Growth of religion

Growth of religion is the spread of religions and the increase of religious adherents around the world. The statistics are commonly measured by the absolute number of adherents, the percentage of the absolute growth per year, and the growth of the number of converts in the world. Studies show that, in terms of percentage and world wide spread, Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world. A religious forecast for 2050 by Pew Research Center concludes that global Muslim population is expected to grow at a faster rate than the non-Muslim population due primarily to the young age and high fertility rate of Muslims.Religious switching has no impact on Muslim population relative to other religious groups.

World religions statistics place the Bahá'í Faith around 0.1% of the world population in recent years. The World Christian Encyclopedia estimated only 7.1 million Bahá'ís in the world in 2000, representing 218 countries, and its evolution to the World Christian Database (WCD) estimated 7.3 million in 2010 while accredited through the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA). However the WCD stated: "The Baha'i Faith is the only religion to have grown faster in every United Nations region over the past 100 years than the general population; Baha'i(sic) was thus the fastest-growing religion between 1910 and 2010, growing at least twice as fast as the population of almost every UN region." This source's only documented flaw was to consistently have a higher estimate of Christians than in other cross-national data sets. 2015's estimate is of 7.8 million Bahá'ís in the world.

From its origins in the Persian and Ottoman empires of the 19th century the Bahá'í Faith was able to gain converts elsewhere in Asia, Europe, and North America by the early 20th century. John Esslemont performed the first review of the worldwide progress of the religion in 1919.`Abdu'l-Bahá, son of the founder of the religion, then set goals for the community through his Tablets of the Divine Plan shortly before his death. Shoghi Effendi then initiated systematic pioneering efforts that brought the religion to almost every country and territory of the world and converts from more than 2000 tribes and peoples. There were serious setbacks in the Soviet Union where Bahá'í communities in 38 cities across Soviet territories ceased to exist. However plans continued building to 1953 when the Bahá'ís initiated a Ten Year Crusade after plans had focused on Latin America and Europe after WWII. That last stage was largely towards parts of Africa. Wide-scale growth in the religion across Sub-Saharan Africa particularly was observed to begin in the 1950s and extend in the 1960s. There was diplomatic pressure from northern arab countries against this development that was eventually overcome. Starting in the 1980s with Perestroyka the Bahá'ís began to re-organize across the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc. While sometimes failing to meet official minimums for recognitions as a religion, communities of Bahá'ís do exist from Poland to Mongolia. The worldwide progress was such that the Encyclopedia Britannica (2002) identified the religion as the second-most geographically widespread religion after Christianity. It has established Bahá'í Houses of Worship by continental region and been the object of interest and support of diverse non-Bahá'í notable people from Leo Tolstoy to Khalil Gibran to Mohandas K. Gandhi to Desmond Tutu. See List of Bahá'ís for a list of notable Bahá'ís.

...
Wikipedia