We live in an era when religious identity is not stable but remarkably fluid. According to the Pew Forum, the largest growing religious segment is the “NONES,” individuals who say they are not affiliated with any religious group or tradition. Yet Christianity is still the most widely practiced of the world’s major religions, with followers in every corner of the globe.
Far beyond its historic heartlands in Europe and the Near East, it has been embraced by hundreds of millions of people in the Americas, Africa, Oceana, and Asia. Christianity has been the backbone of Western civilization for almost two millennia, and it is difficult to understand the modern world and how it came into existence without appreciating the crucial part played in the process by the enduring and influential teachings, culture, and institutions of the Christian Churches.[1]
Christians are diverse theologically as well as geographically. A Pew Forum study finds that half of all Christians are Catholic. Protestants, broadly defined, make up 37%. Orthodox Christians comprise 12% of Christians worldwide. Other Christians, such as Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, make up the remaining 1% of the global Christian population. Taken as a whole, however, Christians are by far the world’s largest religious group. Muslims, the second-largest group, make up a little less than a quarter of the world’s population, according to previous studies by the Pew Forum.[2]
What does this all mean? A lot of things if you are searching for answers. Within a plurality of Christian denominations, we hope to offer you insights not only why people choose to be Christian, but why they choose to practice their Christianity as a Catholic.
Daniel M Scofield – MTS