The World's Religions in Figures An Introduction to International Religious Demography

by Johnson, Todd M.; Grim, Brian J.

• ISBN13: 9780470674543
• ISBN10: 0470674547
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-06-10
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

Created by two of the field's leading experts, this unique introduction to international religious demography outlines the challenges in interpreting data on religious adherence, and presents a contemporary portrait of global religious belief. Offers the first comprehensive overview of the field of international religious demography detailing what we know about religious adherents around the world, and how we know it Examines religious freedom and diversity, including agnostics and atheists, on a global scale, highlighting trends over the past 100 years and projecting estimates for the year 2050 Outlines the issues and challenges related to definitions, taxonomies, sources, analyses, and other techniques in interpreting data on religious adherence Considers data from religious communities, censuses, surveys, and scholarly research, along with several in-depth case studies on the global Muslim population, religion in China, and the religious demography of recently created Sudan and South Sudan Argues against the belief that the twentieth-century was a 'secular' period by putting forward new evidence to the contrary Provides resources for measuring both qualitatively and quantitatively important data on the world's religious situation in the twenty-first century

Author Biography

Todd M. Johnson is Associate Professor of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and Director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity. He is Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs (CURA) at Boston University, where he co-edits the World Religion Database. Professor Johnson is the co-editor of the Atlas of Global Christianity (with Kenneth Ross, 2009) and co-author of World Christianity Encyclopedia, 2^nd Edition (with David Barrett and George Kurian, 2001) and World Christian Trends (with David Barrett, et al, 2001).  He is also the editor of the World Christian Database.

Brian J. Grim is Director of cross-national data and Senior Researcher in religion and world affairs at the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life in Washington, D.C. Dr Grim is also Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs at Boston University, where he co-edits the World Religion Database. He is co-author of The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Conflict in the 21^st Century (with Roger Finke, 2011).

Table of Contents

List of illustrations

Forward by Peter Berger

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part I: Overview

1. Global religious populations, 1910–2010

Religiously affiliated and unaffiliated

Christians

Muslims

Hindus

Agnostics

Chinese folk-religionists

Buddhists

Ethnoreligionists

Atheists

New Religionists

Sikhs

Jews

Spiritists

Daoists

Baha’is

Confucianists

Jains

Shintoists

Zoroastrians

2. Regional religious populations, 1910–2010

Africa

Asia

Europe

Latin America

Northern America

Oceania

3. Religious diversity

Diversity versus pluralism

Changes in religious diversity from 1910 to 2010

Method 1: Religious Diversity Index (RDI)

Method 2: Religious diversity by number of religions

Method 3: Religious diversity by size of population

Measuring the impact of size on diversity

Religious diversity in the United States

Globalization

Conclusion

4. Projecting religious populations, 2010–50

Methodology

Findings for the larger world religions

Christians

Muslims

Hindus

Buddhists

Agnostics/atheists

Research on the future of religion

Part II: Data and methods

5. Defining religion and religious identity

How many religions, and what religions, are world religions?

Defining world religions

Defining new religions

Defining folk religion

Doubly-affiliated religionists

Defining not “religion” but “a religion”

6. Religious demography as an emerging discipline

Demography as a growing field of study

Changes in methodology

Challenges, strengths, and weaknesses

Religious demography 

Popular writing on the future of religion

Positive developments in religious demography

Scholarly reflections on religious data

International coverage in religious demography

Innumeracy and religious demography

Religious demography and other disciplines

Religious demography and international relations

7. Major sources and collections of data

Censuses in which a religious question is asked

Censuses in which an ethnicity or language question is asked

Surveys and polls

Scholarly monographs

Religion statistics in yearbooks and handbooks

Governmental statistical reports

Questionnaires and reports from collaborators

Field surveys and interviews

Correspondence with national informants

Unpublished documentation

Encyclopedia, dictionaries, and directories of religions

Print and web-based contemporary descriptions of religions

Dissertations and theses on religion

Physical and electronic collections of data

8. Analyzing data on religion

International Religious Demography Data Quality Index

Census data

Other survey sources

World Religion Database (WRD)

?X Examples of other WRD sources

Reconciling discrepancies between data

9. Dynamics of change in religious populations

Births

Deaths

Births minus deaths/total fertility rate

Converts to

Converts from

Converts to minus converts from

Immigrants

Emigrants

Immigrants minus emigrants

Part III: Case studies

10. Estimating changes in the global Muslim population

Data

Baseline Muslim populations

Fertility

Age and sex structure

Life expectancy at birth

Migration: Important primarily in Europe and North America

Projection assumptions

Fertility assumptions

Mortality assumptions

Migration assumptions

The projected global Muslim population scenarios

Definition of Muslims

Differences between this study and the Pew Forum’s 2009 report

Historical data

Discussion of sources

United Nations and other international research agencies

Censuses

Demographic surveys

General population surveys

World Religion Database

A note on country and territory designation

Overview of the findings

Growing, but at a slower rate

Muslim-majority countries

Sunni and Shia Muslims

Other key findings of the study

Worldwide

Asia-Pacific

Middle East-North Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa

Europe

The Americas

11. Factors driving change in the global Muslim population

Main factors driving population growth

Fertility

Life expectancy at birth

Migration

Age structure

Related factors

Education

Economic well-being

Conversion

12. Estimating China’s religious populations

Overview

Reported religious affiliation in China according to surveys

Toward a more comprehensive count of religion

Chinese folk- or traditional religion

Buddhism and Taoism

Christianity

Background on the Chinese context

Chinese government estimates

Membership-based estimates

Independent survey estimates

Islam

Atheism

A comprehensive estimate of religious affiliation in China

Government officials interested in hearing about religion

13. Assessing religious populations in the Sudans

Religious demography of the North and South

14. Migration and religious diasporas

Religious diasporas

Host and sending countries

Peoples in diaspora

Religionists in diaspora

Migration as one component of religious change

Births minus deaths

Converts to minus converts from

Immigrants minus emigrants

Civility

Additional methodological notes

Conclusion

World religions by country table

Bibliography

Glossary

Index