Populists in Europe and North America like to claim that Christianity in the modern world is on the retreat against a resurgent and confident Islam. Even observers who do not subscribe to the idea that a “clash of civilizations” is occurring often conclude that Christianity is on the decline.
At first blush, the facts at the world level might seem to support this view. Between 1950 and 2015, according to census figures gathered by the World Religion Database, a large comparative project based at Boston University, the share of the world's population that is Muslim rose from 13.6% to 24%. Over the same period, the share that is Christian fell from 35% to 33%.
But this is no open-and-shut case. The same trends look very different when broken down by region.
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