How different will the world of 2050 be compared with today? We can’t know, but we can project some possibilities based on what is happening now. This can shape our prayers.
Some projections for 2050:
• One third of the world will still call itself ‘Christian.’
• Islam will grow fast (because of high birthrates) and will become almost the same size as the Christian community.
• Every other faith community – Hindus, Buddhists, followers of Chinese religions – will be a smaller slice of the population than today.
• The non-religious part of the world will also shrink because of low birthrates.
• There will the same number of under- 15s as there are today (around two billion), but over-60s will climb from under a billion today to more than two billion in 2050.
• Half the world lives in a city today; in 2050 that could be two-thirds.
• Four out of ten Christians will live in sub-Saharan Africa, and eight out of ten will be from the Global South. The growth or decline of a faith community is mostly due to birthrates and not
conversions.
How will the world be different in 2050? Apart from all the unknowable things (including plague or war or mass turnings to Christ) it looks like the Church should expect a world with many more Muslims, elderly people and city dwellers.
- Christ has been building his Church for 50 generations. Pray that in this coming generation the Church will grow wider and deeper than ever before.
No comments:
Post a Comment