Introduction

What is covered in this section?

This section of Religious Trends focuses on world-wide religion. There is an article on the 'big picture' that offers a summary of the strength of the world’s religions. This will be followed by a series of articles on individual countries, starting with China and the United States.

Measuring religious adherents

In our Introduction to Religious Trends, we discussed the several ways of counting followers of a religion: devotion, practice, membership and profession.  The figures in this section are mainly of those who responded to public censuses and surveys, and so are those who profess to be followers of the faiths in question.

It is likely that such answers will be affected by the social and political climate of the country, with people more likely to follow the state or majority religion or the local political culture or climate. In the UK, about 72% said they were Christian in the 2001 census, but the 2005 English Church Census found just 6.3% attending church services on the surveyed weekend. However, in countries where the church is restricted, the number willing to say they are believers could even be less than those following their faith in secret.

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