Christianity Declining in America, Booming in China
Recently, I’ve read some research about Christianity declining in America. And this morning two contrasting headlines caught my attention. One noted the rapid increase of skepticism towards the Bible in the west:
A new study from the Barna Group reveals that for the first time, Americans who read the Bible enthusiastically and those who are skeptical are equal in number.
Out of 2,036 people surveyed across all fifty US states, 19 per cent fall into the biblically ‘engaged’ bracket, and 19 per cent are considered ‘skeptical’. The number of skeptics has almost doubled from 10 per cent in 2011.
The study defines someone as ‘engaged’ if they read the Bible at least four times a week and believe it is the actual or inspired word of God.
Skeptics are defined as those who take the least sacred and most negative views of the Bible, who subscribe to the belief that “the Bible is just another group of teachings written by men that contains stories and advice”.
The second headline stood out more boldly: Growth of Christianity is ‘excessive’, says Chinese official
A communist official in China has condemned the rapid growth of Christianity in the region as “excessive”, but has denied allegations of increased persecution.
Officially an atheist state, the right to freedom of religious belief is guaranteed under Article 36 of the Chinese Constitution but protections are limited to those who worship within state-sanctioned bodies.
Chinese Christians often suffer at the hands of government authorities, and the Asian superpower is ranked the 37th worst country in the world for Christian persecution by the Open Doors World Watch List.
Despite this, reports suggest that between 3,000 and 10,000 people are turning to Christianity every single day in China, and while there were just one million believers in total when the Communist party came to power in 1949, there are now thought to be as many as 100 million.
Christian faith is booming in the east (very similar to the book of Acts) while it is rapidly declining in the west. The Gospel hasn’t lost its power in our generation. Perhaps we are just closing our eyes to it–both believers and unbelievers alike. Or perhaps, as believers, we should welcome a little more persecution to our faith. It took Acts 8:1 persecution in order to scatter the church so that it could be faithful to Acts 1:8.