Globally, Christianity faces different issues in different places. In Europe (including heavily colonized formerly British Australia, New Zealand and Canada), in the U.S., and in South Korea and much of Asia, trends away from religion entirely are the biggest issue. In Latin America, the Catholic-Protestant divide is more prominent as Protestantism eats away at Catholicism although secularism is an issue too.
In the Middle East, North Africa, and much of the rest of Asia, the conflict between Christianity and Islam is center stage (except in Israel with its Jewish-Muslim conflict taking center stage and Christianity taking something of a bystander role).
As an aside, Iran despite being formally a theocratic Shi'ite Islamic state, is actually quite religiously divided and has surging levels of irreligion. This is atypical in predominantly Islamic countries which tend to be dominantly Sunni Islamic and more religious on average, by far, than predominantly Christian or Jewish countries. I have less of a finger on the pulse of the Sunni Islamic world and its prospects, however, than the religious tendencies of other parts of the world (despite having considerably more factual knowledge about Sunni Islam and these regions than the vast majority of Americans, even those with college educations). Secular, communist trends in predominantly Islamic places like Turkey, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq seem to have reversed.
Christianity in the U.S.
The continued decline "market share" of Christianity in the United States in the coming decades seems highly likely. It may drop to less than 50%, if not by the end of my life, during my children's lifetime.
This is almost certain to persist because young people are much less likely to be Christianity adherents than older people, so as older people die, the share of Christians falls, even in the absence of deconversion.
This fall seems to be somewhat stalled in the last few years. But, there is a much lower tendency to convert to Christianity after leaving it than there is to deconvert from being a Christian. And, shifts in the percentage of people who follow a religion tend to follow a logistic curve, with the highest rate of change when the relative percentages of each category are most equal.
We also have the precedent of Europe which is much less religious than it was shortly after World War II. So, this is almost sure to continue.
Of course, some new religious movement, more adaptive to current conditions, could change the picture dramatically.
Further, in accordance with the maxim that religions that protect threatened cultures thrive. Part of why Christianity declined in Europe is that most of those countries had state established religions which were particularly aligned with the secure, establishment culture, with exceptions like Ireland, where Catholicism was protecting Irish culture from English Protestantism, and Poland, where Catholicism was protecting Polish culture from secularizing communism.
White Catholics are on a trajectory close to that of White Protestant with steady decline associated with age, while Hispanic Catholics are on a different, more religious track, mirroring the predominantly Catholic but emerging Pentecostal trend of Latin America, as the establishment Catholicism with no culture to protect in Latin America loses it's shine but does better in the U.S. where it is protected Latin American immigrant culture.
In another illustration of this tendency, in the U.S. (and in Europe) religion thrives among recent immigrants whose homeland culture is threatened by the very different culture of their new homes, but fades as waves of immigrants assimilate.
The U.S. is more religious than Europe, in part, because it has never had an established religion, which left religious denominations from becoming as establishment, and in part, because it has such high levels of foreign born people who have non-U.S. cultures that are threatened in the new homeland that religion can protect.
The stall in deconversion is also related to the extent to which the large coalition of subcultures at odds with the establishment which is the Southern/Appalachian/rural subculture that is associated with the Republican party has members who find themselves in deep distress as their members are two to four times less economically productive than the members of the American establishment that is currently associated with the Democratic party, which is distinguished by its embrace of science, its acceptance of racial and ethnic diversity, its feminism, its acceptance of LGBTQ people, its acceptance of alcohol and recreational drugs, its globalism, and its lack of a culture of honor.
Members of the Southern/Appalachian/rural coalition of cultures make up a third to half of the people in the United States. Its members are older than the rest of the U.S., whiter, less connected to the global economy, and more distrustful of science and education. One large share of them live in places that have very little racial, ethnic, religious, or immigrant sourced diversity. Another large share of them live in South and are deeply divided between conservative whites who identify as "American" and blacks who are the descendants of slaves and have not migrated to big cities who make up a large minority of the population.
Christianity in Asia
South Korea is one of most Christian nation in East Asia and Southeast, with about 23-31% who are Christian and about 60% who espouse no religion (historically classified by geographers and demographers as "Confucian" although younger generations may be less strictly Confucian than older generations).
Those only other countries in the region (and arguably these are Oceanian countries) with such a high percentage of Christians are East Timor which is 97% Roman Catholic (and 1% other Christian for a total of 98% Christian), the Philippines which is 79% Roman Catholic and 13% other Christian (for total of 92% Christian) with a notable Muslim minority.
Countries in East, Southeast and South Asia with smaller but significant Christian populations include Singapore which is 19% Christian (and about 31% Buddhist), the former territory of Hong Kong within China which is about 12% Christian, Indonesia which is about 11% Christian - about 8% Protestant and 3% Catholic (and 83% Sunni Islam), Brunei which is about 10% Christian (and 81% Sunni Islam), Malaysia which is about 9% Christian (and 63% Sunni Islam), the former territory of Macau within China which is about 9% Christian, Vietnam which is 8% Christian and 70% irreligious, Sri Lanka which is about 8% Christian and 70% Buddhist, Myanmar is 6% Christian and 89% Buddhist, Taiwan which is about 5% Christian and 35% Buddhist, China which is about 4% Christian and 65% irreligious, India which is about 2% Christian and 80% Hindu (with most of the rest split between irreligious people, Muslims, and a variety of other beliefs like Buddhism and Sikhism which originated there), Mongolia is about 2% Christian and 53% Tibetan Buddhist, Japan is about 2% Christian and about 77% a syncretic mix of folk Shinto and Buddhism. The rest of the region is less than 2% Christian.
Indonesia is a huge country with great regional variation, with Christianity being most common in Northern Borneo, West Papuan areas, and its smaller eastern islands, as well as regional pockets in its larger, eastern, predominantly Muslim islands (and with a notable Hindu enclave in Bali and a small Buddhist enclave in central Borneo).
Map from here.
In central Asia, Kazakhstan is 25% Christian and 70% Sunni Muslim, Turkmenistan is 9% Christian and 89% Sunni Muslim, Kyrgyzstan is 7% Christian and 86% Sunni Muslim, and Uzbekistan is 3% Christian and 90% Sunni Muslim.
Christianity in Africa
Islam is common in Africa in the Sahel, the Sahara, North Africa, and along much of its eastern coast.
Map from here.
But Christianity is flourishing and growing in sub-Saharan Africa, which was historically animist. Twenty-seven Sub-Sarahan African countries (including Ethiopia and Eritrea) are majority Christian and many more have large Christian minorities or pluralities. It isn't unthinkable that Africa could be home to a plurality of Christians within the lives of my children.
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