S. A. GOROKHOV
Candidate of Geographical Sciences, Moscow State Pedagogical University
Africa Keywords:, Christianity. Global North. Global South
In recent decades, significant changes have been observed in the global confessional space. The impressive achievements of Islam in the traditionally Christian regions of the world-America and Europe-are increasingly being discussed. At the same time, the equally amazing achievements of Christian missionaries in Asia and Africa are much less resonated in the world and domestic press.
For the first time in the last 500 years, statistics show a slight decline in the share of Christians in the World's population: from 35% in 1910 to 32% a century later, due to the weakening of the influence of Christianity in traditional areas of distribution, especially in Europe. However, the Christian population of the world increased more than 3.5 times during this period (from 0.6 to 2.3 billion people). people) and is projected to reach 2.8 billion by 2025 and 3 billion by 2050.1. Moreover, the growth in the number of followers of this religion is primarily due to Christians in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
THE RISE OF "SOUTHERN CHRISTIANITY"
By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the centers of planetary Christianity (first of all, in quantitative terms) were no longer economically developed regions of the world - Europe and North America, but developing countries of the tropical and equatorial belts. If in 1910 more than 82% of the world's Christians were concentrated in the countries of the Global North (USA, Canada, Europe, Russia, etc.), then a century later - only 39%. At the same time, the share of the Global South (Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania) in the Christian population of the world has increased from 18% to 61% over the past 100 years, i.e. almost 3.5 times!
The shift of the center of world Christianity to the South gives us the right to say that our time is the heyday of southern Christianity. However, de ...
Read more