Leaders | Religious freedom

Christians and lions

The world’s most widely followed faith is gathering persecutors. Even non-Christians should worry about that

CHRISTIANITY is growing almost as fast as humanity itself, but its 2.2 billion adherents cannot count on safety in numbers. That is partly because the locus of the world's largest religion is shifting to hotter (in several senses) parts of the world. According to a report published by the Pew Forum in December, the Christian share of the population of sub-Saharan Africa has soared over the past century, from 9% to 63%. Meanwhile, the think-tank says, the Christian proportion of Europeans and people in the Americas has dropped, respectively, from 95% to 76% and from 96% to 86%.

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Christians and lions”

The right Republican

From the December 31st 2011 edition

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