Christian population falls in the West

Growth in Christianity has shifted from the West to the Southern Hemisphere, the Presbyterian General Assembly was told in Belfast yesterday.

A report from the church's Overseas Board also estimated the Christian population of the world at two billion, or about one third of people on the planet, making it "by far the largest religion" in the world.

Currently, Christianity has a worldwide growth rate of 1.5 per cent, "but this masks shrinking membership in the West and dynamic growth in the Southern Hemisphere," it said.

"In 1964, 64 per cent of Christians were in America, Europe and the Pacific. By 2000, 59 per cent were in Africa, Asia, and Latin America."

In many locations in the South "there is not the same need for western missionaries in their traditional role of proclaiming the gospel . . . because their roles are being filled by indigenous Christians, " it said.

The future would demand that the global Christian family be diligent in working together in new ways, "by identifying our strengths so that we compliment the efforts of others," it said.

The convenor of the Church's Race Relations Committee, Rev Gordon Gray, told the General Assembly that racism was "not only lapping at our Ulster shores - and the shores of Ireland; it has rushed in like a tidal wave."

He continued: "we can name racism for what it is - nothing less than a sin"- and recognise it as something "that is latent in all of us," to which the first response must be "simple Christian 'good neighbourliness".