How Many Christians?

Richard Hollerman

Probably many of us are completely mistaken regarding the number of true Christians in the world. We may overestimate the number and think that nearly everyone is saved. On the other hand, we may think that true Christians are very few, perhaps like in the days of Noah. There may have been 9 or 11 million people on earth at the time of the flood (about 2450 BC), but there were only 8 people (1 Peter 3:20).

But consider this. We know that people from many world religions who make no profession of following God through Christ must not be included among true Christians, the saved—such as Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Taoists, etc. Catholics also must not be counted for these 1.2 billion people are so far off on a hundred different beliefs and practices that they can’t be considered truly saved. Further, much more than half of Protestants are clearly unsaved for they have no knowledge of God either. They deviate from so many Biblical teachings that they surely must be unsaved. Further, people in the cults (Mormons, Witnesses, Apostolic, etc.) must not be counted for they are clearly aberrant in many different ways.

We’ve just seen an article with this title, “Most evangelicals live in Africa, Asia, Latin America” (AFA Journal, May 2020, page 6). This piece suggests that people who may be classified as “Evangelicals” are from certain parts of the world. (This article originally came from christianpost.com, 2/20/20.)

This is what the article says: “An estimated 660 million evangelical Christians exist worldwide. A new study by French researcher Sebastian Fath provides the approximate numbers within each continent and country.” It is probably true that if we take the leading characteristics of the term, “Evangelical,” true Christians would be categorized in this way. But other studies, even by Barna, suggest (as I recall) that only about 10 percent of Evangelicals really meet these Biblical criteria. If this is true, this would mean that only some one-tenth of the number, 66 million Christians, are in the world. The number has surely decreased!

But, as many of us know, when we look at some of the Christian traits found in the New Testament, the number is actually much lower. For instance:

1. Christians must be non-denominational and refuse to be part of human sects or denominations (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:1-13)
2. Those who truly believe in the God of the Bible, who trust in Jesus as God’s only Son, who have placed their faith in the atoning death and life-giving resurrection of Christ (John 3:14-18, 36; Romans 5:6-11).
3. Those who believe fully in the inspired, inerrant Word of God (the Bible) and base their life on this.
4. Those who have truly repented of their sins, turned away from them, and are seeking to live in holiness (Acts 2:38-39, 3:19; 20:21; Hebrews 12:14).
5. Those who have been immersed into Christ (not sprinkled or poured) for the forgiveness of their sins (Romans 6:3-5; Colossians 2:11-13; Acts 2:38; 22:16). Those who have died to sin and then were raised to walk in newness of life in Christ.
6. Those who do not walk in the flesh or in worldliness but are seeking to live daily for God and His will (Romans 8:6-14; 12:1-2).

Of course, we could list a dozen or several dozen other characteristics, but this is sufficient to make the point. We perhaps can see that truly saved followers of Christ do not at all number 66 million but much, much fewer. We really don’t know if the number is 30 million, 20 million, 5 million, 500,000, or much fewer. We only know that this article and this study has greatly over-estimated the number!

The article continues: “It [the study] found that most evangelical Christians do not reside in North America and Europe, but in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. North America is estimated to have 107 million Christians (93 million in the U.S.), and Europe has only 23 million.” We can understand that the number might be higher in certain parts of the world. But we must remember that these statistics are greatly exaggerated.

The article also says this: “Conversely, Asia has the largest number of evangelical Christians at 215 million. The tremendously persecuted nations of China and India take up a large swath of that figure (China at 66 million and India at 28 million). And Africa has the second highest number of evangelical Christians (185 million), with highly persecuted countries of Nigeria (58 million) and Kenya (20 million) taking the lead.”

There is some truth here, without doubt. But we must not make any false conclusions. Remember that all of these figures are greatly inflated, as we mentioned earlier. Further, I receive a number of Facebook contacts from places in Africa (for instance) and the bizarre religions (whom they would think are “Christians”) should not be considered as true Christians. It appears to me that the “Health and Wealth” or “Prosperity” teachings have covered Africa as well as certain other portions of the earth with their false teachings! Thus, these people who loudly profess Christianity are more akin to Prosperity teachers and false teachers than they are to Paul, Peter, John, or Jesus Himself!

Whatever we may conclude from an article like this (and the research that is revealed here), let’s not make false and unfounded conclusions. The best thing that we can do is not count people as Christians—for we can surely be wrong and the figures misleading. Let’s just focus on the Lord Jesus, seek to walk in His ways, believe His teachings, place our faith in God through the Lord Jesus, and do His will! This is the best thing. In fact, this is the only wise choice!