Hello everyone, I am in the process of conducting research for a research paper for my Survey of Word religions course. I am conducting a survey as part of my research. Will you please assist me by answering the following question? I only need 5 responses, I really appreciate your (name removed by moderator)ut!
Which religion, in your opinion, will have more followers 50 years from now and why?
Thank you kindly for your assistance,
Rosemarie Rosete
The religion with the most followers today is Catholicism, and I don’t see it losing any ground. Five years ago, our total population was 1.06 billion, and today it is 1.2 billion - a net gain of 194 million people in five years, or nearly 39 million converts and new-borns a year. If we continue to grow at that rate, in 50 years’ time, we will have a population of nearly 4 billion Catholics - and that’s if we don’t do things any differently than we do today. The Vatican is actively working on a project known as “the New Evangelization” and with the work being done on this project (which includes improvements in the RCIA conversion process, making it easier and more attractive for people to become faithful knowledgeable
missionary Catholics), expect those numbers to be higher.
Other Christian religions account for about 65 million people at present, and they, too, are growing - they, too, are developing strong, attractive evangelism, with “Seeker Sundays” and other opportunities for non-Christians to “come and see.”
I also expect a lot of non-Catholic groups to become reunited with Rome over that period of time - it is inevitable, since they are already looking at Catholic customs like auricular Confession, frequent Holy Communion, and convert training, for ideas to implement in their own churches. Eventually, they are going to come up against the reality that what they
really want is to go the whole way.
In 50 years, I expect Christianity (Catholic and non-Catholic) to be absolutely huge in North America, South America, Africa, and probably even Eastern Asia, although they will also continue to have their traditional religions - Christianity won’t be a majority there, but it
will be significant.
Europe seems like it’s going to be Islamic, but there are two factors against it: first, the Muslims who are going to Europe are escaping from the oppression of radical Islam - they aren’t going to welcome it following them around, and they may simply renounce Islam, rather that have to put up with Sharia.
Second, although Europe has lost most of its outward Christian habits - church going, prayer, etc., they still think like Christians - fair play and equal rights are important to them, the dignity of the human person is important, forgiveness is important, “thou shalt not steal” is important - they aren’t going to give up secular Christianity, even though they have already given up religious Christianity, so in the end, I expect Europe to go secular Muslim and secular Christian - not overtly religious at all, other than sending their kids to Sunday School to learn a few moral values.
Islam itself is self-destructive. I have no idea what the Arab countries will be like - either they will have moderated their tone somewhat, or else the ultimate suicide bomber will have let off a nuke and blown them all sky-high, leaving the place uninhabitable.
