African church growth
by Peter Brierley, Church of England Newspaper.
Half of the Christian growth across the world is in the continent of Africa! In 2018 the world had 2.5 billion Christian adherents, growing at the rate of 29 million people a year.
Africa had 630 million (25 per cent), growing at 14 million a year. Europe had almost as many – 570 million (23 per cent) – but only growing at 0.2 million a year and that largely because of all the immigrants arriving in that continent.
Asia had 420 million (17 per cent), growing at 7 million a year. The rest of the world had 890 million (35 per cent), growing at 8 million a year.
The obvious question is, “Why are there so many new Christians in Africa?”There is, at least in part, a threefold answer.
Africa still has a high fertility rate.In 2018 African women had 4.9 children each on average, while globally the figure is 2.5.Both figures have decreased quite drastically over the past 20 or 30 years, but the African rate is still twice as high as elsewhere.Consequently, as a result of gradually decreasing infant and child mortality rates due to slowly improving medical facilities and availability, many African children now survive to adulthood […]
[…] In a number of countries, traditional Christianity was accepted as a result of Western European colonisation and missionary work and has persisted and prospered in spite of radical political changes. Some 60 per cent of the African population say they are Christian (as when asked in a Census), against only 33 per cent globally. So Africa has almost twice as many Christians pro rata as elsewhere.
African Christianity is growing almost three times as fast as in the rest of the world. Between 1970 and 2015 African Christians grew at an average rate of +3.3 per cent per annum, while Christians across the rest of the world only grew at the rate of +1.2 per cent per annum.
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