Contracting Global Christianities

Christianity has wielded hegemonic status through proselytisation and colonisation, throughout much of the world for much of the last 2000 years. For better or worse (and there has been much of both), Christianity has played a large part in shaping many modern societies, influencing the development of law, education, welfare states, the media, and many other institutions. As has been argued, most influentially by Talal Asad, “religion” itself is an idea with “a very specific Christian history” – Christianity has been viewed as the archetypal religion, against and through which all other forms of faith are to be assessed.

And yet, according to the Pew Research Center, over the period 2010 to 2020 the percentage of Christians in the world dropped by nearly two percentage points, down from 30.6 per cent to 28.8 per cent of the global population. Christianity remains the largest religious affiliation globally, with continuing growth in the nations of Africa, Asia, and South America, yet this is not enough to keep Christian numbers apace with global population. Christianity is contracting, and this is most visible in the places – including Europe and much of the Anglosphere – where Christianity no longer occupies majority status.

This open session seeks sociological papers responding to the contraction of global Christianity, exploring the implications for a religiously multi-polar world.