Where will Christianity be in 100 Years?

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Those Churches that have not bent to the social pressure of the day will still survive
namely the Roman Catholic Church and the OrthodoxI see no reconciliation between these two however

I would suspect that mainstream Protestants will be gone -Perhaps a few evangelicals will exist in semi isolated areas-believing in a literal interpretation of the Bible will be very hard given the continued increase in scientific knowledge
 
In the life of the Catholic Church 100 years is hardly any time at all–she’s been in existence for over 2000 years, after all. The Church is a living organism, not a monolithic structure. Disciples and devotions change, but doctrine does not. So, it is hard to predict what changes might come about in liturgy and devotions or even how many will be faithful, practicing Catholics (that varies a great deal from one era to another, from one country to another). But the Church will still be Christ’s Church no matter what changes come or how world/local societies develop/devolve. As for other Christian ecclesial bodies. I couldn’t say for certain. With so many rapid changes in essential beliefs their future is up for grabs, as I see it.
 
google Raymond Arroyo interviews Cardinal Ratzinger.

I think Pope Emeritus Benedict’s prediction is most likely
 
I have heard that Christianity will become the second most prevalent religion, after Islam. Many demographers and news outlets have reported this.
 
It will be here. God will not allow it to be destroyed by evil.
 
The gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.

And “I will be with you always. Even to the end of the world”
 
Well, I think God intends to drive us off the planet, and out into the universe. Rome may no longer even exist, or the church may have shifted its organisation HQ to South America, or possibly off the planet.

Since I believe the driving force for such a massive shift will be of such huge magnitude, and so demanding, that only a church which has the tenacity to stick to its “traditions” will be able to survive, then I see the only two contenders to be Catholicism and Orthodoxy. The Protestants will be too divided.

And I think the sheer ferocity of the challenges will force them to overcome their differences anyway.

I see the church-state separation being a thing of the past as a period of Islamic domination will put paid to the concept, atheism will no longer exist, and most of us (well, most of that generation) will have their work cut out in dangerous conditions just to survive.

Israel and Judaism will have served their purpose, and in a generation with an outlook no longer even earth-centred, neither the cities of Rome or Jerusalem will have much focus.

God however will still be in operation, and be quite aware of what is happening. In fact, you could even say He’ll have planned it that way from the beginning.

Men might think the space race was a battle between two major superpowers at the time, but I think we’ll find that as far as God was concerned, they were just pawns in the game, as He started setting the stage for the next scene.

I’m afraid it’s not much use asking me for a positive outlook for the next 100 years, as I don’t have one.
 
In 100 years, globally speaking, the overall population will either be in the process of slowing its growth to near-zero or perhaps just recently gotten past the break-even point. Consequently, growth through conversions will be of greater relative importance across the board, as natural growth will be fairly minimal, on average, on a very large scale. Christianity will be squarely and primarily in Africa, Asia, and South America. Europe as a whole will be of far less global importance to Christianity than it has ever been but the United States will still retain a primary role of leadership across a wide variety of church branches. The main countries of interest for Christianity at that point in time will most likely be Nigeria, China, Brazil, and the US. By that time, Protestants in the broadest sense will top a billion globally, perhaps 1.1 or 1.2 billion, and Catholics will be approaching one and a half billion. However, the Catholic Church will be rightly worried about whether they’re about to hit a high mark from which they will fall, either that or they will be just past the point where it’s taken a dip and everyone will be wondering if it will continue into a dive.

More particular to the United States, white Catholics will be more truly disappeared from Catholic parishes than they currently are. Somewhere between 70 and 100 years from now, two things are expected to happen with the Hispanic population in the US- at around the same time, the Catholic Church will become plurality-Hispanic and then majority Hispanic, and at right about the exact same time, Hispanic Americans as a whole will become plurality-Protestant and then majority-Protestant. It’s a curious study in contrasts if you were to graph those projections side by side. Also, 100 years from now, Asians will be the fastest growing minority group in the US, and by that time there will be more Asian Americans than there are African Americans. A plurality (or nearly so) will probably still be non-religious, and Hinduism and Islam will both hold up pretty well wherever you see that but still in numbers close to single digits as a percentage of Asian Americans. But Buddhists will convert in large numbers, the Evangelical numbers will go up steadily from where they are now, and Catholic and Mainline numbers among Asian Americans will trend down from where they are now. 100 years from now, somewhere around one-third of Asian Americans will be Evangelical, mainline Christians will be in the single digits, and Catholics will be near single digits or somewhere in the upper single digits.

And in Asia, wherever Christianity grows a lot between now and then, most Asian countries will be 80 to 90% Protestant when looking strictly at their Christian populations. Africa is rather difficult to predict, but the most important African countries already seem to be heavily Protestant and that continent is going to absolutely explode its population over the next 100 years- until they get that under control, which is pretty likely to take just about all of those 100 years.

Oh, and the Schism will still be a thing. I don’t see that reunion thing happening. Eastern Catholicism will have a bigger role in traditionally Western rite Catholic countries though, most especially in Australia. 100 years from now, I wouldn’t be surprised if fully one-third of Australia’s Catholic priests were Eastern rite. It won’t happen to that extent everywhere though, although the US might wind up going a bit more in that direction than it currently is. Not by much though, I would think.
 
Depends if Churches (all of Christendom) slowly takes the Eucharist as unimportant.

Otherwise I believe not much change.

MJ
 
A hundred years may not that too long a time, but I would foresee it will be not too good for Christianity, especially in the West. Right now, young people who really living the faith is alarmingly dwindling. Once these generations disappear, the future then will be quite bleak, like where do we get the source of the new Christian generations to come from? So another hundred years, well, it will not look good.

On the other hand, Africa and Asia are rising. Perhaps then, there will be a reverse missionary. They will come to evangelize the West.
 
I don’t have any cache as far as being able to predict the future, but someone who does have a track record is Pastor Thomas Horn. He correctly predicted the resignation of Pope Benedict one year in advance down to the exact month. He has published a very lengthy book on what he sees happening at the Vatican. He has done a lot of research including trips to the Vatican observatory on Mt. Graham in Arizona. He says that at this time, the Vatican elite are expecting and preparing to welcome aliens from another planet. That is what the Lucifer project is about. There is far more to the story than I can relate here.

Shalom,
Jerry
 
eazyduzit said:
I don’t have any cache as far as being able to predict the future, but someone who does have a track record is Pastor Thomas Horn. He correctly predicted the resignation of Pope Benedict one year in advance down to the exact month. He has published a very lengthy book on what he sees happening at the Vatican. He has done a lot of research including trips to the Vatican observatory on Mt. Graham in Arizona. He says that at this time, the Vatican elite are expecting and preparing to welcome aliens from another planet. That is what the Lucifer project is about. There is far more to the story than I can relate here.

Shalom,
Jerry
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What does Pope Benedict resigning have to do with anything especially when predicting future of Christianity? One, it wasn’t an unprecedented event. :hmmm:

MJ
 
eazyduzit said:
I don’t have any cache as far as being able to predict the future, but someone who does have a track record is Pastor Thomas Horn. He correctly predicted the resignation of Pope Benedict one year in advance down to the exact month.
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That was a easy prediction–one that many Catholics could have made, as well. PBXVI was elderly, didn’t really want the position in the first place, and is more practical in his view of life than was St.JPII. I wasn’t at all surprised when he announced his retirement. After all, he was St.JPII’s secretary and saw how the office affected him. He didn’t want to burden the Church with a sick, elderly leader. Easy-peasy prediction, IMHO.
He has published a very lengthy book on what he sees happening at the Vatican. He has done a lot of research including trips to the Vatican observatory on Mt. Graham in Arizona. He says that at this time, the Vatican elite are expecting and preparing to welcome aliens from another planet. That is what the Lucifer project is about. There is far more to the story than I can relate here.
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Shalom,
Jerry
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:rotfl: The conspiracists’ “Lucifer Project?” Really, how silly. Firstly, the Vatican cannot greet aliens that don’t exist. When someone brings up alien life “out there” I always bring them back down to reality by asking, “What aliens?” There aren’t any Klingnons or Romulans living on other planets. If there were they would have come here to conquer us long since. Vatican scientists’ speculations about alien life is only that–mere speculation. It’s a nice little topic for some theologians to explore, but nothing more. It doesn’t have anything to do with the eternal truths the Church teaches. Don’t get taken up with such nonsense, for good sake. :rolleyes:
 
That’s a good question. :tiphat:

I think it’ll be different based on location. I think Christianity will continue to grow in places like China. The Chinese government can only do so much to suppress it, but it’ll eventually be too big for them to control. Persecution will increase, but so will their numbers. In places like North America, I see it being extremely secular. Conservative christians will be few and far between (more so than they are now).
 
Della said:
The conspiracists’ “Lucifer Project?” Really, how silly. Firstly, the Vatican cannot greet aliens that don’t exist. When someone brings up alien life “out there” I always bring them back down to reality by asking, “What aliens?” There aren’t any Klingnons or Romulans living on other planets. If there were they would have come here to conquer us long since. Vatican scientists’ speculations about alien life is only that–mere speculation. It’s a nice little topic for some theologians to explore, but nothing more. It doesn’t have anything to do with the eternal truths the Church teaches. Don’t get taken up with such nonsense, for good sake.
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This is a limited view and may need to be reconsidered. Who said they would want to conquer, who is to say What God has endowed all with?

The Baha’i Writings would agree with science of the high probability there is other life;

“As to thy question concerning the worlds of God. Know thou of a truth that the worlds of God are countless in their number, and infinite in their range. None can reckon or comprehend them except God, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise…Verily I say, the creation of God embraceth worlds besides this world, and creatures apart from these creatures. In each of these worlds He hath ordained things which none can search except Himself, the All-Searching, the All-Wise. Do thou meditate on that which We have revealed unto thee, that thou mayest discover the purpose of God, thy Lord, and the Lord of all worlds. In these words the mysteries of Divine Wisdom have been treasured. We have refrained from dwelling upon this theme owing to the sorrow that hath encompassed Us from the actions of them that have been created through Our words, if ye be of them that will hearken unto Our Voice”. reference.bahai.org/en/t/b/GWB/gwb-79.html

Regards Tony
 
TonyBS said:
This is a limited view and may need to be reconsidered. Who said they would want to conquer, who is to say What God has endowed all with?

The Baha’i Writings would agree with science of the high probability there is other life;

“As to thy question concerning the worlds of God. Know thou of a truth that the worlds of God are countless in their number, and infinite in their range. None can reckon or comprehend them except God, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise…Verily I say, the creation of God embraceth worlds besides this world, and creatures apart from these creatures. In each of these worlds He hath ordained things which none can search except Himself, the All-Searching, the All-Wise. Do thou meditate on that which We have revealed unto thee, that thou mayest discover the purpose of God, thy Lord, and the Lord of all worlds. In these words the mysteries of Divine Wisdom have been treasured. We have refrained from dwelling upon this theme owing to the sorrow that hath encompassed Us from the actions of them that have been created through Our words, if ye be of them that will hearken unto Our Voice”. reference.bahai.org/en/t/b/GWB/gwb-79.html

Regards Tony
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You’ve never seen Star Trek? Many fictional alien species are conquering species. Many scientists agree that if another civilization found Earth they’d be more advanced technologically, but not necessarily morally advanced. Indeed, there is every reason to suppose they’d be here to take our resources, colonize, and/or destroy us. That’s a secular view which I don’t hold to since I don’t believe in aliens of that kind. I believe Christ is the summation of all creation and when he comes he will reveal if anyone else is “out there” or not. In any case, it has no bearing on our salvation, so it hardly matters. 🙂
 
drac16 said:
That’s a good question. :tiphat:

I think it’ll be different based on location. I think Christianity will continue to grow in places like China. The Chinese government can only do so much to suppress it, but it’ll eventually be too big for them to control. Persecution will increase, but so will their numbers. In places like North America, I see it being extremely secular. Conservative christians will be few and far between (more so than they are now).
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I agree location will be very determinant. I mean in the west I think the erosion of Christianity is bound to continue to some extent or another. Though I’d wager it’ll slow as the less devout eventually run out (and fall away) leaving behind only the most devout who will be much less likely to leave (and more likely to pass on their devotion).

In places where religion still holds more sway I think you’ll continue to see growth in places like Africa and Asia. But again I think you’ll see a slowing there as these places modernize and the corresponding drift from religiosity that brings on. If trends continue Christianity will no longer be the world’s biggest religious tradition in 100 years with Islam having taken the role as largest faith family.
 
I some how agree with P Benedict and the late Cardinal Francis George…that after secularism has destroyed society, the Church, as it has done in the past, will rebuild society and the family.

For now, we devout Catholics are a small minority in my part of the country. But we are strong and vibrant and provide many gifts of presence, giving, and culture to the secular community.
 
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