Sourced from the World Christian Atlas at the launch presentation by Todd Johnson at Payap University:
- The majority of Christianity is shifting to the 'global south'- the continents of Africa and Asia
- A 1/3rd of the world has been Christian for the last 100 years. But in 1910 80% of them were American or European- meaning that Christianity was majority Western. 1910 was a very optimistic time as people expected life to get better and technology to solve world problems. Then the World Wars happened and the Great Depression and disillusionment grew. Now in 2010, Westerners count for only 40% of Christians. However, thanks to early Missionaries, Christianity has become associated with Western culture even though it's a minority.
- The statistical centre of Christianity is in Mali, Africa.
- In 1910, only 1 southern country, Brazil was in the top 10 countries for having a majority Christian population, today 7 of the top 10 are southern countries.
- Top 5 mother tongues (the language you speak from birth) of the world today- Spanish first, then English, Portugese, Russian, Mandarin.
- 60% of the worlds Christians living in the south count for 17% of church wealth. That means wealth in the church is very unevenly spread.
- 86% of Christian evangelism is done in areas already Christian.
- Trends in Christianity today are Secularisation (old churches being renovated into condos) and Spiritualisation (faith without reason).
- Christianity in the West suffers an image problem. It is not attractive.- a quote from Moong Jeng Lee
- The shift of Christianity from north to south happened when missionaries were forced to leave southern mission fields and local churches stepped up to the plate. an example of this is China, where the house-church movement exploded after all foreigners were expelled from the country. Also at the same time Europe and America were becoming more secular.
- Only of 14% Muslims actually know a Christian personally. A slight problem for incarnational ministry in the style that Jesus preferred.
- However the most responsive people to Christianity come from majority non-christian areas.
- Most of the world are Muslims or Christians. In Asia, the Phillipines is the only majority Christian.
- Over the last 100 years in Asia, folk religion has been dying out but Islam and agnosticism is rising. In Asia most of the Christians are in the Phillipines, Indonesia and then Vietnam.
- As Christianity is no longer a Western dominated religion demographically the question is is: "Is christianity going to be like Mangoes or bananas?"
Bananas are yellow on the outside, white on the inside. Mangoes are yellow on the outside and yellow inside.
