingdom	Adults who attend church at least monthly	CHURCH ATTENDANCE = Several Times a Week, Once a Week, Every Month	Ligonier Ministries, thestateoftheology.com, United Kingdom 2026: key findings and data explorer
United Kingdom	Adults who name a Christian tradition and attend church at least monthly	AFFILIATION = Anglican, Other Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox; CHURCH ATTENDANCE = Several Times a Week, Once a Week, Every Month	Ligonier Ministries, thestateoftheology.com, United Kingdom 2026: key findings and data explorer

United States: Naming a Christian tradition here means giving a church affiliation the survey files under one of the site's four Christian traditions: Evangelical, Black Protestant, Mainline or Roman Catholic. Christians the survey files under Other are left out. Regions are the four census regions.

Canada: Naming a Christian tradition here means giving a church affiliation the survey files under one of the site's three Christian traditions: Evangelical, Mainline or Roman Catholic. Christians the survey files under Other are left out. The site labels this survey CA 2026; the fieldwork was in 2025.

United Kingdom: Naming a Christian tradition here means giving an affiliation the survey files under Anglican, Other Protestant, or Roman Catholic and Orthodox. The site's Other Denominations option also holds people of other religions and of none, so it is left out, and Christians of other traditions with it. Attendance was asked only of respondents who identify as Christian, so the monthly base is in effect Christians who attend monthly. The 1,000 extra interviews with practising Christians raise the unweighted counts the site shows for Christian filters; the shares are weighted back to all UK adults. Regions are the four nations. A 2018 UK survey asked a different statement about Christ's deity and is not used here.

United States, all adults, in each round the source prints. Statement: The bodily resurrection occurred. Source: Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research (2025), "The State of Theology 2025" white paper, page 9

Year	Affirming (%)
2014	68
2016	64
2018	66
2020	66
2022	66
2025	65

The site also displays each tradition on its own and a group Lifeway defines by four evangelical beliefs. Both are left out here: the five statements are applied to respondents of every tradition alike, and the belief-defined group is chosen partly by the fifth statement, so its agreement with that one is complete by construction.

Figure 14. Three nested steps, from all adults to churchgoers who name a Christian tradition, 2025 and 2026

The five State of Theology statements at three nested steps in each country: all adults; those who name a Christian tradition; and those of them who attend church at least monthly. Each step keeps the people of the step before who meet one more condition, and the chart draws the share affirming each statement at each step, never the size of a step.

What to notice: The largest rise at any step is in the United Kingdom in 2026, where affirming the resurrection statement goes from 40 percent of adults who name a Christian tradition to 78 percent of those who also attend monthly. The same step moves it from 68 to 87 percent in Canada and from 84 to 93 percent in the United States, both in 2025.

Divided by: The adults at each step, in each country.

Caveats:

• How large each step is, as a share of adults, is published nowhere for these surveys, so the chart draws rates only.
• The share affirming all five statements at once is not published.
• Each rate adds the strongly and somewhat answers the explorer displays for that combination of filters.
• Attendance is what respondents said about themselves, and in the United Kingdom it was asked only of people who identify as Christian.
• No step is the visible saints of the Second London Confession, and none counts the remnant: the survey measures no conduct, and the church of the elect is known to God.

Percent affirming each statement at each step. Each step keeps the people of the step before who meet one more condition; the size of a step is not published, so none is given.

Country	Statement	Step 1: All adults (%)	Step 2: Adults who name a Christian tradition (%)	Step 3: Adults who name a Christian tradition and attend church at least monthly (%)
United States	Rejects “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God”	40	50	59
United States	The bodily resurrection occurred	65	84	93
United States	Righteous by faith, not works	56	69	80
United States	The Bible is 100% accurate	49	66	78
United States	Salvation only through trust in Christ	57	75	84
Canada	Rejects “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God”	26	33	46
Canada	The bodily resurrection occurred	48	68	87
Canada	Righteous by faith, not works	43	59	76
Canada	The Bible is 100% accurate	37	52	72
Canada	Salvation only through trust in Christ	40	55	76
United Kingdom	Rejects “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God”	23	23	50
United Kingdom	The bodily resurrection occurred	23	40	78
United Kingdom	Righteous by faith, not works	21	34	63
United Kingdom	The Bible is 100% accurate	14	24	57
United Kingdom	Salvation only through trust in Christ	16	27	64

Each step keeps the respondents of the step before who also meet one more condition: all adults, then those who name a Christian tradition, then those of them who attend church at least monthly. The explorer displays every statement's answers at each step, so the rates are published. How large each step is as a share of adults is published nowhere for these surveys, and neither is the share affirming all five statements at once, so nothing here draws either.

Figure 15. What Christians said about salvation in three Pew surveys, 2006 to 2017

Three Pew items put to Christians, each drawn as its own group because the wording, the year and the countries differ. In ten countries in 2006: “Belief in Jesus Christ is the only way to be saved from eternal damnation”, completely agree, with completely or mostly agree beside it. In 16 sub-Saharan countries in 2008-09: choosing “My religion is the one, true faith leading to eternal life” over “Many religions can lead to eternal life”. In 15 Western European countries in 2017: choosing “Faith in God is the ONLY thing that gets people into heaven” over “BOTH good deeds AND faith in God are necessary to get into heaven”.

What to notice: In 2006, 80 percent of Christians in Nigeria completely agreed that belief in Jesus Christ is the only way to be saved, and 33 percent in South Korea, where a further 45 percent mostly agreed. Among Christians in 16 sub-Saharan countries in 2008-09, the share choosing the one true faith statement runs from 81 percent in Ethiopia to 21 percent in Cameroon; among Christians in 15 Western European countries in 2017, the share choosing “Faith in God is the ONLY thing” runs from 48 percent in Norway to 17 percent in Spain.

Divided by: Christians surveyed in each country.

Caveats:

• The three items ask different things and are never combined: the 2006 item names Christ, the 2008-09 item asks about the respondent's own religion, and the 2017 item says faith in God, not faith in Christ.
• In Kenya 96 percent of Christians agreed completely or mostly with the 2006 item, and 42 percent of a different sample chose the 2008-09 statement, which asked about their own religion and offered two statements to choose between.
• The 2006 samples in Brazil, South Africa and South Korea were drawn disproportionately from cities, and India's covered only disproportionately Christian districts of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Meghalaya; Pew says it represents neither India nor those states.
• Fieldwork ran from May to September 2006; from December 2008 to April 2009, face to face; and from April to August 2017, by telephone.
• Pew prints no total of the Christians interviewed in each Western European country, only the counts of church-attending Christians (at least monthly, as Pew defines them) and non-practicing Christians (less often) that make them up.
• Every answer is what the respondent said about his own belief.

2006, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2006), "Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals", final topline. Base: Christians. Wording: Now I am going to read you another series of statements on some different topics. For each one, please tell me if you completely agree with it, mostly agree with it, mostly disagree with it, or completely disagree with it. Belief in Jesus Christ is the only way to be saved from eternal damnation. Printed at Q20d, topline page 152.

Country	Completely agree (%)	Completely agree or mostly agree (%)	Christians interviewed	Sample	Source	Note
Brazil	62	80	553	disproportionately urban	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2006), "Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals", final topline	Pew describes this country's sample as disproportionately urban, not national.
Chile	43	68	493	national	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2006), "Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals", final topline
Guatemala	71	89	851	national	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2006), "Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals", final topline
India	76	90	258	Christian districts of three states	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2006), "Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals", final topline	Not a national figure. Pew surveyed only disproportionately Christian districts of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Meghalaya, and says the survey represents neither India nor those three states.
Kenya	77	96	587	national	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2006), "Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals", final topline
Nigeria	80	95	394	national	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2006), "Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals", final topline
Philippines	66	89	964	national	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2006), "Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals", final topline
South Africa	57	86	634	disproportionately urban	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2006), "Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals", final topline	Pew describes this country's sample as disproportionately urban, not national.
South Korea	33	78	211	disproportionately urban	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2006), "Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals", final topline	Pew describes this country's sample as disproportionately urban, not national.
United States	54	74	594	national	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2006), "Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals", final topline

Completely agree or mostly agree (%): The sum of the topline's completely agree and mostly agree categories.

Asked of respondents who identified themselves as Christian. Pew oversampled pentecostals and charismatics, but those extra interviews are not in these general-public figures.

2008-09, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2010), "Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa". Base: Christians. Wording: My religion is the one, true faith leading to eternal life, OR Many religions can lead to eternal life. Printed at Q59a, topline page 193.

Country	Chose “My religion is the one, true faith leading to eternal life” (%)	Chose “Many religions can lead to eternal life” (%)	Christians interviewed	Source	Note
Botswana	48	49	868	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2010), "Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa"
Cameroon	21	77	1,209	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2010), "Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa"
Chad	31	68	592	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2010), "Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa"
DR Congo	39	45	1,209	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2010), "Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa"
Ethiopia	81	17	1,037	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2010), "Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa"
Ghana	77	20	1,148	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2010), "Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa"
Guinea-Bissau	54	34	619	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2010), "Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa"
Kenya	42	54	1,154	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2010), "Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa"
Liberia	76	17	1,040	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2010), "Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa"
Mozambique	52	42	942	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2010), "Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa"
Nigeria	79	18	678	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2010), "Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa"
Rwanda	29	62	925	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2010), "Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa"
South Africa	51	45	1,309	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2010), "Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa"
Tanzania	53	44	907	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2010), "Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa"
Uganda	49	46	711	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2010), "Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa"
Zambia	61	37	976	Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2010), "Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa"

Respondents chose which of two statements came closer to their own view. The item asks about the respondent's religion and does not name Christ. In the three countries both surveys cover, fewer Christians chose it than agreed with the Spirit and Power item in 2006 (completely or mostly): Kenya 42 against 96, Nigeria 79 against 95, South Africa 51 against 86.

2017, Pew Research Center (2017), "Five Centuries After Reformation, Catholic-Protestant Divide in Western Europe Has Faded", topline. Base: Christians. Wording: Please tell me whether the FIRST statement or the SECOND statement comes closer to your own views ‐ even if it does not precisely match your opinion. Printed at Q30, Total row (all Christians), topline page 5.

Country	Chose “Faith in God is the ONLY thing that gets people into heaven” (%)	Chose “BOTH good deeds AND faith in God are necessary to get into heaven” (%)	Church-attending Christians interviewed	Non-practicing Christians interviewed	Source	Note
Austria	21	60	419	965	Pew Research Center (2017), "Five Centuries After Reformation, Catholic-Protestant Divide in Western Europe Has Faded", topline
Belgium	19	54	153	682	Pew Research Center (2017), "Five Centuries After Reformation, Catholic-Protestant Divide in Western Europe Has Faded", topline
Denmark	27	45	192	832	Pew Research Center (2017), "Five Centuries After Reformation, Catholic-Protestant Divide in Western Europe Has Faded", topline
Finland	35	47	174	1,009	Pew Research Center (2017), "Five Centuries After Reformation, Catholic-Protestant Divide in Western Europe Has Faded", topline
France	30	50	336	848	Pew Research Center (2017), "Five Centuries After Reformation, Catholic-Protestant Divide in Western Europe Has Faded", topline
Germany	24	60	417	1,113	Pew Research Center (2017), "Five Centuries After Reformation, Catholic-Protestant Divide in Western Europe Has Faded", topline
Ireland	30	58	447	761	Pew Research Center (2017), "Five Centuries After Reformation, Catholic-Protestant Divide in Western Europe Has Faded", topline
Italy	26	61	631	807	Pew Research Center (2017), "Five Centuries After Reformation, Catholic-Protestant Divide in Western Europe Has Faded", topline
Netherlands	24	56	241	409	Pew Research Center (2017), "Five Centuries After Reformation, Catholic-Protestant Divide in Western Europe Has Faded", topline
Norway	48	32	241	572	Pew Research Center (2017), "Five Centuries After Reformation, Catholic-Protestant Divide in Western Europe Has Faded", topline
Portugal	22	62	478	708	Pew Research Center (2017), "Five Centuries After Reformation, Catholic-Protestant Divide in Western Europe Has Faded", topline
Spain	17	64	323	642	Pew Research Center (2017), "Five Centuries After Reformation, Catholic-Protestant Divide in Western Europe Has Faded", topline
Sweden	18	48	149	663	Pew Research Center (2017), "Five Centuries After Reformation, Catholic-Protestant Divide in Western Europe Has Faded", topline
Switzerland	33	54	409	867	Pew Research Center (2017), "Five Centuries After Reformation, Catholic-Protestant Divide in Western Europe Has Faded", topline
United Kingdom	29	57	306	973	Pew Research Center (2017), "Five Centuries After Reformation, Catholic-Protestant Divide in Western Europe Has Faded", topline

Pew prints no total of the Christians interviewed in each country; the counts shown are the ones it prints (Margins of error and sample sizes, Being Christian in Western Europe page 165).

Asked of Christians only, so the topline's Total row is all Christians. The statement says faith in God, not faith in Christ. The item is in the Reformation topline; Being Christian in Western Europe, reporting the same survey with improved weights, does not print it.

Pew Research Center bears no responsibility for the analyses or interpretations of the data presented here. The opinions expressed herein, including any implications for policy, are those of the author and not of Pew Research Center.

The State of Theology is a survey of Ligonier Ministries (thestateoftheology.com). Its figures are cited here as Ligonier and its research firms, Lifeway Research and Whitestone Insight, published them.

Where these numbers appear in the History course

Five slides in the History course carry growth figures, one in Class 1 and four in Class 13. Three are charts drawn to scale from the data behind this page, and each carries its denominator: the Roman chart divides Stark's model by an empire of 60 million and by the world, and the two Class 13 charts set each count against the people alive, in the world and on each continent. The Center of Gravity plate divides by all Christians, and the teaching map by each country's people. Each is paired with the figure here that covers the same ground. The Class 1 era panel's 1.1 million Christians in 250 and 6 million in 300 are Hopkins's rounding of Stark's model, about 2 and 10 percent of a 60-million empire.

• Class 1, figure 3: The early estimates side by side, with the world beside the empire. The slide's bars are Stark's model from AD 100 to 350, as a share of an empire of 60 million and of the world, with the world's population under each year. The bars for 350 are striped because they fall after 315, the last year Stark checked the model against a record. A gold band on the 350 empire bar marks about 15 to 16 percent, from Ehrman's rates and Lucero's curve as computed here, and figure 3 sets the other estimates beside Stark's.
• Class 13, figure 5: The same continents with their populations. The slide draws Gordon-Conwell's 2025 edition for 1900 and 2020: each continent's Christians in millions above each bar, and the share of its people who were Christian below it. Figure 5 runs to 2025 from the same edition and draws each continent's whole population beside its Christians.
• Class 13, figure 2: The same share from AD 70 to 2025. The slide draws Gordon-Conwell's counts for 1900, 2000 and 2020 to scale inside the world's population, about a third of it in each year. Figure 1 draws both counts from AD 70 to 2025, and figure 2 divides one by the other.
• Class 13, figure 8: Country by country, 1900 and 2015. The slide's map is a Wikimedia Commons map credited to Pew Research Center data, headed 2008 data and credited 2010. Figure 8 shades countries by RCS-Dem's figures for 1900 and 2015, which differ from Pew's most in parts of southern Africa.
• Class 13, figure 6: Where the world's Christians lived, by continent, 1900 to 2025. The plate follows Pew's 2011 report, a century ago against 2010, and is marked Proportions illustrative. Figure 6 draws the same measure, each continent's share of all Christians, from Gordon-Conwell's counts for 1900 to 2025.

Was the empire Christian by 350?

At 350 Ehrman's rates and Lucero's curve, computed here, put Christians near a sixth of the Roman Empire; the majority figure comes only from Stark's steady-rate model. By 400 the figures for the empire run from 43.5 to 50 percent, all tracing to one anchor, and before 400 no total was counted.

The strongest version of the other side

Rodney Stark's model, the one that gives a majority at 350, is also the one tested against a record: its percentages rose with the share of Christian names in Egyptian papyri from 239 to 315, and Stark calls his projections very plausible through 350. Set beside the same papyri, Ehrman's rates and Lucero's curve, computed here, give about 7 percent for 313, against Stark's 16.2 and Bagnall's 18 for Egypt. Bart Ehrman's 30 million for 400 is an anchor, which Jorge Lucero calls the accepted estimate of half the empire, and Lucero's curve was fitted to it, so the two agree because one rests on the other.

What the evidence supports

The papyri test ends at 315 and covers one province, and Harnack puts Egypt in his second class, above most provinces, so a match there may run high for the empire as a whole; nothing checks any model at 350. The figures for 400 share one anchor, Ehrman's 30 million, and a map-maker's transcription of David Barrett and Todd Johnson, choosing the lowest figures he found, has 25.3 million Christians in the whole world by 400, about 42 percent of the empire even if all of them lived inside it. Every estimate agrees that Christians were well short of half the empire in 300: the highest, von Hertling's 15 million, is a quarter of it, and Harnack's judgment province by province puts the thickest Christian regions in and around Asia Minor and the fewest in inland and northern Gaul, the Rhine and Alpine provinces and Piedmont.

Are professing Christians a larger share of the world than ever?

Professing Christians have been about a third of the world since 1900: about 34 percent in 1900 and about 32 percent in 2025, on Gordon-Conwell's count.

The strongest version of the other side

The share has not grown in 125 years. Christians multiplied more than four and a half times between 1900 and 2025 while the world multiplied about five times, so professing Christians kept roughly level and slipped a little. On Pew's count, which takes only those who name themselves Christian, the share fell from 30.6 to 28.8 percent between 2010 and 2020 alone.

What the evidence supports

Held against the whole span, a third of the world is the highest level on the chart. From 500 to 1500, on the one reconstruction that covers those centuries, Christians were about 13 to 18 percent of humanity, and about a fifth in 1700 and 1800. Those medieval shares lean low, since they divide the lowest Christian totals available by HYDE, the highest world series for most of those centuries, and even on McEvedy and Jones's lower world figures the share at 1300 would be only about 23 percent. The rise to a third came between 1800 and 1900, and the share has held there while the world's population grew about five times.

Did the Christian center move south?

In 1900 about two in three professing Christians lived in Europe; by 2025 about one in five did, and more lived in Africa than on any other continent, on Gordon-Conwell's count. Within Africa the share went from about one person in ten to about one in two.

The strongest version of the other side

The start of that change was never counted. The 1900 figures are reconstructions, their denominators had to come from a different dataset than the counts, and the 2025 figures are projected from trend. Pew's own counts cover only 2010 to 2020, when its sub-Saharan share barely moved, from 61.7 to 62.0 percent. The counters also disagree on how far: Pew puts Northern America at 62.9 percent in 2020, nearly ten points below Gordon-Conwell.

What the evidence supports

Pew's census and survey figures, built separately from Gordon-Conwell's, put sub-Saharan Africa at 62 percent Christian in 2020 and Europe at 67.1, so a Christian majority south of the Sahara and a falling share in Europe are not one counter's result. RCS-Dem, which pools several dozen sources with Barrett's World Christian Encyclopedia among them, shows the same direction from 1900: Africa from 8.8 percent to 48.0 in 2015, Europe from 94.1 to 66.0. Pew's 1910 figure of 9.1 percent for sub-Saharan Africa is its own reading of Gordon-Conwell's data, so it confirms the arithmetic rather than the count.

Does a count measure the remnant?

A count of Christians measures profession: church membership, people naming their own religion, or a scholar's estimate of both. Who among them belongs to the remnant God alone knows.

The strongest version of the other side

Scripture itself keeps count: Luke records about three thousand souls added at Pentecost and the number of the men who believed at about five thousand soon after (Acts 2:41; 4:4). He also says who did the adding: “the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved” (Acts 2:47). If the apostles' own historian counted the church and credited the Lord with its growth, it is hard to say that a tally tells a reader nothing about the work of God.

What the evidence supports

Luke's first tally counted people baptized, and his own book shows what such a count can hold: Simon the sorcerer believed and was baptized and was still “in the gall of bitterness” (Acts 8:13; 8:23). Luke could say the Lord added; the counters on this page can report who was baptized or who names Christ, but not which of them the Lord added. Paul wrote of “a remnant according to the election of grace” (Romans 11:5), and John saw “a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations” (Revelation 7:9).

If the counters disagree, can any of them be trusted?

Modern counts of Christians differ by stated definitions and by method, and each is corrected as censuses, surveys and later editions come in; the oldest estimates have one partial check, papyri from one province, and otherwise only their own starting points.

The strongest version of the other side

For 2020 Gordon-Conwell counts about 2.52 billion Christians and Pew about 2.27 billion, a difference of about 250 million people. Gordon-Conwell's tables have printed five different world totals for 1970 across seven editions, and Pew lowered its own 2010 figure by about 37 million between two reports, its Asia-Pacific figure alone by about 32 million.

What the evidence supports

Part of the gap follows the definitions. Gordon-Conwell counts church members of every tradition plus Christians who belong to no church, including those who hold the faith in hiding; Pew counts those who name Christianity in a census or survey; RCS-Dem pools several dozen sources. Another part is method: Pew no longer adjusts for Christians in China and India who may not report their faith. Where one is wrong, the next census or edition can show it, and most revisions on record are small and run both ways: about 7 million up for Africa in 2020 and about 7 million down for Europe.

Were the churches of Asia and Africa always small?

Around 1000 the churches of Asia and Africa held nearly as many Christians as Europe: Philip Jenkins puts Asia at 17 to 20 million and Africa at about 5 million, against 25 to 30 million in Europe. By 1500, on Barrett's estimate as Jenkins reports it, Africa and Asia held about 6 percent of the world's Christians.

The strongest version of the other side

Jenkins takes his figures for Asia and Africa from Barrett's World Christian Encyclopedia of 1982, and his figure for Europe around 1000 is his own reasoning. The Barrett and Johnson line for the same centuries comes from the same work of reconstruction, read here only in a map-maker's transcription. No census, register or independent estimate exists to check them.

What the evidence supports

The direction does not rest on Barrett's table alone. Asia Minor, where the seven churches of Revelation stood, had 373 bishops' seats in 1050 and a population that was virtually all Christian; about 1450 it had three bishops, and Jenkins puts Christians there at 10 to 15 percent. The bishops' seats come from Speros Vryonis's history of the region, not from Barrett. On Barrett's figures Asia's Christians fell from about 21 million in 1200 to about 3.4 million in 1500, and Jenkins judges the real fall was probably sharper.

Can a survey find the remnant?

A survey can show, country by country, what share of the people who call themselves Christians report going to church and praying, and what share affirm set statements about Christ and the gospel. Who among them belongs to the remnant is known to God: “The Lord knoweth them that are his” (2 Timothy 2:19).

The strongest version of the other side

The Second London Confession itself sets visible tests. Chapter 26.2 calls visible saints those professing the faith of the gospel and obedience to God by Christ, who have not destroyed that profession by errors that overturn the foundation or by an unholy manner of life, and Jesus said, “by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:20). A survey that asks whether people go to church and pray, and whether they hold that Christ rose bodily and that God counts a person righteous only by faith in Christ, applies some of those tests, so its narrowest layer can look like the closest estimate of the remnant anyone could make.

What the evidence supports

The confession gives those tests to congregations judging people they know, members who show their obedience “in and by their profession and walking” (26.6), and it calls the church of the elect invisible “with respect to the internal work of the Spirit” (26.1). A survey puts fixed sentences to strangers, and nothing in it measures the holiness of life that 26.2 names. Its narrowest published layer also depends on which statement is asked: among American adults who name a Christian tradition and attend church at least monthly, in 2025, 93 percent affirmed the resurrection statement and 59 percent rejected “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God”.