Christianity in Africa

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary's Center for the Study of Global Christianity recently published the Atlas of Global Christianity. The Africa Map (pdf) is available online. In introducing the Africa Map, the Atlas of Global Christianity reports:

Over the past 100 years Africa has experienced the most dramatic demographic religious transformation of any continent. In 1910 Africa was largely animistic in the south and Muslim in the north. There were 11.7 million Christians. By 2010 Christians have mushroomed by 40 times to more than 490 million. Ethnoreligionists dropped precipitously from 58% in 1910 to about 10% by 2010. Yet today’s presence of even a small percentage of ethnoreligionists is an unexpected development, for many in the early twentieth century predicted the complete disappearance of these traditional religions in a generation.

Christianity does not have a monolithic presence in Africa. Christians in Africa now number almost 50% of the population.

Over the past 100 years, Christianity has grown at nearly twice the population rate of Africa.

The claim that only 50% of Africa is Christian is misleading because there are many parts of Africa where 100% of the population is Christian. Here is a clip from the Atlas:

The darkest blue areas of the pie chart represent nations with populations where 95 to 100% are Christian. The nations in this category are: Congo, Burundi, Malawi, Angola, Uganda and DR Congo. The width of these nation's "piece of the pie" show the percentage of Christian population they have relative to all Christians in Africa.

Uganda with its pending Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009 is on the list along with Malawi where the gay couple Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga are imprisoned.