{"id":139645,"date":"2025-09-10T12:17:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T16:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=139645"},"modified":"2025-09-10T22:00:38","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T02:00:38","slug":"christian-today-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=139645","title":{"rendered":"(Christian Today) \u2018There is no such thing as the evangelical\u2019 – researchers say movement\u2019s centre has shifted to Global South"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The question of who qualifies as an evangelical and how many evangelicals exist worldwide continues to puzzle scholars, church leaders and mission researchers alike. That was the central theme of a Sept. 2 webinar hosted by the World Evangelical Alliance and released publicly<\/a> Sept. 5, featuring two leading voices in global religious demography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Gina A. Zurlo, editor of the World Christian Database and a lecturer at Harvard Divinity School, and Jason Mandryk, longtime editor of Operation World, outlined both the difficulties and the necessity of measuring a movement that is increasingly diverse and shifting rapidly toward the Global South.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both experts agreed that unlike Catholicism, Orthodoxy, or even Pentecostalism, evangelicalism has no universally agreed-upon definition. This makes the task of counting adherents unusually complex. Yet, they stressed, reliable figures are crucial for understanding how Christianity is changing worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mandryk opened with a blunt assessment: \u201cThere is no such thing as the evangelical.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>

Data from 2 studies show evangelical Christianity\u2019s center of gravity has shifted from the US & Europe to African, Asian & Latin American regions.

Estimated to be approaching 1 billion globally, the evangelical population in China has now surpassed the UShttps:\/\/t.co\/6B8knAxydH<\/a><\/p>— Julie Roys (@reachjulieroys) September 10, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote>