Editing History of Christianity (section)

== After World War II ==
===Worldwide===
{{Main|World Christianity}}
[[File:Percent of Christians by Country–Pew Research 2011.svg|thumb|alt=map of worldwide Christianity in 2011|Global distribution of Christians based on 2011 [[Pew Research Center]] data{{sfn|PEW Research Center|2022}}]] 
Before 1945, about a third of the people in the world were Christians, and about 80% of them lived in Europe, Russia, and the Americas.{{sfn|McLeod|2006|p=1}} In 2025, there are still 31% of adults around the world that declare themselves Christian, but they are no longer concentrated in the West.{{sfn|PEW Key|2022}} Christianity has been in decline in Europe for decades. Between 2010 and 2015, the number of European Christians who died outnumbered births by nearly 6 million.{{sfn|Pew Center|2017}} From 2019 to 2024, the Christian share of the adult population in the United States stayed between 60% and 64%. Even so, it is estimated that fewer than a quarter of the world's Christians will live in its western locations by 2060.{{sfn|PEW Key|2022}} 

After WWII, [[decolonization]] strengthened the indigenization efforts of Christian missionaries, leading to explosive growth in the churches of former colonies.{{sfn|McLeod|2006|pp=1, 8}}{{sfn|Fontaine|2016|pp=6–8}}{{sfn|Sanneh|2007|p=285}}{{sfn|Koschorke|2025|pp=231, 233-234}} In 1900, there were just under nine million Christians in Africa; by 1960, this number had increased to 60 million, and by 2005, to 393 million, about half of the continent's population, a proportion which has remained constant as of 2022.{{sfn|Sanneh|2007|p=xx}}{{sfn|PEW Research Center|2022}}{{sfn|Isichei|1995|p=[https://archive.org/details/historyofchristi0000isic/page/n13/mode/2up 1]}} According to [[Pew Research Center|PEW]], religion is very important to people in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Latin America where populations are growing and are likely to continue to grow.{{sfn|PEW Key|2022}} This is shifting the geographic center of Christianity to sub-Saharan Africa where more than forty percent of the world’s Christians are projected to live by 2060.{{sfn|PEW Key|2022}} 

Christianity in Southeast and East Asia, especially Korea, grew faster after colonialism.{{sfn|Jenkins|2011|pp=89–90}}{{sfn|Zurlo|2020|pp=3–9}}{{sfn|McLeod|2006|p=6}} Rapid expansion began in the 1980s.{{sfn|Singapore Management University|2017}}{{sfn|Anderson|Tang|2005|p=2}} The [[Council on Foreign Relations]] reports that the number of [[Three-Self Patriotic Movement|Chinese Protestants]] has grown by an average of 10% annually since 1979, with growth especially prominent among young people.{{sfn|Yoo|2019|p=27 fn.7}}{{sfn|Albert|2018|loc=Introduction}}{{sfn|America magazine|2018|ps=: "A study of the religious lives of university students in Beijing published in a mainland Chinese academic journal ''Science and Atheism'' in 2013 showed Christianity to be the religion that interested students most and was the most active on campuses."}} With the [[Fall of the Eastern Bloc]], Christianity expanded in some Eastern European countries while declining in others.{{sfn|McLeod|2006|pp=1, 8}}{{sfn|Fontaine|2016|pp=6–8}}{{sfn|Koschorke|2025|pp=231, 233-234}} Catholic countries have displayed secularization, while Orthodox countries have experienced a revival of church participation.{{sfn|Northmore-Ball|Evans|2016|loc=abstract}} Orthodox Christianity made a partial resurgence in the former Soviet Union after 1991 and continues to be an important element of national identity for many citizens there.{{sfn|PEW Key|2022}} 

In the first quarter of the twenty-first century, Christianity is present in all seven continents and a multitude of different cultures.{{sfn|Koschorke|2025|p=XX}}{{sfn|Walker|2013|pp=267-271}} Most Christians live outside North America and Western Europe; white Christians are a global minority, and slightly over half of worldwide Christians are female.{{sfn|Ford|2013|p=429}}{{sfn|PEW global|2020}} In 2017, PEW reported that Christianity is the world's largest religion with roughly 2.4 billion followers, equal to 31.2% of the world's population.{{sfn|Gilley|2006|p=1}}{{sfn|McLeod|2006|p=8}}{{sfn|Pew Center|2017}}

===Modern movements===
In the twentieth century, Christianity faced the challenges of secularism and a changing moral climate concerning sexual ethics, gender, and exclusivity, leading to a decline in church attendance in the West.{{sfn|McLeod|2006|pp=2; 7–8}}{{sfn|Fahmy|2022|loc=section 1}}{{sfn|Gilley|2006|pp=1; 3}} In a 2018 PEW survey of 27 countries, the majority of nations had more residents claim that the role of religion has decreased over the preceding twenty years than said it had increased. However, people in [[Southeast Asia|Southeast Asian]] and [[Sub-Saharan Africa|Sub-Saharan African]] countries reported the opposite trend, suggesting that secularization is a region-specific trend.{{sfn|PEW Key|2022}}{{sfn|Casanova|1994|pp=3, 5-6}}

In 2000, approximately one-quarter of all Christians worldwide were part of Pentecostalism and its associated movements.{{sfn|Burgess|2006|p=xiii}} By 2025, Pentecostals are expected to constitute one-third of the nearly three billion Christians worldwide, making it the largest branch of Protestantism and fastest-growing Christian movement.{{sfn|Deininger|2014|pp=1–2; 5}}{{sfn|McLeod|2006|p=4}}

The three main branches of Eastern Christianity are the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Communion, and Eastern Catholic Church.{{sfn|Ware|1993|pp=11, 33}}{{sfn|Angold|2006|loc=frontmatter}}{{sfn|Ware|1993|p=9}} Roughly half of Eastern Orthodox Christians live in formerly Eastern Bloc countries.{{sfn|PEW Orthodox|2017}} Its oldest communities in Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Georgia, are decreasing due to forced migration from religious persecution.{{sfn|Haider|2017|loc=overview}} In 2020, 57 countries had “very high” levels of government restrictions on religion, banning or giving preferential treatment to particular groups, prohibiting conversions, and limiting preaching.{{sfn|PEW Key|2022}}{{sfn|Fox|2013|loc=abstract}} As of 2022, highly authoritarian and totalitarian governments have brought about crises and decline in 186 countries.{{sfn|Majumdar|2024}} Anti-Christian persecution has become a consistent human rights concern.{{sfn|Allen Jr.|2016|pp=x–xi}} 

Orthodox Christians of the Greek, Russian and Balkans branches tend to be more conservative on most issues than Protestants and Catholics.{{sfn|PEW Orthodox|2017}} Less than 40% of Orthodox Christians favor reconciliation with the Roman Catholic Church.{{sfn|PEW Orthodox|2017}} Roman Catholic ecumenical goals are to re-establish full communion amongst all the various Christian churches, but there is no agreement amongst evangelicals.{{sfn|Chinnici|2012|p=22}}{{sfn|Cassidy|2005|pp=106, 544}}{{sfn|Pintarić|2014|loc=abstract}} There is, however, a trend at the local level toward discussion, pulpit exchanges, and shared social action.{{sfn|Asprey|2008|p=3}}{{sfn|McLeod|2006|p=9}}

The multiple wars of the twentieth century brought questions of [[theodicy]] to the forefront.{{sfn|McLeod|2006|p=11}} For the first time since the pre-Constantinian era, [[Christian pacifism]] became an alternative to war.{{sfn|McLeod|2006|p=12}} [[The Holocaust]] forced many to realize that [[supersessionism]], the belief that Christians had replaced the Jews as God's chosen people, can lead to hatred, ethnocentrism, and racism. Supersessionism was never an official doctrine or universally accepted, and supersessionist texts are increasingly challenged.{{sfn|Levine|2022|p=6}}

For theologians writing after 1945, theology became dependent on context.{{sfn|Opoensky|2004|p=5}} [[Liberation theology]] was combined with the [[social gospel]], redefining [[social justice]], and exposing institutionalized sin to aid Latin American poor, but its context limited its application in other environments.{{sfn|Wogaman|2011|p=325}}{{sfn|Chopp|Regan|2013|p=469}}{{sfn|Opoensky|2004|p=5}} Different historical and socio-political situations produced [[black theology]] and [[feminist theology]]. Combining Christianity with questions of civil rights, aspects of the Black Power movement, and responses to black Muslims produced a black theology that spread to the United Kingdom and parts of Africa, confronting apartheid in South Africa.{{sfn|Akanji|2010|pp=177–178}}{{sfn|McLeod|2006|p=13}} The feminist movement of the mid-twentieth century began with an anti-Christian ethos but soon developed an influential feminist theology dedicated to transforming churches and society.{{sfn|Hilkert|1995|loc=abstract}}{{sfn|Muers|2013|p=431}} Feminist theology developed at the local level through movements such as the [[womanist theology]] of African-American women, the [[Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz|"mujerista" theology]] of Hispanic women, and [[Asian feminist theology]].{{sfn|Hilkert|1995|p=327}}

In the mid to late 1990s, [[postcolonial theology]] emerged globally from multiple sources.{{sfn|Segovia|Moore|2007|pp=4–5}} It analyzes structures of power and ideology to recover what colonialism erased or suppressed in indigenous cultures.{{sfn|Segovia|Moore|2007|pp=6; 11}} 

Modern motivation toward missions has declined in some denominations largely from doctrines of inclusivity and polarization over the role of women. Many modern churches bypass missionary agencies sending out individual missionaries from single churches leaving them without extensive support.{{sfn|Guthrie|2014|pp=57-60}} The missionary movement of the twenty-first century has become a multi-cultural, multi-faceted global network of [[NGOs]],{{sfn|Manji|O'Coill|2002|loc=abstract}} volunteer doctors,{{sfn|Campbell|Sherman|Magee|2010|loc=abstract}} short-term student volunteers,{{sfn|Harder|1980|loc=abstract}} and traditional long-term bilingual, bicultural professionals who focus on evangelism and local development.{{sfn|Robert|2009|p=73}}{{sfn|Cooper|2005|pp=3–4}}{{sfn|Guthrie|2014|loc=abstract}}