According to a recent Pew Research Center report on Global Christianity, 305 million Christians worldwide follow the charismatic movement.

On CNN's Belief Blog Stacey Samuel highlights the experiences of a mother and daughter who attended a "charismatic healing service" at the Everlasting Life Christian Center in Laurel, Maryland:

They are among a fast-growing number within the diverse Christian landscape to join the charismatic movement.

According to a recent Pew Research Center report on Global Christianity, 305 million Christians worldwide follow the charismatic movement.

"One of the reasons the charismatic movement is expanding … apart from salvation, we experience healing, miracles. The blind see, the lame get up and walk, and the deaf can hear. That attracts a lot of people," said Samuel Fatoki, who leads the roughly 200-member church with his wife, Marcia, who serves as his co-pastor.

Sandra Ashford talks about what she refers to as her mother's miraculous recovery from cervical spinal stenosis.

Ashford recounted how on the third application of Fatoki's hands on her mother, McDougall fell to the ground and began speaking in tongues. Ashford said her mother writhed on the floor, contorting in ways she couldn't stretch before.

Both said she's been walking upright since.

The Pew Reports says

Carismatics are members of non-pentecostal denominations — including Catholic, Orthodox and some Protestant denominations — who hold at least some pentecostal beliefs and engage in at least some spiritual practices associated with pentecostalism, including divine healing, prophecy and speaking in tongues. The charismatic movement, sometimes known as the charismatic renewal, began among mainline Protestants in the U.S. in 1960 and had spread to parts of the U.S. Catholic Church by 1967. The charismatic movement also finds expression in independent congregations that have formed their own networks of affiliated churches, similar to denominations. These church networks, such as the Vineyard Christian Fellowship based in California, are distinct from historically pentecostal denominations.

According to CNN

Dale Stoffer, professor of historical theology and academic dean at Ashland Theological Seminary in Ohio, said the charismatic movement has been present in the United States since the 1960s. The religious experience in the movement is more experiential, rather than based in intellectual expression.

"There's a high degree of emphasis on the Holy Spirit working in supernatural ways," Stoffer added.

While the movement is growing here in the United States, there's been an "explosion in Christianity," Stoffer said, in Africa, Latin America and Asia: regions of the world that have seen increased numbers of charismatic Christians.

More about the Charismatic Movement -- including a look at some of its controversial aspects
Global Christianity -- a Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Christian Population

Full story: Charismatic movement growing quickly worldwide

Religion may not only save your soul, according to a new book, but could also have a real impact on your financial well-being.

Religion News Service says

New research from "Faith and Money: How Religion Contributes to Wealth and Poverty" suggests that mainline Protestants, white Catholics and Jews are more likely to have high levels of financial wealth.

Evangelical and black Protestants, meanwhile, and Hispanic Catholics are generally below the nation's median net worth, but are more inclined to donate money to religious causes.

The bottom line: access to education, higher paying jobs and marital status all make a difference, and vary tremendously across faith groups. [...]

According to the study, Jews and mainline Protestants are most likely to have earlier access to financial assets, while black and evangelical Protestants are most likely to be permanently asset-poor.

Author Lisa A. Keister, a sociologist at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and director of the school's Markets and Management Studies program, said "religion is the key factor" impacting financial wealth because it influences life opportunities and decisions that impact wealth.

Full story: Study: Religion can affect your soul — and your wallet

Rules to prevent religious discrimination can now also be used to protect a belief in the BBC's ethos of public service broadcasting, a tribunal has ruled.

The Daily Mail explains that the tribunal's

extraordinary decision elevates the BBC's core principle to a place in the law equivalent to Christianity.

And the move leaves the way clear for long-serving employee Devan Maistry to sue the Corporation for wrongful dismissal.

South African-born Mr Maistry, who worked for the BBC Asian Network, says he suffered discrimination for six years until he was dismissed last year.

He has filed a claim for 'religious or belief discrimination', which allegedly took place against his philosophical view that 'public service broadcasting has the higher purpose of promoting cultural interchange and social cohesion'.

Birmingham employment tribunal chairman Pam Hughes decided Mr Maistry has a worthy case, and gave him the right to a full hearing later this year.

In doing so, the tribunal chairman established the principle that Mr Maistry's love of public service broadcasting amounted to a belief which should have the same protection from discrimination that the law gives to followers of religious faiths.

The Telegraph adds:

Laws governing employment equality for religion or belief were passed in 2003.

Tariq Sadiq, a lawyer for the BBC, said the case could mean that a belief in the aims of any public sector organisation would count as philosophical beliefs. [...]

Pam Hughes, tribunal chairman, ruled: "The claimant had a genuine and stongly held belief in what I will describe in short as the higher purpose of public service broadcasting. It is clearly of great significance to him."

The paper also notes that in recent months there have been a number of examples where the importance of Christian belief has been challenged.

In England some employees have been prevented from wearing crosses, a couple was barred from becoming foster parents due to their Christian views regarding homosexuality, and militant gays used the legal system to attack the owners of a Christian B&B who preferred -- based on their Christian beliefs -- to rent double rooms solely to straight, married couples.

Legal Opinion: Protection of philosophical belief under discrimination law

Full story: Believing in BBC’s ethos is equivalent to a faith, job tribunal rules

Christianity Today reports:

The House of Representatives is working day and night in its effort to cut more than $60 billion from the federal budget. The House is considering a continuing resolution, a bill used to fund the federal government for the remainder of the year. The bill includes deep cuts for environmental agencies, education, and foreign aid (except those related to security). It makes modest reductions for defense, homeland security, and police.

These cuts are in line with the spending priorities of most American evangelicals.

The Pew Research Center for People and the Press released a February 10 survey of Americans on their budget priorities, in which they asked them whether they favored increasing, decreasing, or keeping current levels of spending in specific policy areas. Pew provided Christianity Today with a religious breakdown of questions on the budget and spending priorities.

Overall, evangelicals were more likely to favor reductions in federal spending, but like other Americans, they wanted most areas to remain the same or increased.

The top choices among evangelicals for the chopping block are economic assistance to needy people around the world (56 percent), government assistance for the unemployed (40 percent), and environmental protection (38 percent). In each of these categories, evangelicals were more supportive of decreasing spending than are other Americans. In fact, evangelicals were more supportive of funding cuts in every area except military defense, terrorism defense, aid to veterans, and energy.

To us this means that many American Evangelicals merely pay lip service to the Bible: knowing -- but not doing -- what it says:

22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

26 Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
- James 1:22-27

Full story: Polling Evangelicals: Cut Aid to World’s Poor, Unemployed

Trends continue in church membership growth or decline, reports 2011 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches

New York, February 14, 2011 -- Growing churches continue to grow and declining churches continue to decline, according to the National Council of Ch urches' 2011 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches.

"The direction of membership (growth or decline) remains very stable," writes the Yearbook's editor, the Rev. Dr. Eileen Lindner, in the newest edition released this week. "That is, churches which have been increasing in membership in recent years continue to grow and likewise, those churches which have been declining in recent years continue to decline."

However, Lindner points out, "the rates of both growth and decline have generally slowed in comparison to recent years." Copies of the 2011 Yearbook may be ordered for $55 each at www.yearbookofchurches.org.

Denominations

What are denominations?

Why are there so many different churches?

Research resources on denominations

Commentary/resources by ReligionNewsBlog.com

The 79th annual edition of the Yearbook reports a continuing decline in membership of virtually all mainline denominations. And the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's second largest denomination and long a reliable generator of church growth, reported a decline in membership for the third year in a row, down .42 percent to 16,160,088 members.

The Catholic Church, the nation's largest at 68.5 million members, reported a membership growth of .57 percent.

Membership figures reported in the 2011 Yearbook were collected by the churches in 2009 and reported to the Yearbook in 2010.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints grew 1.42 percent to 6,058, 907 members and the Assemblies of God grew .52 percent to 2,914,669 members , according to figures reported in the 2011 Yearbook.

Other churches that continued to post membership gains in 2010 are Jehovah's Witnesses, up 4.37 percent to 1,162,686 members, and Church of God (Cleve land, Tenn.), up .38 percent to 1,076,254 members.

Four of the nation's 25 largest churches are Pentecostal in belief and practice, Lindner reported. "Strong figures from the Assemblies of God and the Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.) suggest an increase in the number of adherents to Pentecostal groups, though it is impossible to state unequivocally from this table since the other two charismatic churches in the ranking have not reported in some years."

The four largest Pentecostal churches are the Church of God in Christ, Assemblies of God, the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Inc. and the Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.)

Mainline churches reporting declines in membership are United Church of Christ, down 2.83 percent to 1,080,199 members; the Presbyterian Church (USA), down 2.61 percent to 2,770,730 members; the Episcopal Church, down 2.48 percent to 2,006,343 members; the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. down 1.96 percent to 4,542,868 members; the American Baptist Churches USA, down 1.55 percent to 1,310,505; the Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod), down 1.0 8 percent to 2,312,111 members; and the United Methodist Church, down 1.01 percent to 7,774,931 members.

However, ten of the 25 largest churches did not report updated figures: the Church of God in Christ; the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.; the National Baptist Convention of America, Inc.; the African Methodist Episcopal Church; the National Missionary Baptist Convention of America; Churches of Christ; Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America; Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Inc.; the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church; and Christian Churches and Churches of Christ.

The 2011 Yearbook includes part two of Lindner's 2010 essay on "The New Immigrant Church," this year focusing on policy and mission.

Church financial trends are also reported in the Yearbook. The financial reporting in the 2010 Yearbook is based on the financial income reports of the 64 churches reporting. The almost 45 million members of these churches contributed almost $36 billion, showing a decrease in the total income to the churches of $26 million.

The 2011 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches reports on 227 national church bodies. Statistics in the yearbook reflect "continued high overall church participation, and account for the religious affiliation of over 163 million Americans," the editor reports.

The Yearbook also includes a directory of 235 U.S. local and regional ecumenical bodies with program and contact information and provides listings of theological seminaries and bible schools, religious periodicals and guid es to religious research including church archive listings.

Information in the Yearbook is kept up to date in two regular electronic updates each year. Access to this Internet data is provided through a unique pass code printed inside the back cover.

Total church membership reported in the 2011 Yearbook is 145,838,339 members, down 1.05 percent over 2010.

The top 25 churches reported in the 2010 Yearbook are in order of size:

1. The Catholic Church, 68,503,456 members, up .57 percent.
2. Southern Baptist Convention,16,160,088 members, down.42 percent.
3. The United Methodist Church, 7,774,931 members, down1.01 percent.
4. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6,058,907 members, up 1 .42 percent.
5. The Church of God in Christ, 5,499,875 members, no membership updates reported.
6. National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc, 5,000,000 members, no membership updates reported.
7. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 4,542,868 members, down1.96 percent.
8. National Baptist Convention of America, Inc., 3,500,000 members, no membership updates reported.
9. Assemblies of God, 2,914,669 members, up .52 percent.
10. Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 2,770,730 members, down 2.61 percent.
11. African Methodist Episcopal Church, 2,500,000 members, no membership updates reported.
12. National Missionary Baptist Convention of America, 2,500,000 memb ers, no membership updates reported.
13. The Lutheran Church-- Missouri Synod (LCMS), 2,312,111 members, down 1.08 percent.
14. The Episcopal Church, 2,006,343 members, down 2.48 percent.
15. Churches of Christ, 1,639,495 members, no membership updates reported.
16. Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, 1,500,000 members, no membership updates reported.
17. Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Inc., 1,500,000 members, no membership updates reported.
18. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, 1,400,000 members, members, no membership updates reported.
19. American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A., 1,310,505 members, down 1.5 5 percent.
20. Jehovah's Witnesses, 1,162,686 members, up 4.37 percent.
21. United Church of Christ, 1,080,199 members, down 2.83 percent.
22. Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), 1,076,254 members, up .38 percent.
23. Christian Churches and Churches of Christ , 1,071,616 members, no membership updates reported.
24. Seventh-Day Adventist Church. 1,043,606 members, up 4.31 percent.
25. Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc. 1,010,000 members, down 59.60 percent (due in part to a new methodology of counting members).

For more information, or to purchase a copy of the 2011 Yearbook, see www.yearbookofchurches.org. Yearbooks from earlier years may be available at a d
iscounted price at 888-870-3325.

Since its founding in 1950, the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA has been the leading force for shared ecumenical witness among Christians in the United States. The NCC's 37 member communions -- from a wide spectrum of Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, Evangelical, historic Africa n
American and Living Peace churches -- include 45 million persons in more than 100,000 local congregations in communities across the nation.

Full story: Mainline church membership decline continues – but more slowly

A new report forecasts that the number of Muslims around the world will grow over the next 20 years at twice the rate of non-Muslims, but that the rapid growth will level off.

With more Muslim women getting educations and jobs, people migrating to cities, and living standards improving, the report says, the birthrate in majority-Muslim countries will come to more closely resemble the pattern in other nations.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSGNybMDTgI?rel=0&w=425&h=269]

Predictions that Europe will become a majority-Muslim "Eurabia" are unfounded, according to the report by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life, a nonpartisan research group.

Muslims in Europe made up only 6 percent of the population in 2010, and will grow to 8 percent by 2030, the report says. In France and Belgium, Muslims will be about 10 percent of the population in 20 years, and in Britain, 8 percent.

Globally, Muslims now make up 23.4 percent of the population, and if current trends continue, will be 26.4 percent by 2030. Such growth is not enough to create a drastic shift in the world's religious balance, experts said. The world's Christian population has been estimated in other reports to be 30 percent to 33 percent.

Amaney A. Jamal, associate professor of politics at Princeton and a consultant for Pew on global Islam, said that the report could challenge assertions by some scholars and far-right political parties about future demographic domination by Muslims.
[...more...]

What also needs to be taken into account is that while children born to Muslim parents are considered to be Muslims from birth, not all of them will follow the tenets of Islam.

Muslim birth rate falls, population to grow more slowly

The report did not publish figures for worldwide populations of other major religions, but said the United States-based Pew Forum planned similar reports on growth prospects for worldwide Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Judaism.

"The declining growth rate is due primarily to falling fertility rates in many Muslim-majority countries," it said, noting the birth rate is falling as more Muslim women are educated, living standards rise and rural people move to cities.
[...]

Continued migration will swell the ranks of Europe's Muslim minorities by one-third by 2030, to 8 percent of the region's inhabitants from 6 percent, it said.

Muslims in France will rise to 6.9 million, or 10.3 percent of the population, from 4.7 million (7.5 percent), in Britain to 5.6 million (8.2 percent) from 2.9 million and in Germany to 5.5 million (7.1 percent) from 4.1 million (5 percent).

The Muslim share of the U.S. population will grow from 0.8 percent in 2010 to 1.7 percent in 2030, "making Muslims roughly as numerous as Jews or Episcopalians are in the United States today," the study said.

By 2030, Muslims will number 2.1 million or 23.2 percent of the population in Israel -- including Jerusalem but not the West Bank and Gaza -- after 1.3 million (17.7 percent) in 2010.
[...]

The study said it counted "all groups and individuals who self-identify as Muslims," including secular or non-observant people, without measuring levels of religiosity.
[...more...]

See Also

• The Future of the Global Muslim Population: The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

The world's Muslim population is expected to increase by about 35% in the next 20 years, rising from 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.2 billion by 2030, according to new population projections by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Globally, the Muslim population is forecast to grow at about twice the rate of the non-Muslim population over the next two decades — an average annual growth rate of 1.5% for Muslims, compared with 0.7% for non-Muslims. If current trends continue, Muslims will make up 26.4% of the world's total projected population of 8.3 billion in 2030, up from 23.4% of the estimated 2010 world population of 6.9 billion.

While the global Muslim population is expected to grow at a faster rate than the non-Muslim population, the Muslim population nevertheless is expected to grow at a slower pace in the next two decades than it did in the previous two decades. From 1990 to 2010, the global Muslim population increased at an average annual rate of 2.2%, compared with the projected rate of 1.5% for the period from 2010 to 2030.

If current trends continue, however, 79 countries will have a million or more Muslim inhabitants in 2030, up from 72 countries today

• Muslim populations by country: how big will each Muslim population be by 2030?

Full story: Global Growth of Muslims to Level Off, Report Says

Christians are less devout than followers of other religions in Britain, according to new research.

Just one in three churchgoers "actively practises" their faith compared with more than two-thirds of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists, Martin Beckford reports in The Telegraph.

Christians are also less likely to say that their beliefs influence their everyday life, although they do affect the school to which they send their children.

The figures, published by the Office for National Statistics on Thursday, provide more evidence that Britain remains a Christian country but most of its residents do not feel the need to attend church regularly and prefer to keep their beliefs private.

The Lifestyles and Social Participation report says:

The 2008/09 Race, Religion and Equalities Topic Report based on data from the Citizenship Survey, shows that 82 per cent of adults aged 16 and over in England and Wales reported having a religion in 2008/09, while 18 per cent reported having no religion. The largest proportion of those with a religious affiliation reported being Christian, with 72 per cent stating that this was their religion. The next most common religious groups reported were Muslims (4 per cent) and Hindus (2 per cent), while 1 per cent reported being Sikh and 1 per cent reported being Buddhist. A further 3 per cent of people responded 'other religion' (Department for Communities and Local Government, 2009b). [...]

The proportion of those who had identified a religion and also said that they actively practised it varied according to the religion. Only 32 per cent of those who reported themselves as Christians actively practised their religion (Figure 14). In contrast, 80 per cent of Muslims actively practised their religion, the highest proportion of those with a religion who actively practiced. Two-thirds or more of Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists actively practised their religion (70 per cent, 66 per cent and 66 per cent respectively). Among people in the 'other religion' category, 51 per cent said that they were actively practising.

Full story: Christians ‘less devout’ than followers of other religions in Britain

Lens, the photography blog of The New York Times, has an interview with Eirini Vourloumis, a freelance photographer who has recently focused on Islamic communities in the United States.

Q: What did you learn as you explored Islam?

A: There is a strong sense of community among Muslims in America and a common responsibility to educate non-Muslims on their religion, mainly focusing on breaking the negative stereotypes. Converts are attracted to this sense of unity and are drawn to the supportive framework.

Q: Why Latino Muslims? Why do you think so many are converting?

A: Many describe disillusionment with the practices of Catholicism and the church establishment. These Latinos are lured by Islam's simplicity and the Muslim's independence from a mediating clergy in his or her relationship with God. Converts are seeking a different identity. Islam provides a moral code of conduct in everyday life, providing them with a more regimented and disciplined lifestyle.

See Also:
• More Latino women converting to Islam
• From Mexico to Mecca
• To be young, Hispanic and Muslim
• Some Hispanics are 'reverting' to Muslim faith
• Older generations mourn as young Hispanics turn away from the Catholic Church

Full story: Adding Islam to a Latino Identity

Religious social media use is flourishing, as much in smaller, more conservative worship centers as in the megachurches, says Sarah Pulliam Bailey, online editor of Christianity Today.

Concern that social media media will detract from people gathering for worship together is vanishing, she says.

"You have to proceed with caution like anything else," Baker says. "It's not Facebook that causes those issues, it's people."

• Are social media changing religion?

Full story: Pastors are flocking to Facebook, Twitter

A growing number of Protestant congregations have seen their Sunday collections drop this year, according to a survey by LifeWay Research on the economic health of churches. Pastors blame high unemployment and a drop-off in giving by members.

To make ends meet, churches have laid off staff and frozen salaries, put off major capital projects and cut back on programs.

At the same time, more of their congregation members and neighbors are asking for help with basic needs like paying the rent and buying groceries, the study found.

Full story: More Protestant churches feel economic pain