Recent publications with titles such as “Christianity Re-Born: The Global
Expansion of Evangelicalism in the Twentieth Century,”1 “The Next
Christendom. The Coming of Global Christianity”2 and “Charismatic
Christianity as a Global Culture” 3 reflect the fact that Christianity in its Evangelical
and Pentecostal/Charismatic version is gaining ground worldwide.
According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, these strands of Christianity
accounted for 4.5 percent of all Christians in the mid-1970s and for 11.8
percent in 1995. The greatest increase in Pentecostals/Charismatics and, to
a lesser extent, Evangelicals has taken place in Africa and Latin America. In
Africa the percentage of Pentecostals/Charismatics rose from 4.8 percent of
the population in the mid-1970s to 15.9 percent in 1995. The share of
Evangelicals increased during the same period from 4.6 percent to 8.8
percent. The figures for Latin America are equally impressive: Pentecostals/
Charismatics multiplied from 4.4 percent in mid-1970 to 27.1 percent in
1995 and Evangelicals doubled from 3.4 to 7.6 percent. In Asia the success
story is one of Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity, as its share rose from
0.5 percent in the mid-1970s to 3.6 percent in 1995, while the Evangelicals
remained virtually unchanged at 0.5 and 0.8 percent, respectively