As Americans we tend to be “Ameri-centric.” We think that the world revolves around the United States, and in many ways it does. America is big, rich and powerful. For those reasons we often wonder why, if we are in the End Times, do we not see some reference to the United States in Bible prophecy.
We Americans also tend to think of ourselves as being the fount of Christianity. In past centuries, Christianity was spread to the world largely by European missionaries. In the late Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries, many missionaries came from America. So when we think of Christians, we think of the average, middle-class, white Christian. Brothers and Sisters, think again.
Wikipedia has accumulated international statistics of the number and percentage of Christians in most countries around the world. They obtained their numbers from a variety of sources, and the numbers are estimates at best. But they are revealing. I classified the statistics by continent or region, and was surprised. As a note, I included Australia and New Zealand with Europe because the people and their culture is European, specifically English.
| Region | Percent Christian | Total Christians |
|---|---|---|
| South Pacific | 89.13% | 97,877,050 |
| Central & South America | 86.19% | 538,656,000 |
| North America | 81.68% | 269,970,000 |
| Europe | 76.33% | 568,016,326 |
| Africa | 48.59% | 420,142,500 |
| Middle East | 15.65% | 90,223,200 |
| India/Asia | 10.77% | 158,466,000 |
You can see that the much maligned missionaries that went to the South Pacific did their job well. As a percentage, there are more self-proclaimed Christians there than anywhere else in the world. The results of the efforts of the Catholic missionaries that worked in Central and South America can also be seen. Sadly, North America and Europe, the sources of much mission work, are slipping.
The complexion (forgive the pun) of Christianity is changing. As a percentage of their total population, South Korea sends far more missionaries to the world than does the United States. Shame on us. May the Lord bless them. And if you were able to organize the above statistics in a manner that reflected ethnicity, you would find that the average Christian is not a Caucasian of European descent. I do not know which of the above groups would be in the median, average position but one thing is clear, the average Christian today is a person “of color,” to use a politically correct (ugh!) phrase.
But praise the Lord! When He calls us all home and we are all gathered around His throne, our ethnicity or color will not matter one bit as we sing praises to God and the Lord Jesus. And we will all be singing in one language. Probably Hebrew.