In our diverse world, we frequently interact with people from different cultures, worldviews, and religions.
As we seek to understand their belief systems in order to share the hope of Christ, we may be surprised at how complex the world’s religious panorama can be. Here are 10 things you might want to know about the religions of the world as you engage the people around you with the gospel.
1. Religion is fundamental to the human experience.
It is impossible to understand the world as it is unless we have some understanding of the world’s religions. For example, the tensions in the Middle East cannot be rightly understood and addressed without understanding the religious conflicts found there. Closer to home, global migration has brought many immigrants to our neighborhoods, along with their religions. As believers, we do not have the luxury of ignoring these neighbors, nor do we desire to ignore them; rather, we wish to reach out to them in light of God’s mission of redemption. Whether addressing matters in the realms of culture, worldview, politics, or business, it is important to consider the influence of religion.
2. Religions are tough to count.
The total number of religions found in the world can only be estimated, not counted. One of the difficulties in counting religions has to do with the definition of “religion.” For example, one might define religion as “the belief in a transcendent divine being.” But what does one do when faced with the ancient religion taught by Siddhartha Gautama, Theravada Buddhism, which does not affirm the reality of the divine? Seemingly, the only option is to revise one’s definition. But then, what happens when one discovers another “religion” that does not quite fit the revised definition? Thus, we confront the challenge of determining what will even be counted as a religion.
3. Five religious traditions make up most of the world’s population.
Though nearly 1.2 billion people worldwide remain nonreligious or atheist (roughly 16% of the world’s population) the vast majority adheres to a religious tradition. To be more precise, beyond the nonreligious, the World Population Review reports that 81% of the world’s population is divided among just five religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and folk religions.
- Christianity: 2.38 billion adherents, around 31% of the world’s population.
- Islam: 1.91 billion people, comprising 24% of people on earth.
- Hinduism: 1.16 billion adherents (mostly in India), representing 15% of people worldwide.
- Buddhism: 507 million people, or about 6% of people on the planet.
- Folk religions (often animist): 430 million people, or about 5% of the global population.
4. Different religions grow at different speeds.
The growth rates of the major global religions differ considerably. What are the current growth rates? The Pew Research Center plays out for us the projected changes over the next 25 years.
- Christianity is projected to increase by 31.5% to around 2.9 billion adherents by 2050.
- Largely due to higher birth rates among Muslims, Islam is expected to grow twice as fast as the overall global population, reaching nearly 2.8 billion by 2050. Consequently, Muslims would constitute about 30% of the world’s population.
- The number of religiously unaffiliated people around the world is projected to grow modestly, peaking at 1.2 billion in 2040. However, the overall global population is expected to increase at a much faster pace. As a result, the percentage of the world’s population that is religiously unaffiliated is expected to drop to just 13% by 2050.
- The number of Hindus around the world is projected to rise to nearly 1.4 billion by 2050. This increase will roughly keep pace with overall population growth. Therefore, Hindus will remain fairly stable as a share of the world’s population—about 15%—over the next 25 years.
- The number of Buddhists around the world is expected to increase until 2030, but then decline to about 486 million over the following 20 years. As a consequence of the rapid increase in the global population and the modest growth in the number of Buddhists, the percentage of the world’s population that is Buddhist is forecast at 5% in 2050.
- The total number of folk religionists is projected to increase by 5%.
5. The world’s religions are on the move.
Migration patterns are drastically changing the geographical locations of religions. The World Population Review reports that the US accounts for the largest foreign-born (immigrant) population of any country by far. Among all that these immigrants bring to their new lives, they certainly bring with them their religions. What opportunities we have, as we get to know our neighbors, to share the good news of the gospel with them!
6. The world’s religions are not monolithic.
Every religion has within it competing understandings of what it means to be a part of that tradition. No religion is perfectly consistent in its teachings and practices. Terms such as “cult” and “sect” are sometimes used to reference those who, while maintaining the name of the dominant religion, are seen as moving outside the parameters of accepted teaching and practice. In short, every religion has branches or groups that differ to some degree from others.
7. Not every religion affirms the existence of deity.
Most notably, among the major religions, the ancient Theravada Buddhism, taught by Siddhartha Gautama, had no reference to the divine. In animistic traditions, the supernatural is acknowledged, but people seek to appease or control the spirits and powers by various rituals and verbal formulae with little or no reference to a high god. Humanism, secularism, and communism—considered religions by many—also have no theistic element to them.
8. The world’s religions exhibit deep differences.
The religious traditions of the world, in their essences, are incompatible. The only way to achieve compatibility would be to change the essentials. In our current culture, it sounds so ungracious and intolerant to note this incompatibility, but no measure of political correctness can change this fact. For all religions to be compatible, they must become what they are not, arranged and massaged in the likeness of contemporary notions of tolerance.
9. Not all religions believe in an afterlife.
The teaching of an afterlife, in which a person continues to exist while possessing a conscious personality, is not a constant among the world’s religions. Christianity clearly affirms the continued existence of the individual, either in blessing or judgment. Islam has its own version of the afterlife. Hinduism posits a subsuming of the individual into Brahman. Buddhists are all over the map on this matter, but perhaps the dominant understanding of nirvana among them is that of non-existence or annihilation. Then, there are the animistic worldviews in which little consideration, if any, is given to an afterlife.
10. Among the major religions only Christianity’s founder is divine.
Uniquely among the founders of the major world religions, the founder of Christianity, Jesus of Nazareth, is seen as divine. Hinduism knows no singular founder of the religion. Siddhartha Gautama was not a god, rather, a man believed to have lived many lives, and in his last he found enlightenment. Muhammad is esteemed as a prophet through whom Allah spoke, but he himself was not divine. Adapting the often-used analogy of apples and oranges, one might say that Christianity is not merely a Red Delicious apple among many varieties of apples. Rather, Christianity is an apple while all other religions are oranges.
In 2010, the Pew Research Center estimated that there were 5.8 billion religiously affiliated adults and children around the globe, representing around 84% of the world’s population. To put it mildly, we live in an overwhelmingly religious world. Keeping these 10 things in mind will help us navigate our religious world as beacons of gospel truth.
