Sub-Saharan African Christianity
By Peter Brierley, Church of England Newspaper.
The latest joint editing venture by Professors Kenneth Ross OBE and Todd Johnson is a 10-volume projected series covering every country in the world with associated statistical data, the first of which was published in 2017 (retailing at £150), by Edinburgh University Press, entitled Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa…. The 560-page book is in four broad sections: a general introduction, a detailed description of Christianity in each individual country (data from the Global Christian Database held at the Gordon-Conwell University), essays on each of the major denominations and streams, and further essays on key topics emerging from African Christianity.
Overall the total population of Sub-Saharan [S-S] Africa has increased at the rate of +2.8 per cent per annum, exactly the same rate as the world population. Some of the countries are very small, and the major population changes occur of course in the largest countries. Seven countries account for almost three-fifths of Sub-Saharan Africa’s population (the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda), four of which are in the Eastern Region, accounting for 55 per cent of S-S Africa’s Christian population.
Almost a quarter, 24 per cent, of the world’s Christians were in S-S Africa in 2015. However, only 13 per cent of the world’s population is in Sub-Saharan Africa compared with the huge populations of India and China. So while 60 per cent of Sub-Saharans are Christian adherents, that is only true for 33 per cent of the world’s population, that is, there are almost twice as many Christian adherents in S-S Africa pro rata than in the rest of the world!
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