title: Asia (band)

text: The band finished a new studio album timed to coincide with the band's thirtieth anniversary, titled "XXX", and released in the U.K. on 2 July 2012 and worldwide around the same time. In September 2012 they played four shows in Japan and a North American tour started on 11 October 2012. The UK tour, however, had to be cancelled after a number of shows due to Palmer contracting a serious case of E. coli.


title: Asia (band)

text: On 10 January 2013, Steve Howe announced his retirement from the band to focus on other projects, including Yes, bringing an end to the reunion of the original lineup. Asia in turn announced they would be continuing with new guitarist Sam Coulson, with a new album in the works entitled "Gravitas". The new lineup performed live in 2013.


title: Asia (band)

text: The band finished the recording sessions for "Gravitas" in December 2013 and in January 2014 they started shooting the music video for "Valkyrie", which was released as a single. The album's cover artwork was designed by Asia longtime collaborator Roger Dean. On 30 January 2014, Wetton revealed the album's track listing through Asia's official website and talked about each song from the album. The album was released on 24 March 2014 and reached Number 1 in the Progressive Rock Chart for emusic on 27 March.


title: Asia (band)

text: Following "Gravitas" and the subsequent tour, the band went on an almost three-year hiatus due to Wetton having cancer and undergoing chemotherapy. On 5 December 2016, Asia announced a US tour opening for American rock band Journey, beginning with 12 dates from 15 March 2017 at the Yakima Valley Sundome in Yakima, Washington, and four days later, announced their live album "Symfonia: Live in Bulgaria 2013", upon which they performed with the Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra.


title: Asia (band)

text: On 11 January 2017, Wetton released a statement that, due to receiving another round of chemotherapy, he would be unable to perform on the 12 dates announced for the Journey tour, and that he would be substituted by Billy Sherwood, one of Downes' Yes bandmates, and Wetton's own co-writer and producer of the album "Raised in Captivity". The band originally wanted to cancel the tour altogether, but Journey's management and agents refused, forcing them to pick Sherwood as last-minute replacement.


title: Asia (band)

text: Wetton died on 31 January 2017 at the age of 67; Palmer later stated "So, we used Billy and we had a phenomenal time. It was a great experience all 'round, and I'm pleased we did it. John would have loved to be on that tour, so I'm pleased we did it for him, anyway." On 17 June 2017 Asia performed a show in homage to Wetton, titled "An Extraordinary Life". The show was an interactive celebration of Wetton's music and life. Fan dedications were sent into management and shown on a large projection screen above the stage.


title: Asia (band)

text: After Wetton's death, Downes stated that the duo had been working on another Asia album and stated that he hopes to eventually finish and release it as a final testament to Wetton. It is unclear whether Wetton had recorded any parts, or if the album had only been in the songwriting process. In August 2017, Palmer stated that there were no immediate plans for Asia to continue, as it was too soon to make any decisions and the band members would be busy on other projects in the meantime.


title: Asia (band)

text: On 2 April 2019, the band announced it would join Yes, John Lodge, and Carl Palmer's ELP Legacy as part of The Royal Affair Tour, a 26-date Summer 2019 North American joint tour, with founding guitarist Steve Howe rejoining the band for a portion of the set. The band also confirmed that Sam Coulson had amicably left Asia to focus on solo projects and that he'd be replaced as guitarist by Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, specifically for the tour also took over lead vocals, with Sherwood remaining on bass but moving to backing vocals. Coulson confirmed his departure on Twitter the same day.


title: Asia (band)

text: Throughout the years, Geoff Downes has been the longest serving member of the band and is the only one to appear on every studio album. However, he was out of the band from its 1989 reunion to 1990 due to prior commitments at the time.


title: Asia (band)

text: The original line-up initially lasted from 1981 until 1983 when John Wetton left. It was reunited on two occasions: first, one year later when Wetton rejoined, but Steve Howe left before the band could work together again, and a second time in 2006, when Downes, the last original member in the band, replaced the rest of the band with his original bandmates. This last original reunion lasted until 2013, when Howe left once again. Wetton died from cancer in 2017, making another reunion of the original lineup impossible.


title: Asia (band)

text: Several musicians have joined and left after a short time without recording any studio material with the group. The most notable collaboration of this kind was the participation of Greg Lake in the "Asia in Asia" concert on bass guitar and lead vocals. Yet more musicians have played as session musicians or have guested with the band without formally joining. Some of these artists include: Robert Fleischman, Vinnie Colaiuta, Francis Dunnery, Ant Glynne, Scott Gorham, Tomoyasu Hotei, Luís Jardim, Ron Komie, Tony Levin, Steve Lukather, Thomas Lang, Kim Nielsen-Parsons, Nigel Glockler, Simon Phillips, and Alex Thomas.


title: Asia (band)

text: This is an approximate timeline of the members of Asia. Thinner bars indicate guest appearances, either on recordings or live.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: The BMW E39 is the fourth generation of the BMW 5 Series range of executive cars, which was manufactured from 1995 to 2004. It was launched in the sedan body style, with the station wagon body style (marketed as "Touring") introduced in 1996. The E39 was replaced by the E60 5 Series in 2003, however E39 Touring models remained in production until May 2004.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: The proportion of chassis components using aluminium significantly increased for the E39, and it was the first 5 Series to use aluminium for all major components in the front suspension or any in the rear. It was also the first 5 Series where a four-cylinder diesel engine was available. Rack and pinion steering was used for four- and six-cylinder models, the first time that a 5 Series has used this steering system in significant volumes. Unlike its E34 predecessor and E60 successor, the E39 was not available with all-wheel drive.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: The high performance E39 M5 sedan was introduced in 1998, powered by a DOHC V8 engine. It was the first M5 model to be powered by a V8 engine.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: Development for the E34's successor began in 1989, and ended in 1995. The final design by Joji Nagashima was selected in June 1992 and later frozen for production under new design chief Chris Bangle. With design selection in 1992, the series development phase began and took 39 months until start of production. The domestic German design patent was filed on 20 April 1994, with an E39 prototype.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: In May 1995 BMW published the first official photos of the E39. The E39 premiered in September 1995 at the Frankfurt Motor Show. In December 1995 sales of sedan models began on the European mainland. Production of wagon/estate models began in November 1996.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: The E39 was one of the first vehicles (alongside the E38 7 Series) to have curtain airbags, which protect the occupants' heads in a side impact. Standard equipment on the launch models included dual front and side airbags, pretensioners and load limiters for the front seatbelts, anti-lock brakes, traction control, power steering, and air conditioning. Satellite navigation was also available, initially using maps on CD-ROMs, then moving to DVD maps in 2002. Several models were available in "Sports" or "Executive" trim levels.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: Special options available options on wagon models were either a roller blind or extending cargo cover with patrician net for the rear cargo area, roller sun visors for rear and side windows.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: A "latent heat accumulator" was available as an option up until September 1999. The accumulator stores engine heat by converting a salt from solid to liquid form (phase transition). The insulated tank can store heat for several days. The next time the vehicle is started, this heat is automatically used to reduce exhaust emissions (by heating the engine up to operating temperature quicker), for cabin heating and window defrosting.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: Separate to the latent heat accumulator is the Residual Heat function (activated by a button labelled "REST"), which allows the demister and cabin heater to use the heat of an engine that has recently been turned off (using an electric pump to push hot coolant through the heater core).


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: At launch, the petrol engines consisted of the BMW M52 straight-6 and the BMW M62 V8. In late 1998, the "technical update" (TÜ) versions of these engines were introduced, introducing double VANOS to the M52 and single VANOS to the M62, primarily to increase torque at low rpm. For the facelift of the model range in the year 2000, the M52 was replaced by the BMW M54 straight-6 engine, however the M62TÜ remained in use for the V8 models. The M54B30 used in the 530i model topped the Ward's 10 Best Engines list in 2002 and 2003.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: The initial diesel models used the BMW M51 turbocharged straight-6 engine carried over from its predecessor. In 1998, its successor the BMW M57 was introduced in the 530d model, however the BMW M51 engine continued to be used for two more years in the 525td and 525tds models.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: In 1999, the M47 four-cylinder turbo-diesel was introduced in the 520d model, which is the only E39 model to use a four-cylinder engine.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: Six-cylinder petrol models were fitted with either the 5-speed "Getrag 250G" or ZF 320Z (S5-32) transmission, depending on the year and model. Diesel models with the M51 engine were fitted with the 5-speed "ZF 260Z" transmission, while the M57 diesel models were fitted with the 5-speed ZF 390 (S5-39DZ) transmission. V8 petrol models were fitted with the 6-speed Getrag 420G transmission.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: Some pre-facelift six-cylinder petrol models were fitted with the 4-speed GM 4L30-E (A4S270R) transmission. Six-cylinder pre-facelift cars built for the Japanese market were fitted with the Jatco 5R01 5 speed automatic transmission. All other six-cylinder models were fitted with 5-speed transmissions, either the GM 5L40-E (A5S360R), GM 5L40-E (A5S390R), or ZF 5HP19 (A5S325Z) transmission, depending on the year and model. V8 petrol models were fitted with either the 5-speed ZF 5HP24 (A5S440Z) or the 5-speed ZF 5HP30 (A5S560Z).


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: Unusually, two different steering systems were used for the E39, depending on the engine. Models with four-cylinder and six-cylinder models use rack and pinion steering, the first time this system has been used in a 5 Series (except for the E34 525iX model). This system steers from the front of the axle.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: Compared with its E34 predecessor, the E39's wheelbase grew by and overall length by . Torsional rigidity was increased over the E34 by 40 percent, which reduces body flex and allows the suspension to operate more accurately, also improving ride quality. Structural dynamics were also an objective of the body design, so the body's frequencies for torsional twisting and bending are in separate ranges and above the natural frequency of the body. These frequencies are out of the range of engine and driveline vibrations, to avoid vibrations being amplified.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: Due to a stiffer body shell, the weight of the chassis increased by , which is offset by the reduced weight of some aluminium suspension components. The wagon version was longer than the previous generation (E34) and weighed approximately more.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: The E39 was the first 5 Series to use aluminium for most components in the front suspension. The proportion of chassis components using aluminium significantly increased for the E39.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: The front suspension consists of a double-jointed version of the MacPherson strut, with six-cylinder cars using an aluminium front subframe. Aluminium is used for the steering knuckles, outer strut tube and the spring pads, resulting in a weight saving of . V8 models also use aluminium in the steering box and several suspension links, to compensate for the heavier steel subframe.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: The rear suspension consists of a four link design (called "Z-link"), which is similar to the system used by the E38 7 Series. The design minimises unintentional toe angle changes, which increases the stability of the handling.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: The Touring model was the first BMW model to use air suspension (self-levelling suspension was first used by BMW for the E23 7 Series with a closed-loop nitrogen system that operated in parallel with the steel springs). This "self leveling" system controls the ride height of the rear of the vehicle and is designed to keep the center of the wheel a specified distance from the lip of the fender as the weight of the load in the cargo area varies.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: Instead of using a traditional coil springs, the system uses pneumatic springs paired with air reservoirs that are pressurised by an air compressor. The system is controlled by two Hall effect sensors at the rear of the vehicle. These sensors tell the EHC (electric height control) if the rear ride height needs to be adjusted and adjust headlight height for vehicles equipped with Xenon headlights. When a door or the rear hatch is opened and then closed the control module will constantly monitor the input signals from the HALL sensors and will activate a correction if the ride height has change greater than 10mm. During normal operation the system stays online but does not adjust to conditions such as potholes.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: The M5 model of the E39 was introduced in 1998 at the Geneva Motor Show and was produced from 1998 to 2003. It was powered by the S62 V8 engine. All E39 M5 cars were sold in the sedan body style with a 6-speed manual transmission.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: The Alpina B10 3.2, 3.3, V8 and V8S petrol-engined models were built in sedans and wagon body styles based on the E39 from January 1997 to May 2004.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: The Alpina D10 was the first diesel model produced by Alpina and was introduced in February 2000. The engine, a 3.0 litre twin-turbocharged unit rated at and of torque, was based on the engine of the 530d model.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: The 540i Protection light-armored vehicle was launched in Europe in September 1997 and in North America from January 1998. These models included aramid fiber armor, bullet-resistant glass that is coated with polycarbonate to reduce spall. The 540i Protection is rated to withstand the impact of handgun fire up to and including .44 Magnum, the glass is also protected from attack with blunt objects such as baseball bats and bricks. The additional security measures brought an additional weight of compared to the normal 540i sedan. on request, an intercom system was available and from January 1998 run-flat tyres were available.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: Most changes occur in September each year, when the changes for the following model year go into production, as is typical BMW practice. Therefore, the changes for 1996 represent the 1997 model year, for example.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: The E39 facelift (also known as LCI) models began production in September 2000 (for the 2001 model year).


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: In Indonesia, the initial model range in 1996 was the 523i and 528i, with only the 523i available with a manual transmission. Following the September 2000 facelift, the line-up consisted of 520i, 525i and 530i. Indonesian models were assembled in Jakarta from complete knock-down kits.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: From 1997 to 1998, the E39 model range in North America consisted of the 528i and 540i, In 1999 the M5 was introduced along with station wagon (marketed as "sports wagon") versions of the 528i and 540i. For the 2001 model year, the 528i was discontinued and replaced by the 525i (525i Touring in estate/wagon format) and 530i (with no wagon variant in the US).


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: In 2001, the American market 540i's power output was increased to , unlike other markets where the 540i's power remained at . All North American models from factory arrived pre-wired for mobile phones; it was a dealer option to have a mobile phone installed into the center console. The station wagon models were marketed as "Sports Wagon" and standard features included roof rails for mounting a roof rack.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: In 2003 BMW sold the 540i M-Sport package as a limited production model in the United States, with 1,190 cars produced with a manual transmission. Upgrades included 18-inch wheels and various cosmetic features.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: Sales in the United States for May 1999 to May 2000 were 19,294 vehicles. The following year, sales for May 2000 to May 2001 were 15,233 vehicles.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: "Car and Driver" featured the E39 in its "10Best list" six consecutive times, from 1997 to 2002. In 2001, Consumer Reports gave the 530i its highest car rating ever, declaring it the best car they had ever reviewed to date.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: The series tested for IIHS's "moderate overlap front" test and received 'Good' rating results, the highest available.


title: BMW 5 Series (E39)

text: The first pilot production models were built in February 1995, with full-scale production starting in September that year. Most cars were built at the Dingolfing factory, with complete knock-down assembly used in Mexico, Indonesia and Russia. CKD production amounted to 17,280, with total production numbering 1,488,038 of which 266,209 units were Touring models.


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: The Sermon on the Mount (anglicized from the Matthean Vulgate Latin section title: ) is a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth found in the Gospel of Matthew (chapters 5, 6, and 7) that emphasizes his moral teachings. It is the first of five discourses in the Gospel and has been one of the most widely quoted sections of the Gospels.


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: The Sermon on the Mount is placed relatively early in Matthew's portrayal of Jesus' ministry--following, in chapter 3, his baptism by John and, in chapter 4, his sojourn and temptation in the desert, his call of four disciples, and his early preaching in Galilee.


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: The five discourses in the Gospel of Matthew are: the Sermon on the Mount (5-7), the discourse on discipleship (10), the discourse of parables (13), the discourse on the community of faith (18), and the discourse on future events (24-25). Also, like all the other "discourses," this one has Matthew's concluding statement (7:28-29) that distinguishes it from the material that follows. For similar statements at the end of the other discourses, see 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1.


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: It may be common to speculate on where the Sermon on the Mount occurred and designate it the Mount of Beatitudes. In fact, the traditional site is understood to be a hill on the shore of the Lake of Galilee.


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: Nevertheless, this long "sermon" is one of the most widely quoted sections of the Gospels, including some of the best-known sayings attributed to Jesus, such as the Beatitudes and the commonly recited version of the Lord's Prayer. It also contains what many consider to be the central tenets of Christian discipleship.


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: The setting for the "sermon" is given in -. There, Jesus is said to see the crowds, to go up the mountain accompanied by his disciples, to sit down, and to begin his speech.


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: Although the issues of Matthew's compositional plan for the Sermon on the Mount remain unresolved among scholars, its structural components are clear.


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: Matthew 5:3–12 includes the Beatitudes. These describe the character of the people of the Kingdom of Heaven, expressed as "blessings". The Greek word most versions of the Gospel render as "blessed," can also be translated "happy" (Matthew 5:3–12 in Young's Literal Translation for an example). In Matthew, there are eight (or nine) blessings, while in Luke there are four, followed by four woes.


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: In almost all cases, the phrases used in the Beatitudes are familiar from an Old Testament context, but in the sermon Jesus gives them new meaning. Together, the Beatitudes present a new set of ideals that focus on love and humility rather than force and mastery; they echo the highest ideals of Jesus' teachings on spirituality and compassion.


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: In Christian teachings, the Works of Mercy, which have corporal and spiritual components, have resonated with the theme of the Beatitude for mercy. These teachings emphasize that these acts of mercy provide both temporal and spiritual benefits.


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: Matthew 5:13–16 presents the metaphors of salt and light. This completes the profile of God's people presented in the beatitudes and acts as the introduction to the next section.


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: There are two parts in this section, using the terms "salt of the earth" and Light of the World to refer to the disciples implying their value. Elsewhere, in John 8:12, Jesus applies 'Light of the World' to himself.


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: Jesus preaches about Hell and what Hell is like: "But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother ""Raca" (fool)" shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire."


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: The longest section of the Sermon is Matthew 5:17–48, traditionally referred to as "the Antitheses" or "Matthew's Antitheses". In the section, Jesus fulfils and reinterprets the Old Covenant and in particular its Ten Commandments, contrasting with what "you have heard" from others. For example, he advises turning the other cheek, and , in contrast to taking an eye for an eye. According to most interpretations of , , , and , and most Christian views of the Old Covenant, these new interpretations of the Law and Prophets are not opposed to the Old Testament, which was the position of Marcion, but form Jesus' new teachings which bring about salvation, and hence must be adhered to, as emphasized in Matthew 7:24–27 towards the end of the sermon.


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: In Matthew 6, Jesus condemns doing what would normally be "good works" simply for recognition and not from the heart, such as those of alms (6:1–4), prayer (6:5–15), and fasting (6:16–18). The discourse goes on to condemn the superficiality of materialism and calls the disciples not to worry about material needs, but to "seek" God's kingdom first. Within the discourse on ostentation, Matthew presents an example of correct prayer. Luke places this in a different context. The Lord's prayer (6:9–13) contains parallels to 1 Chronicles 29:10–18.


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: The first part of Matthew 7 (Matthew 7:1–6) deals with judging. Jesus condemns those who judge others before first judging themselves: "Judge not, that ye be not judged." Jesus concludes the sermon in Matthew 7:17–29 by warning against false prophets.


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: The teachings of the Sermon on the Mount have been a key element of Christian ethics, and for centuries the sermon has acted as a fundamental recipe for the conduct of the followers of Jesus. Various religious and moral thinkers (e.g. Leo Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi) have admired its message, and it has been one of the main sources of Christian pacifism.


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: The last verse of chapter 5 of Matthew (Matthew 5:48) is a focal point of the Sermon that summarizes its teachings by advising the disciples to seek perfection. The Greek word used to refer to perfection also implies an end, or destination, advising the disciples to seek the path towards perfection and the Kingdom of God. It teaches that God's children are those who act like God.


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: The teachings of the sermon are often referred to as the "Ethics of the Kingdom": they place a high level of emphasis on "purity of the heart" and embody the basic standard of Christian righteousness.


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: The theological structure of the Sermon on the Mount is widely discussed. One group of theologians ranging from Saint Augustine in the 5th century to Michael Goulder in the 20th century, see the Beatitudes as the central element of the Sermon. Others such as Günther Bornkamm see the Sermon arranged around the Lord's prayer, while Daniel Patte, closely followed by Ulrich Luz, see a chiastic structure in the sermon. Dale Allison and Glen Stassen have proposed a structure based on triads. Jack Kingsbury and Hans Dieter Betz see the sermon as composed of theological themes, e.g. righteousness or way of life.


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: The high ethical standards of the Sermon have been interpreted in a wide variety of ways by different Christian groups.


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: North American Biblical scholar Craig S. Keener finds at least 36 different interpretations of the message of the Sermon which he groups into eight views:


title: Sermon on the Mount

text: While Matthew groups Jesus' teachings into sets of similar material, the same material is scattered when found in Luke. The Sermon on the Mount may be compared with the similar but shorter Sermon on the Plain as recounted by the Gospel of Luke (Luke 6:17-49), which occurs at the same moment in Luke's narrative, and also features Jesus heading up a mountain, but giving the sermon on the way down at a level spot. Some scholars believe that they are the same sermon, while others hold that Jesus frequently preached similar themes in different places.


title: Misandry

text: Men's rights activists and other masculinist groups have criticized modern laws concerning divorce, domestic violence, the draft, circumcision (known as genital mutilation by opponents), and treatment of male rape victims as examples of institutional misandry.


title: Misandry

text: In the Internet Age, users posting on manosphere internet forums such 4chan and subreddits addressing men's rights activism (MRAs), claim that misandry is widespread, established in the preferential treatment of women, and shown by discrimination against men. This viewpoint is denied by some sociologists, anthropologists and scholars of gender studies who counter that misandry is not at all established as a cultural institution, nor is it equivalent to misogyny which is many times more prevalent in scope, far more deeply rooted in society, and more severe in its consequences. Scholars criticize MRAs for promoting a false equivalence between misandry and misogyny. The modern activism around misandry represents an antifeminist backlash, promoted by marginalized men.


title: Misandry

text: Misandry is formed from the Greek "misos" (μῖσος, "hatred") and "anēr", "andros" (ἀνήρ, gen. ἀνδρός; "man"). "Misandrous" or "misandrist" can be used as adjectival forms of the word. Use of the word can be found as far back as the 19th century, including an 1871 use in "The Spectator" magazine. It appeared in "Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary" (11th ed.) in 1952. Translation of the French to the German (Hatred of Men) is recorded in 1803.


title: Misandry

text: A term with a similar but distinct meaning is "androphobia", which describes a fear, but not necessarily hatred, of men. Writer Helen Pluckrose has argued that "androphobia" is a better term when the aversion to men stems from a sense of fear. Anthropologist David D. Gilmore coined a similar term—"viriphobia"—to show that misandry typically targets the virile male "machismo", "the obnoxious manly ", along with the oppressive male roles of patriarchy. Gilmore says that misandry is not the hatred of men as men; this kind of loathing is present only in misogyny which is the hatred of women as women.


title: Misandry

text: The term "misandry" started to be used in men's rights literature and academic literature on structural prejudice in the early 1980s. It has been used on the internet such as usenet, and blogs since at least 1989. Usage of the term "misandry" in the internet age is an outgrowth of antifeminism and misogyny. The term is commonly used in the manosphere, such as on men's rights discussion forums on websites such as 4chan and reddit, to counter feminist accusations of misogyny. The critique and parody of the concept of misandry by feminist bloggers was reported on in periodicals such as "The Guardian", "Slate" and "Time" in 2014.


title: Misandry

text: Men's rights activists and other masculinist groups have criticized modern laws concerning divorce, domestic violence, the draft, circumcision (known as genital mutilation by opponents), and treatment of male rape victims as examples of institutional misandry. The word "misandry" forms a core part of the vocabulary of manosphere online spaces. The use of this term in the manosphere provides justification for harassment of people espousing feminist ideas by online groups, citing Gamergate as an example. Arguments based on the concept of misandry are used by the men's rights movement to counter feminist accusations of misogyny.


title: Misandry

text: Proposed examples of misandry in popular culture include frequent portrayals of men as absent, insensitive, or abusive, as well as a legal process that discriminates against men in divorce proceedings, or in cases of domestic or sexual violence where the victim is a man. Other examples include social problems that lead to men's shorter lifespans, higher suicide rates, requirements to participate in military drafts, and lack of tax benefits afforded to widowers compared to widows. In a 2016 "Washington Post" article, Cathy Young wrote that terms using "man" as a derogatory prefix, such as mansplaining, manspreading, and manterrupting, are part of a "current cycle of misandry".


title: Misandry

text: Religious studies professors Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young examined the institutionalization of misandry in the public sphere in their 2001 three-book series "Beyond the Fall of Man", which refers to misandry as a "form of prejudice and discrimination that has become institutionalized in North American society", writing, "The same problem that long prevented mutual respect between Jews and Christians, the teaching of contempt, now prevents mutual respect between men and women."


title: Misandry

text: Warren Farrell is a men's rights activist trained as a political scientist, who has written on feminism and men's rights. Farrell argues that men's rights publications are censored online and it is difficult to publish books on the topic compared to feminist issues. He argues that men are often socially rejected for expressing feelings, while at the same time being blamed for not doing so. He argues that there is gender bias, reinforced by feminism, of who is considered to deserve protection and who is held accountable for problems with women tending to be seen as both unaccountable while needing protection, arguing that this needs to change to remove gender roles. Responding, James P. Sterba argues that women may have been excluded from dangerous professions such as the military to protect male status, citing the example of Eritrean–Ethiopian War where he argues women gained status in society by virtue of fighting in the war and contrasting it with Israel where he says that women's exclusion from military national service and the military in general diminishes their status and as a result their influence in politics.


title: Misandry

text: Glick and Fiske developed psychometric constructs to measure the attitudes of individuals towards men in their "Ambivalence toward Men Inventory, AMI", which includes a factor "Hostility toward Men." These metrics were based on a small group discussion with women which identified factors, these number of questions were then reduced using statistical methods. "Hostility toward Men" was split into three factors: "Resentment of Paternalism", the belief men supported male power, "Compensatory Gender Differentiation", the belief that men were supported by women and "Heterosexual Hostility", which looked at beliefs that men were likely to engage in hostile actions. The combined construct, Hostility toward Men, was found to be inversely correlated with measures of gender equality when comparing difference countries and in a study with university students, self-describing feminists were found to have a lower score.


title: Misandry

text: Classics professor Froma Zeitlin of Princeton University discussed misandry in her article titled "Patterns of Gender in Aeschylean Drama: Seven against Thebes and the Danaid Trilogy". She writes:


title: Misandry

text: Literary critic Harold Bloom argued that even though the word misandry is relatively unheard of in literature, it is not hard to find implicit, even explicit, misandry. In reference to the works of Shakespeare, Bloom argued:


title: Misandry

text: Anthony Synnott argues that there is a tendency in literature to represent men as villains and women as victims and argues that there is a market for "anti-male" novels with no corresponding "anti-female" market, citing "The Women's Room", by Marilyn French, and "The Color Purple", by Alice Walker. He gives examples of comparisons of men to Nazi prison guards as a common theme in literature.


title: Misandry

text: Racialized misandry occurs in both "high" and "low" culture and literature. For instance, African-American men have often been disparagingly portrayed as either infantile or as eroticized and hyper-masculine, depending on prevailing cultural stereotypes.


title: Misandry

text: Julie M. Thompson, a feminist author, connects misandry with envy of men, in particular "penis envy", a term coined by Sigmund Freud in 1908, in his theory of female sexual development. Nancy Kang has discussed "the misandric impulse" in relation to the works of Toni Morrison.


title: Misandry

text: In his book, "Gender and Judaism: The Transformation of Tradition", Harry Brod, a Professor of Philosophy and Humanities in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Northern Iowa, writes:


title: Misandry

text: In 2020, the explicitly misandric essay "Moi, les hommes, je les déteste" ("I Hate Men") by the French writer Pauline Harmange caused controversy in France after a government official threatened its publisher with criminal prosecution.


title: Misandry

text: The role of misandry in feminism is controversial and has been debated both within and outside feminist movements. Opponents of feminism often argue that feminism is misandristic; citing examples such as opposition to shared parenting by NOW, or opposition to equal rape and domestic violence laws. The validity of these perceptions and of the concept has been claimed as promoting a false equivalence between misandry and misogyny. Radical feminism has often been associated with misandry in the public consciousness. However, radical feminist arguments have also been misinterpreted, and individual radical feminists such as Valerie Solanas, best known for her attempted murder of Andy Warhol in 1968, have historically had a higher profile in popular culture than within feminist scholarship.


title: Misandry

text: Historian Alice Echols, in her 1989 book "Daring To Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967–1975", argued that Valerie Solanas displayed an extreme level of misandry in her tract the "SCUM Manifesto", but wrote that it was not typical for radical feminists of the time. Echols stated: "Solanas's unabashed misandry—especially her belief in men's biological inferiority—her endorsement of relationships between 'independent women,' and her dismissal of sex as 'the refuge of the mindless' contravened the sort of radical feminism which prevailed in most women's groups across the country."


title: Misandry

text: Echols also claims that, after her attempted murder, Solanas' "SCUM Manifesto" became more popular within radical feminism; but not all radical feminists shared her beliefs. For example, radical feminist Andrea Dworkin criticized the biological determinist strand in radical feminism that, in 1977, she found "with increasing frequency in feminist circles" which echoed the views of Valerie Solanas that males are biologically inferior to women and violent by nature, requiring a gendercide to allow for the emergence of a "new "Übermensch" Womon".


title: Misandry

text: The author bell hooks conceptualized the issue of "man hating" during the early period of women's liberation as a reaction to patriarchal oppression and women who had bad experiences with men in non-feminist social movements. She also criticized separatist strands of feminism as "reactionary" for promoting the notion that men are inherently immoral, inferior, and unable to help end sexist oppression or benefit from feminism. In "Feminism is For Everybody", hooks laments the fact that feminists who critiqued anti-male bias in the early women's movement never gained mainstream media attention and that "our theoretical work critiquing the demonization of men as the enemy did not change the perspective of women who were anti-male." She has theorized previously that this demonization led to an unnecessary rift between the Men's movement and the Women's movement.


title: Misandry

text: Anthony Synnott, a sociologist who studies masculinities and men's issues, argues in his book "Re-Thinking Men: Heroes, Villains and Victims" that certain forms of feminism present misandristic view of gender. He argues that men are presented as having power over others regardless of the actual power they possess and that some feminists define the experience of being male inaccurately through writing on masculinity. He further argues that some forms of feminism create an in-group of women, simplifies the nuances of gender issues, demonizes those who are not feminists and legimitizes victimization by way of retributive justice.


title: Misandry

text: Reviewing Synnott, Roman Kuhar argues that Synnott might not accurately represent the views of feminism, commenting that "whether it re-thinks men in a manner in which men have not been thought of in feminist theory, is another question."


title: Misandry

text: Religion scholars Paul Nathanson and Katherine K. Young argued that "ideological feminism" as opposed to "egalitarian feminism" has imposed misandry on culture. Their 2001 book, "Spreading Misandry", analyzed "pop cultural artifacts and productions from the 1990s" from movies to greeting cards for what they considered to be pervasive messages of hatred toward men. "Legalizing Misandry" (2005), the second in the series, gave similar attention to laws in North America.


title: Misandry

text: The methodology used by Nathanson and Young to research misandry has been criticized. In the book "Angry White Men", Michael Kimmel argues that much of the misandry identified by Nathanson and Young is actually criticizing patriarchy. Kimmel condemns Nathanson and Young for their "selective, simplistic, and shallow" interpretations of sexism in film and fiction. Kimmel says that the "bad history" produced by Nathanson and Young should only be used as an indicator of how the "male studies enterprise" operates.


title: Misandry

text: Wendy McElroy, an individualist feminist, wrote in 2001 that some feminists "have redefined the view of the movement of the opposite sex" as "a hot anger toward men [that] seems to have turned into a cold hatred". She argued it was a misandrist position to consider men, as a class, to be irreformable or rapists.


title: Misandry

text: In a 2016 article, individualist feminist Cathy Young described a "current cycle of misandry" in feminism. This cycle, she explains, includes the use of the term "mansplaining" and other neologisms using "man" as a derogatory prefix.


title: Misandry

text: Sociologist Allan G. Johnson argues in "" that accusations of man-hating have been used to put down feminists and to shift attention onto men, reinforcing a male-centered culture. Johnson posits that culture offers no comparable anti-male ideology to misogyny and that "people often confuse men as individuals with men as a dominant and privileged category of people" and that "[given the] reality of women's oppression, male privilege, and men's enforcement of both, it's hardly surprising that "every" woman should have moments where she resents or even hates men".


title: Misandry

text: Marc A. Ouellette argues in "International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities" that "misandry lacks the systemic, transhistoric, institutionalized, and legislated antipathy of misogyny"; in his view, assuming a parallel between misogyny and misandry overly simplifies relations of gender and power.


title: Misandry

text: Gilmore also argues that misogyny is a "near-universal phenomenon" and that there is no male equivalent to misogyny. He argues that misandry is "different from the intensely "ad feminam" aspect of misogyny that targets women no matter what they believe or do".


title: Misandry

text: Michael Kimmel states of misogyny and misandry that "claiming some sort of equivalent parallel is, of course, utterly tendentious".


title: Growth of religion

text: Growth of religion involves the spread of individual religions and the increase in the numbers of religious adherents around the world. In sociology, desecularization is the proliferation or growth of religion, most commonly after a period of previous secularization. Statistics commonly measure the absolute number of adherents, the percentage of the absolute growth per-year, and the growth of converts in the world.


title: Growth of religion

text: Studies in the 21st century suggest that, in terms of percentage and worldwide spread, Islam is the fastest-growing major religion in the world. A comprehensive religious forecast for 2050 by the Pew Research Center predicts that the global Muslim population will grow at a faster rate than the Christian population – primarily due to the average younger age and higher fertility rate of Muslims. It is projected that birth rates – rather than conversion – will prove the main factor in the growth of any given religion. While according to various scholars and sources Pentecostalism – a Protestant Christian movement – is the fastest growing religion in the world, this growth is primarily due to religious conversion and denomination switching among Christians.


title: Growth of religion

text: Counting the number of converts to a religion can prove difficult. Although some national censuses ask people about their religion, they do not ask if they have converted to their presently espoused faith. Additionally, in some countries, legal and social consequences make conversion difficult. For example, individuals can receive a capital punishment if they openly leave Islam in some Muslim countries.


title: Growth of religion

text: Statistical data on conversion to and from Islam are scarce. According to a study published in 2011 by Pew Research, what little information is available may suggests that religious conversion has no net impact on the Muslim population, as the number of people who convert to Islam is roughly similar to those who leave Islam.


title: Growth of religion

text: Some religions proselytise vigorously (Christianity and Islam, for example), while others (such as Judaism and Sikhism) do not generally encourage conversions into their ranks. Some faiths grow exponentially at first (especially, for example, along trade routes


title: Growth of religion

text: only for their zeal to wane (note the flagging case of Zoroastrianism). The growth of a religion can interact with factors such as persecution, entrenched rival religions (such as established religions), and religious market saturation.


title: Growth of religion

text: Buddhism is based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha, who was born in modern day Nepal and lived and taught in India in the 5th century BC. The majority of Buddhists live in Asia; Europe and North America also have populations exceeding 1 million. According to scholars of religious demographics, there are between 488 million, 495 million, and 535 million Buddhists in the world.


title: Growth of religion

text: According to Johnson and Grim, Buddhism has grown from a total of 138 million adherents in 1910, of which 137 million were in Asia, to 495 million in 2010, of which 487 million are in Asia. According to them, there was a fast annual growth of Buddhism in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and several Western European countries (1910–2010). More recently (2000–2010), the countries with highest growth rates are Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and some African countries. The Australian Bureau of Statistics, through statistical analysis, held Buddhism to be the fastest-growing spiritual tradition in Australia in terms of percentage gain, with a growth of 79.1% for the period 1996 to 2001 (200,000→358,000).


title: Growth of religion

text: Buddhism is the majority and state religion in six countries: Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Bhutan and Laos.


title: Growth of religion

text: Buddhism is the majority religion in nine countries: Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Bhutan, Mongolia, Japan and Singapore.


title: Growth of religion

text: Special administrative areas in China are Buddhist majority areas such as Macau, Tibet, and Hong Kong.


title: Growth of religion

text: According to a 2012 Pew Research Center survey, over the next four decades the number of Buddhists around the world is expected to decrease from 487 million in 2010 to 486  million in 2050. The decline is due to several factors such as the low fertility level among Buddhists (1.6 children per woman), and the old age (median age of 34), compared to the overall population. According to the Pew Research Center published on 2010, religious conversion may have little impact on the Buddhists population between 2010 and 2050; Buddhists are expected to lose 2.9 million adherents between 2010 and 2050.


title: Growth of religion

text: According to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey, between 2010 and 2015 "an estimated 32 million babies were born to Buddhist mothers and roughly 20 million Buddhists died, meaning that the natural increase in the Buddhists population – i.e., the number of births minus the number of deaths – was 12 million over this period". According to the same study Buddhists "are projected to decline in absolute number, dropping 7% from nearly 500 million in 2015 to 462 million in 2060. Low fertility rates and aging populations in countries such as China, Thailand and Japan are the main demographic reasons for the expected shrinkage in the Buddhist population in the years ahead".


title: Growth of religion

text: According to a survey of religion in China in the year 2010, the number of people practicing some form of Chinese folk religion is near to 950 million (70% of the Chinese), of which 173 million (13%) practice some form of Taoist-defined folk faith. Further in detail, 12 million people have passed some formal initiation into Taoism, or adhere to the official Chinese Taoist Association. Comparing this with other surveys, evidence suggests that nowadays three-fifths to four-fifths of the Chinese believe in folk religion. This shows a significant growth from the 300–400 million people practicing Chinese traditional religion that were estimated in the 1990s and early 2000s.


title: Growth of religion

text: This growth reverses the rapid decline that Chinese traditional religion faced in the 20th century. Moreover, Chinese religion has also spread throughout the world following the emigration of Chinese populations, with 672,000 adherents in Canada as of 2010.


title: Growth of religion

text: According to scholars Miikka Ruokanen and Paulos Huang of University of Helsinki, the rebirth of traditional religion in China is faster and larger than the spread of other religions in the country, such as Buddhism and Christianity:


title: Growth of religion

text: The Chinese folk religion is a "diffused religion" rather than "institutional". It is a meaning system of social solidarity and identity, ranging from the kinship systems to the community, the state, and the economy, that serves to integrate Chinese culture.


title: Growth of religion

text: According to a 2011 Pew Research Center survey, there are 2.2 billion Christians around the world in 2010, up from about 600 million in 1910. And according to a 2012 Pew Research Center survey, within the next four decades, Christians will remain the world's largest religion; if current trends continue, by 2050 the number of Christians will reach 3 billion (or 31.4%). According to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey, by 2060 Christians will remain the world's largest religion; and the number of Christians will reach 3.05 billion (or 31.8%). According to scholar Mark Juergensmeyer of University of California, Berkeley, the global Christian population increased at an average annual rate of 2.3%, while Roman Catholicism is growing by 1.3% annually, Protestantism is growing by 3.3% annually, and Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism is growing by 7% annually. According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Christianity (1.38%) is one of the six fastest-growing religions in the world, with high birth rates and conversions in the global South were being cited as the major reasons of the Christian population growth.


title: Growth of religion

text: By 2050, the Christian population is expected to exceed 3 billion. Christians have 2.7 children per woman, which is above replacement level (2.1). The birth rate is expected to be the main factor in the growth of Christianity. According to Pew Research Center study, by 2050 the number of Christians in absolute number is expected to grow to more than double in the next few decades, from 517 million to 1.1 billion in Sub Saharan Africa, from 531 million to 665 million in Latin America and Caribbean, from 287 million to 381 million in Asia, and from 266 million to 287 million in North America. By 2050, Christianity is expected to remain the majority of population and the largest religious group in Latin America and Caribbean (89%), North America (66%), Europe (65.2%) and Sub Saharan Africa (59%).


title: Growth of religion

text: Europe was the home for the world's largest Christian population for the past 1,000 years, since 2015 Christians in Africa and Latin America respectively surpass Europe Christian population because of the high fertility rate there. in 2018 a new data from the Gordon Theological Seminary shows that, for the first time ever, more number of Christians live in Africa than on any other single continent: "The results show Africa on top with 631 million Christian residents, Latin America in 2nd place with 601 million Christians, and Europe in 3rd place with 571 million Christians". In 2017 Christianity added nearly 50 million people due to factors such as birth rate and religious conversion. According to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey, between 2010 and 2015 "an estimated 223 million babies were born to Christian mothers and roughly 107 million Christians died, meaning that the natural increase in the Christian population – i.e., the number of births minus the number of deaths – was 116 million over this period".


title: Growth of religion

text: According to Mark Jürgensmeyer of the University of California, popular Protestantism is one of the most dynamic religious movements in the contemporary world. According to various scholars and sources Pentecostalism – a Protestant Christian movement – is the fastest growing religion in the world, this growth is primarily due to religious conversion. According to Pulitzer Center 35,000 people become Pentecostal or "Born again" every day. According to scholar Keith Smith of Georgia State University "many scholars claim that Pentecostalism is the fastest growing religious phenomenon in human history", and according to scholar Peter L. Berger of Boston University "the spread of Pentecostal Christianity may be the fastest growing movement in the history of religion". Changes in worldwide Protestantism over the last century have been significant. Since 1900, due primarily to conversion, Protestantism has spread rapidly in Africa, Asia, Oceania and Latin America. That caused Protestantism to be called a primarily non-Western religion. Much of the growth has occurred after World War II, when decolonization of Africa and abolition of various restrictions against Protestants in Latin American countries occurred. According to one source, Protestants constituted respectively 2.5%, 2%, 0.5% of Latin Americans, Africans and Asians. In 2000, percentage of Protestants on mentioned continents was 17%, more than 27% and 5.5%, respectively.


title: Growth of religion

text: The significant growth of Christianity in non-Western countries led to regional distribution changes of Christians. In 1900, Europe and the Americas were home to the vast majority of the world's Christians (93%). Besides, Christianity has grown enormously in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. In 2010, 26% of the world's Christians lived in Europe, followed by 24.4% in Latin America and the Caribbean, 23.8% in Sub-Saharan Africa, 13.2% in Asia and the Pacific, 12.3% in North America, and 1% in the Middle East and North Africa. The study also suggested that by 2050, the global Christian population will change considerably. By 2050, 38% of the world's Christians will live in the Sub-Saharan Africa, followed by 23% in Latin America and the Caribbean, 16% in Europe, 13% in Asia and the Pacific and 10% of the world's Christians will live in North America.


title: Growth of religion

text: In mid-2005 Christianity adds about 65.1 million people annually due to factors such as birth rate and religious conversion, while losing 27.4 million people annually due to factors such as death rate and religious apostasy. Most of the net growth in the numbers of Christians is in Africa, Latin America and Asia.


title: Growth of religion

text: Christianity is still the largest religion in Western Europe, according to a 2018 study by the Pew Research Center, 71.0% of the Western European population identified themselves as Christians, however, most of them are non-practicing and non- church-attending. According to the same study, a large majority of those who raised as Christians (83%) in Western Europe, still identified themselves as Christians today. On the other hand, Central and Eastern European countries did not experience a decline in the percentage of Christians, as the proportion of Christians in these countries have mostly been stable or even increasing. Christianity is still the largest religion in Central and Eastern Europe, according to a 2017 study by the Pew Research Center, the share of adults who identify themselves as Eastern Orthodox in Russia, Ukraine and Bulgaria has been significantly increased between 1991 and 2015. According to scholar Barry John Tolmay of University of Pretoria there are increasing signs of a Christian revival in Romania, Slovakia and Bulgaria.


title: Growth of religion

text: According to a 2005 paper submitted to a meeting of the American Political Science Association, most of Christianity's growth has occurred in non-Western countries. The paper concludes that the Pentecostalism movement is the fastest-growing religion worldwide. Protestantism is growing primarily as a result of historic missionary activity and the recently high fertility rate in Africa, and due primarily to conversion in China. According to scholar Paul Freston of Wilfrid Laurier University Pentecostalism continues to grow in Latin America, "both by conversion and by high birth rates". According to scholar Francis Fukuyama of Stanford University "converts to Protestantism find their incomes, education levels, hygiene and social networks expanding". According to scholar Terence Chong, since 1980s Protestantism is expanding in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, and South Korea. According to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, around 9% of Latin Americans were raised as Protestant, but nearly 19% now identify themselves as Protestants.


title: Growth of religion

text: The US Department of State estimated in 2005 that Protestants in Vietnam may have grown by 600% over the previous 10 years. According to Pew Research Center, "largely through the efforts of missionaries and churches, Christianity has grown rapidly in South Korea over the past century", and has grown from 1% in 1900, to 20.7% in 1985 and to 29.3% in 2010, And the Catholic Church has increased its membership by 70% in the last ten years, according to Pew Research Center, "the growth of Catholics has occurred across all age groups, among men and women and across all education levels. In Singapore, the percentage of Christians among Singaporeans increased from 12.7%, in 1990, to 17.5%, in 2010. According to scholar Michael Nai-Chiu Poon of University of Toronto conversion to Christianity is increasing among Chinese Singaporeans.


title: Growth of religion

text: In recent years, the number of Chinese Christians has increased significantly; Christians were 4 million before 1949 (3 million Catholics and 1 million Protestants), and are reaching 67 million today. Christianity is reportedly the fastest growing religion in China with an average annual rate of 7% as of 2015. Some reports also show that the number of the Chinese Indonesians Christians have increased, according to scholar Gavin W. Jones of Australian National University, "there has been a rapid growth in the number of Chinese Christians" in Indonesia, and "conversion of Chinese to Christianity accelerated in the 1960s, especially in East Java, and for Indonesia as a whole the proportion of Chinese who were Catholics rose from 2 percent in 1957 to 6 percent in 1969". Professor Aris Ananta reported in 2008 that "anecdotal evidence suggests that more Buddhist Chinese have become Christians as they increased their standards of education, because Christianity, unlike Buddhism, is often associated with 'modernity' and Western education", although there are no stats to support this. According to a poll conducted by the Gallup Organization in 2006, Christianity has increased significantly in Japan, particularly among youth, and a high number of teens are becoming Christians.


title: Growth of religion

text: In 1900, there were only 8.7 million adherents of Christianity in Africa, while in 2010 there were 390 million. It is expected that by 2025 there will be 600 million Christians in Africa. In Nigeria, the percentage of Christians has grown from 21.4%, in 1953, to 50.8%, in 2010. In South Africa, Pentecostalism has grown from 0.2%, in 1951, to 7.6%, in 2001. According to Pew Research Center the number of Catholics in Africa has increased from one million in 1901 to 329,882,000 in 2010. From 2015 to 2016, Africa saw an increase of more than 6,265,000 Catholics.


title: Growth of religion

text: Catholic Church membership in 2013 was 1.254 billion, which is 17.7% of the world population, an increase from 437 million, in 1950 and 654 million, in 1970. The main growth areas have been Asia and Africa, 39% and 32%, respectively, since 2000.


title: Growth of religion

text: Since 2010, the rate of increase was of 0.3% in the Americas and Europe. On the other hand, Eric Kaufman, of University of London, argued that the main reason for the expansion of Catholicism and conservative Protestantism along with other religions is because their religions tend to be "pro-natal" and they have more children, and not due to religious conversion.


title: Growth of religion

text: Protestantism is one of the most dynamic religious movements in the contemporary world. Evangelical Christian denominations also are among the fastest-growing denominations in some Catholic Christian countries, such as Brazil and France (France going from 2% to 3% of the population). In Brazil, the total number of Protestants jumped from 16.2% in 2000 to 22.2% in 2010 (for the first time, the percentage of Catholics in Brazil is less than 70%). These cases do not contribute to a growth of Christianity overall, but rather to a substitution of a brand of Christianity with another one.


title: Growth of religion

text: According to the records of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its membership has grown every decade since its beginning in the 1830s, that it is among the top ten largest Christian denominations in the U.S., and that it was the fastest growing church in the U.S. in 2012.


title: Growth of religion

text: The 19th century saw at least 250,000 Jews convert to Christianity according to existing records of various societies. Data from the Pew Research Center has it that, as of 2013, about 1.6 million adult American Jews identify themselves as Christians, most as Protestants. According to the same data, most of the Jews who identify themselves as some sort of Christian (1.6 million) were raised as Jews or are Jews by ancestry. According to a 2012 study, 17% of Jews in Russia identify themselves as Christians. According to study by Pew Research Center in 2021, around 19% of American those who say they were raised Jewish or who had at least one Jewish parent now identify as Christian.


title: Growth of religion

text: According to the historian Geoffrey Blainey from the University of Melbourne, since the 1960s there has been a substantial increase in the number of conversions from Islam to Christianity, mostly to the Evangelical and Pentecostal forms. According to Blainey, this is due to several reasons, including the lack of ties of Evangelical Christianity with colonial powers in contrast to Roman Catholic and Mainline Protestant Churches, as well as the rising of Islamism, which lead some Muslims to look towards other religions such as Christianity through evangelical activity in the visual and audio media, as well as irreligion. Many Muslims who convert to Christianity face social and governmental persecution.


title: Growth of religion

text: According to the "World Christian Encyclopedia" estimate significantly more people have converted to Christianity from Islam in the 21st century than at any other point in Islamic history. The 2015 "Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background: A Global Census study" published by Baylor University institute for studies of religion estimates that 10.2 million Muslims converted to Christianity based on global missionary data. Countries with the largest numbers of Muslims converted to Christianity according to this study include Indonesia (6,500,000), Nigeria (600,000), Iran (500,000 versus only 500 in 1979), the United States (450,000), Ethiopia (400,000) and Algeria (380,000). Indonesia is home to the largest Christian community made up of converts from their former Islamic faith; according to various sources, since the mid and late 1960s, between two million to 2.5 million Muslims converted to Christianity.


title: Growth of religion

text: Christians of Muslim background communities can be found in Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbijan, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Georgia (Abkhazia), Germany, Greece, India (kashmir), Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sweden, Syria, Tanzania, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, United Kingdom, the United States, Uzbekistan, and other countries. According to the Council on Foreign Relations in 2007, experts estimated that thousands of Muslims in the Western world converted to Christianity annually, but were not publicized due to fear of retribution.


title: Growth of religion

text: According to scholar Rob Scott of University of Tasmania in 2010 there were "approximately 180,000 Arab Americans and about 130,000 Iranian Americans who converted from Islam to Christianity", Scholar Dudley Woodberry form Fuller Theological Seminary estimated approximately that 20,000 Muslims converts to Christianity annually in the United States. Also according to the historian Daniel Pipes of Harvard University and University of Chicago, and a researcher specializing in criticism of Islam, "reports of widespread conversions of Muslims to Christianity come from regions as disparate as Algeria, Albania, Syria, and Kurdistan", in northern Iraq and Algeria, the conversions of Kurds and Berbers to Christianity are unusually high. According to Guinness, approximately 12.5 million more people who converted to Islam than people who converted to Christianity between 1990 and 2000. According to scholar Ladan Boroumand "Iran today is witnessing the highest rate of Christianization in the world", and according to scholar Shay Khatiri of Johns Hopkins University "Islam is the fastest shrinking religion in there [Iran], while Christianity is growing the fastest", and in 2018 "up to half a million Iranians are Christian converts from Muslim families, and most of these Christians are evangelicals", and he adds "recent estimates claim that the number might have climbed up to somewhere between 1 million and 3 million". Converting to Christianity is growing among Muslims in the Albanian diaspora, Iranian diaspora, and Syrian diaspora, and among Muslim Maghrebis in France, and Kurds and Turks in Germany. According to scholars Felix Wilfred from the University of Madras and Chris Hann from the University of Cambridge and Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, since the fall of communism, the number of Muslim converts to Christianity in Kyrgyzstan has been increased. Some scholars and media reports indicate that in the Middle East there been increasing numbers of conversions to Christianity among the Berbers, Kurds, Persians, and Turks, and among some religious minorities such as Alawites and Druze. Churches in Europe say that there is an increase in the number of Muslims converting to Christianity among immigrants.


title: Growth of religion

text: Religious conversions are projected to have a "modest impact on changes in the religious groups including Christian population" between 2010 and 2050; and may negatively affect the growth of Christian population and it's share of the world's populations "slightly". According to the same study Christianity is expected to lose a net of 66 million adherents (40 million converts versus 106 million apostate) mostly to religiously unaffiliated category between 2010 and 2050, it is also expected that Christianity may have the largest net loses in terms of religious conversion. However, these forecasts lack reliable data on religious conversion in China, but according to media reports and expert assessments, it is possible that the rapid growth of Christianity in China may maintain, or even increase, the current numerical advantage of Christianity as the largest religion in the world. This scenario (Chinese scenario) is based primarily on sensitivity tests. Large increases in the developing world (around 23,000 per day) have been accompanied by substantial declines in the developed world, mainly in Western Europe and North America. By 2050, Christianity is expected to remain the majority religion in the United States (66.4%, down from 78.3% in 2010), and the number of Christians in absolute numbers is expected to grow from 243 million to 262 million.


title: Growth of religion

text: According to the Pew Research Center, Christianity is declining in the United States while non-Christian faiths are growing. The 2014 Religious Landscape Study finds a large majority (87.6%) of those who were raised as Christians in the United States still identify as such, while the rest who no longer identify as Christians mostly identify as religiously unaffiliated, and the number of those leaving Christianity in the United States is greater than the number of converts; however, the number of those convert to evangelical Christianity in the United States is greater than the number of those leaving that faith. While on the other hand, in 2017, scholars Landon Schnabel and Sean Bock at Harvard University and Indiana University argued that while "Mainline Protestant" churches has declined in the United States since the late 1980s, but many of them do not leave Christianity, but rather convert to another Christian denomination, in particularly to evangelicalism. Schnabel and Bock argued also that evangelicalism and Conservative Christianity has persisted and expanded in the United States. And according to Eric Kaufmann from Harvard University and University of London, Christian fundamentalism is expanding in the United States.


title: Growth of religion

text: According to study published by the missionary statistician and professor David B. Barrett of Columbia University, and professor of global Christianity, historian George Thomas Kurian, and both are work on "World Christian Encyclopedia", approximately 2.7 million converting to Christianity annually from another religion, "World Christian Encyclopedia" also cited that Christianity ranks at first place in net gains through religious conversion. On the other hand, demographer Conrad Hackett of Pew Research Center stated that the World Christian Encyclopedia gives a higher estimate for percent Christian when compared to other cross-national data sets. While according to the book "The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion", which written by professor of the Christian mission, Charles E. Farhadian, and professor of psychology, Lewis Rambo, in mid-2005 approximately 15.5 million converted to Christianity from another religion, while approximately 11.7 million left Christianity, most of them becoming irreligious, resulting in a net gain of 3.8 million.


title: Growth of religion

text: According to scholar Philip Jenkins Christianity is growing rapidly in China and some other Asian countries and sub-Saharan Africa. According to a study by a scholar Fenggang Yang from Purdue University, Christianity is "spreading among the Chinese of South-East Asia", and "Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity is growing more quickly in China", also according to him, more than half of them have university degrees. According to a report by the Singapore Management University, more people in Southeast Asia are converting to Christianity, and these new converts are mostly Chinese business managers. According to scholar Juliette Koning and Heidi Dahles of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam there is a "rapid expansion of charismatic Christianity from the 1980s onwards. Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Malaysia are said to have the fastest-growing Christian communities and the majority of the new believers are "upwardly mobile, urban, middle-class Chinese". Asia has the second largest Pentecostal-charismatic Christians of any continent, with the number growing from 10 million to 135 million between 1970 and 2000". According to scholar Wang Zuoa, 500,000 Chinese converts to Protestantism annually. According to the "Council on Foreign Relations" the "number of Chinese Protestants has grown by an average of 10 percent annually since 1979". According to scholar Todd Hartch of Eastern Kentucky University, by 2005, around 6 million Africans converted to Christianity annually. While the exact number of Dalit converts to Christianity in India is not available, scholar William R. Burrow of Colorado State University estimated that about 8% of Dalit have converted to Christianity. According to a 2021 study by the Pew Research Center, Christianity in India gained an increase from conversion, most of the Christian converts in India are former Hindus.


title: Growth of religion

text: It's been reported also that increasing numbers of young people or educated people are becoming Christians in several countries such as China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea. It's been also reported that conversion into Christianity is significantly increasing among Korean, Chinese, and Japanese in the United States. By 2012 percentage of Christians on mentioned communities was 71%, more than 30% and 37%, respectively. According to the "World Christian Encyclopedia", between 1965 and 1985 about 2.5 million Indonesians converted from Islam to Christianity. Many people who convert to Christianity face persecution.


title: Growth of religion

text: The 2001 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) survey estimated that between 1990 and 2001 the number of self-identifying deists grew from 6,000 to 49,000, representing about 0.02% of the US population at the time.


title: Growth of religion

text: Druze is a major religion in the Levant region. Druzites or Al-Muwaḥḥidūn are an Arabic-speaking esoteric ethnoreligious group; the number of Druzites worldwide is between 800,000 and one million, with the vast majority residing in the Levant. Even though the faith originally developed out of Ismaili Islam, Druze does not identify as a branch of Islam. The Druze faith do not accept converts to their faith, nor practice proselytism. Over the centuries a number of the Druze embraced Christianity, Islam and other religions.


title: Growth of religion

text: The Druzites reside primarily in Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan. Syria is home to the largest Druzite community in the world, according to a study published by Columbia University, the number of Syrian Druze increased from 684,000 in 2010 to 730,000 in mid of 2018. The Lebanese Druze have the lowest fertility among all age groups after the Lebanese Christians.


title: Growth of religion

text: According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics in 2017, the Israeli Druze population growth rate of 1.4%, which is lower than the Muslim population growth rate (2.5%) and the total population growth (1.7%), but higher than the Arab Christian population growth rate (1.0%). At the end of 2017, the average age of the Israeli Druze was 27.9. About 26.3% of the Israeli Druze population are under 14 years old and about 6.1% of the Israeli Druze are 65 years and over. Since the year 2000, the Israeli Druze community has witnessed a significant decrease in fertility-rate and a significant increase in life expectancy. The fertility rate for Israeli Druze in 2017 is 2.1 children per woman, while the fertility rate among Jewish women (3.2) and Muslim women (3.4) and the fertility rate among Israeli Christian women (1.9).


title: Growth of religion

text: Hinduism is the third largest religion in the world. Hindus made up about 15% of the world's population in 2010. According to Pew Research Center 99% of Hindus lived in the Indo-Pacific region in 2010. According to Pew Forum, Hindus are anticipated to continue to be concentrated primarily in the Indo-Pacific region in 2050. Hinduism is the largest religion in the countries of India, Nepal, and Mauritius. Approximately 94% of the world's Hindus live in India. 79.8% of India's population is Hindu, accounting for about 90% of Hindus worldwide. Hinduism's 10-year growth rate is estimated at 20% (based on the period 1991 to 2001), corresponding to a yearly growth close to 2%. According to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey, between 2010 and 2015 "an estimated 109 million babies were born to Hindu mothers and roughly 42 million Hindus died, meaning that the natural increase in the Hindus population – i.e., the number of births minus the number of deaths – was 67 million over this period".


title: Growth of religion

text: According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Hinduism (1.52%) is one of the six fastest-growing religions in the world, with high birth rates in India being cited as the major reasons of the Hindu population growth.


title: Growth of religion

text: Hinduism is a growing religion in countries such as Ghana, Russia, and the United States. According to 2011 census, Hinduism has become the fastest-growing religion in Australia since 2006 due to migration from India and Fiji.


title: Growth of religion

text: Generally, the term "conversion" is not applicable to Hindu traditions. According to Arvind Sharma, Hinduism "is typically quite comfortable with multiple religious participation, multiple religious affiliations, and even with multiple religious identities."


title: Growth of religion

text: Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world. In 1990, 1.1 billion people were Muslims, while in 2010, 1.6 billion people were Muslims. According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, as of 2007 estimated that the fastest-growing religion of the world to be Islam (1.84%), high birth rates in as the reason for the growths. According to the BBC, a comprehensive American study concluded in 2009 that the number of Muslims worldwide stood at about 23% of the world's population with 60% of the world's Muslims living in Asia. According to the same study "globally, Muslims have the highest fertility rate, an average of 3.1 children per woman – well above replacement level (2.1)", and "in all major regions where there is a sizable Muslim population, Muslim fertility exceeds non-Muslim fertility". From 1990 to 2010, the global Muslim population increased at an average annual rate of 2.2%. By 2030 Muslims are projected to represent about 26.4% of the global population (out of a total of 7.9 billion people). Islam is expected to be the world's largest religion by the year 2075. According to a 2019 study by the Pew Research Center; "around the globe, Muslims have higher fertility rates than Christians on average. Muslim women's low educational attainment is a likely factor; demographers find that higher educational attainment among women is tied to lower fertility rates".


title: Growth of religion

text: On the other hand, in 2010, the Pew Forum found "that statistical data for Muslim conversions is scarce and as per their little available information, there is no substantial net gain or loss of Muslims due to religious conversion. It also stated that "the number of people who embrace Islam and the number of those who leave Islam are roughly equal. Thus, this report excludes religious conversion as a direct factor from the projection of Muslim population growth." People switching their religions will likely have no effect on the growth of the Muslim population, as the number of people who convert to Islam is roughly similar to those who leave Islam. Another study found that the number of people who will leave Islam is 9,400,000 and the number of converts to Islam is 12,620,000 so the net gain to Islam through conversion should be 3 million between 2010 and 2050, mostly from Sub Saharan Africa (2.9 million). The growth of Islam from 2010 to 2020 has been estimated at 1.70% due to high birthrates in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. The report also shows that the fall in the birth rate of Muslims slowed down the growth rate from 1990 to 2010. It is due to the fall of the fertility rate in many Muslim majority countries. Despite the decline, Muslims still have the highest birth rate among the world's major religious groups. According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the World Christian Database as of 2007 has Islam as the fastest-growing religion in the world. A 2007 Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report argued that some Muslim population projections are overestimated, as they assume that all descendants of Muslims will become Muslims even in cases of mixed parenthood.


title: Growth of religion

text: According to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey, between 2010 and 2015 "an estimated 213 million babies were born to Muslim mothers and roughly 61 million Muslims died, meaning that the natural increase in the Muslim population – i.e., the number of births minus the number of deaths – was 152 million over this period", and it added small net gains through religious conversion into Islam (420,000). According to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey, by 2060 Muslims will remain the second world's largest religion; and if current trends continue, the number of Muslims will reach 2.9 billion (or 31.1%).


title: Growth of religion

text: It was reported in 2013 that around 5,000 British people convert to Islam every year, with most of them being women. According to an earlier 2001 census, surveys found that there was an increase of 60,000 conversions to Islam in the United Kingdom. Many converts to Islam said that they suffered from hostility from their families. According to a report by CNN, "Islam has drawn converts from all walks of life, most notably African-Americans". Studies estimated about 30,000 converting to Islam annually in the United States. According to The New York Times, an estimated 25% of American Muslims are converts, these converts are mostly African American. According to The Huffington Post, "observers estimate that as many as 20,000 Americans convert to Islam annually.", most of them are women and African-Americans. Experts say that conversions to Islam have doubled in the past 25 years in France, among the six million Muslims in France, about 100,000 are converts. On the other hand, according to Pew Research, the number of American converts to Islam is roughly equal to the number of American Muslims who leave Islam and this is unlike other religions in the United States where the number of those who leave these religions is greater than the number of those who convert to it, and most people who leave Islam become unaffiliated, according to same study ex-Muslims were more likely to be Christians compare to ex-Hindus or ex-Jews.


title: Growth of religion

text: Resurgent Islam is one of the most dynamic religious movements in the contemporary world. The Vatican's 2008 yearbook of statistics revealed that for the first time, Islam has outnumbered the Roman Catholics globally. It stated that, "Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism as the biggest single religious denomination in the world", and stated that, "It is true that while Muslim families, as is well known, continue to make a lot of children, Christian ones on the contrary tend to have fewer and fewer". According to "Foreign Policy", high birth rates were cited as the reason for the Muslim population growth. With 3.1 children per woman, Muslims have higher fertility levels than the world's overall population between 2010 and 2015. High fertility is a major driver of projected Muslim population growth around the world and in particular regions. Between 2010 and 2015, with exception of the Middle East and North Africa, Muslim fertility of any other region in the world was higher than the rate for the region as a whole. While Muslim birth rates are expected to experience a decline, it will remain above replacement level and higher fertility than the world's overall by 2050. As per U.N.'s global population forecasts, as well as the


title: Growth of religion

text: replacement level. Globally, Muslims were younger (median age of 23) than the overall population (median age of 28) as of 2010. While decline of Muslim birth rates in coming years have also been well documented. According to David Ignatius, there is major decline in Muslim fertility rates as pointed out by Nicholas Eberstadt. Based on the data from 49 Muslim-majority countries and territories, he found that Muslims' birth rate has significantly dropped for 41% between 1975 and 1980 to 2005–10 while the global population decline was 33% during that period. It also stated that over a 50% decline was found in 22 Muslim countries and over a 60% decline in Iran, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Libya, Albania, Qatar and Kuwait.


title: Growth of religion

text: According to the religious forecast for 2050 by Pew Research Center, between 2010 and 2050 modest net gains through religious conversion are expected for Muslims (3 million) and most of the net gains through religious conversion for Muslims found in the Sub Saharan Africa (2.9 million). The study also reveals that, due to young age & relatively high fertility rate among Muslims by 2050 there will be near parity between Muslims (2.8 billion, or 30% of the population) and Christians (2.9 billion, or 31%), possibly for the first time in history. While both religions will grow but Muslim population will exceed the Christian population and by 2100, Muslim population (35%) will be 1% more than the Christian population (34%). By the end of 2100 Muslims are expected to outnumber Christians. According to the same study, Muslims population growth is twice of world's overall population growth due to young age and relatively high fertility rate and as a result Muslims are projected to rise to 30% (2050) of the world's population from 23% (2010).


title: Growth of religion

text: While the total Fertility Rate of Muslims in North America is 2.7 children per woman in the 2010 to 2015 period, well above the regional average (2.0) and the replacement level (2.1). Europe's Muslim population also has higher fertility (2.1) than other religious groups in the region, well above the regional average (1.6). A new study of Population Reference Bureau by demographers Charles Westoff and Tomas Frejka suggests that the fertility gap between Muslims and non-Muslims is shrinking and although the Muslim immigrants do have more children than other Europeans their fertility tends to decline over time, often faster than among non-Muslims.


title: Growth of religion

text: Generally, there are few reports about how many people leave Islam in Muslim majority countries. The main reason for this is the social and legal repercussions associated with leaving Islam in many Muslim majority countries, up to and including the death penalty for apostasy. On the other hand, the increasingly large ex-Muslim communities in the Western world that adhere to no religion have been well documented. A 2007 Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report argued that some Muslim population projections are overestimated, as they assume that all descendants of Muslims will become Muslims even in cases of mixed parenthood. Equally, Darren E. Sherkat questioned in "Foreign Affairs" whether some of the Muslim growth projections are accurate as they do not take into account the increasing number of non-religious Muslims. Quantitative research is lacking, but he believes the European trend mirrors the American: data from the General Social Survey in the United States show that 32 percent of those raised Muslim no longer embrace Islam in adulthood, and 18 percent hold no religious identification. Many Muslims who leave Islam face social rejection or imprisonment and sometimes murder or other penalties. According to Harvard University professor Robert D. Putnam, there is increasing numbers of Americans who are leaving their faith and becoming unaffiliated and the average Iranian American is slightly less religious than the average American. According to Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans, the number of Iranian Americans Muslims decreased from 42% in 2008 to 31% in 2012 according to a telephone survey around the Los Angeles region. A June 2020 online survey found a much smaller percentage of Iranians stating they believe in Islam, with half of those surveyed indicating they had lost their religious faith. The poll, conducted by the Netherlands-based GAMAAN (Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran), using online polling to provide greater anonymity for respondents, surveyed 50,000 Iranians and found 32% identified as Shia, 5% as Sunni and 3% as Sufi Muslim. A survey conducted by Pew Research Center in 2017 found that conversion has a negative impact on the growth of the Muslim population in Europe, with roughly 160,000 more people leaving Islam than converting into Islam between 2010 and 2016.


title: Growth of religion

text: By 2010 an estimated 44 million Muslims were living in Europe (6%), up from 4.1% in 1990. By 2030, Muslims are expected to make up 8% of Europe's population including an estimated 19 million in the EU (3.8%), including 13 million foreign-born Muslim immigrants.<ref name="11/17/5"></ref> Islam is widely considered as the fastest growing religion in Europe due primarily to immigration and above average birth rates. Between 2010 and 2015 the Muslim fertility rate in Europe was (2.1). On the other hand, the fertility rate in Europe as a whole was (1.6). Pew study also reveals that Muslims are younger than other Europeans. In 2010, the median age of Muslims throughout Europe was (32), eight years younger than the median for all Europeans (40). According to a religious forecast for 2050 by Pew Research Center conversion does not add significantly to the growth of the Muslim population in Europe, according to the same study the net loss is (−60,000) due to religious switching.


title: Growth of religion

text: The Pew Research Center notes that "the data that we have isn't pointing in the direction of 'Eurabia' at all", and predicts that the percentage of Muslims is estimated to rise to 8% in 2030, due to immigration and above-average birth rates. And only two western European countries – France and Belgium – will become around 10 percent Muslim, by 2030. According to Justin Vaïsse the fertility rate of Muslim immigrants declines with integration. He further points out that Muslims are not a monolithic or cohesive group, Most academics who have analysed the demographics dismiss the predictions that the EU will have Muslim majorities.


title: Growth of religion

text: It is completely reasonable to assume that the overall Muslim population in Europe will increase, and Muslim citizens have and will have a significant impact on European life. The prospect of a homogenous Muslim community per se, or a Muslim majority in Europe is however out of the question. Eric Kaufman of University of London denied the claims of Eurabia. According to him, Muslims will be a significant minority rather than majority in Europe and as per their projections for 2050 in the Western Europe, there will be 10–15 per cent Muslim population in high immigration countries such as Germany, France and the UK. Eric Kaufman also argue that the main reason why Islam is expanding along with other religions, is not because of conversion to Islam, but primarily to the nature of the religion, as he calls it "pro-natal", where Muslims tend to have more children. Doug Saunders states that by 2030 Muslims and Non-Muslims birth rates will be equal in Germany, Greece, Spain and Denmark without taking account of the Muslims immigration to these countries. He also states that Muslims & Non-Muslims fertility rate difference will decrease from 0.7 to 0.4 and this different will continue to shrink as a result of which Muslims and non-Muslims fertility rate will be identical by 2050. A survey conducted by Pew Research Center in 2017 found that conversion has a negative impact on the growth of the Muslim population in Europe, with roughly 160,000 more people leaving Islam than converting into Islam between 2010 and 2016.


title: Growth of religion

text: It is often reported from various sources, including the German domestic intelligence service (Bundesnachrichtendienst), that Salafism is the fastest-growing Islamic movement in the world.


title: Growth of religion

text: In 2010 Asia was home for (62%) of the world's Muslims, and about (20%) of the world's Muslims lived in the Middle East and North Africa, (16%) in Sub Saharan Africa, and 2% in Europe. By 2050 Asia will be home to (52.8%) of the world's Muslims, and about (24.3%) of the world's Muslims will live in Sub Saharan Africa, (20%) the Middle East and North Africa, and 2% in Europe. As per the Pew Research study, Muslim populations will grow in absolute number in all regions of the world between 2010 and 2050. The Muslim population in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to reach nearly 1.5 billion by 2050, up from roughly 1 billion in 2010. The growth of Muslims is also expected in the Middle East-North Africa region, It is projected to increase from about 300 million in 2010 to more than 550 million in 2050. Besides, the Muslim population in sub-Saharan Africa is forecast to grow from about 250 million in 2010 to nearly 670 million in 2050 which is more than double. The absolute number of Muslims is also expected to increase in regions with smaller Muslim populations such as Europe and North America, due to young age & relatively high fertility rate. In Europe Muslim population will be nearly double (from 5.9% to 10.2%). In North America, it will grow 1% to 2%. In Asia Pacific region, Muslims will surpass the Hindus by the time. In Latin America and Caribbean Muslim population will stay 0.1% by 2050.


title: Growth of religion

text: In 2010 Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria was home for (47.8%) of the world's Muslims.


title: Growth of religion

text: There exist different views among scholars about the spread of Islam. Islam began in Arabia and from 633 AD until the late 10th century it was spread through conquests, far-reaching trade and missionary activity.


title: Growth of religion

text: According to Rodney Stark, Islam was spread after military conquests after Arab armies began overtaking Christian regions from Syria to North Africa and Spain, as well as Zoroastrian, Buddhist and Hindu regions in Central Asia, parts of South Asia and Southeast Asia via military invasions, traders and Sufi missionaries. According to some scholars, the Jizya (poll tax) was the most important factor in the mass conversion to Islam, the tax paid by all non-Muslims (Dhimmis – which translated means "protected persons") in Islamic empires While other scholars oppose this belief, because the jizya was not of great value, and those who could not pay it were exempt from it. (such as Christians under the Ottoman Empire's authority, Hindus and Buddhists under regime of Muslim invaders, Coptic Christians under administration of the Muslim Arabs, Zoroastrians living under Islamic rule in ancient Persia, and also with Jewish communities in the medieval Arab world) while some scholars indicate that some Muslim rulers in India did not consistently collect the jizya (poll tax) from Dhimmis. Under Islamic law, Muslims are required to pay Zakat, one of the five pillars of Islam. Muslims take 2.5% out of their salaries and use the funds give to the needy. Since non-Muslims are not required to pay Zakat nor entitled to benefit from it, they had to support their own poor and in addition they had to pay Jizya if they wanted the same protections the Muslims received.


title: Growth of religion

text: According to other scholars, many converted for a whole host of reasons, the main statement of which was evangelization by Muslims, though there were several instances where some were pressured to convert owing to internal violence and friction between the Christian and Muslim communities, according to historian Philip Jenkins.


title: Growth of religion

text: However John L. Esposito, a scholar on the subject of Islam in "The Oxford History of Islam" states that the spread of Islam "was often peaceful and sometimes even received favorably by Christians". In a 2008 conference on religion at Yale University's "The MacMillan Center Initiative on Religion, Politics, and Society" which hosted a speech from Hugh Kennedy, he stated forced conversions played little part in the history of the spread of the faith. However, the poll tax known as Jizyah may have played a part in converting people over to Islam but as "Britannica" notes "The rate of taxation and methods of collection varied greatly from province to province and were greatly influenced by local pre-Islamic customs" and there were even cases when Muslims had the tax levied against them, on top of Zakat. Hugh Kennedy has also discussed the Jizyah issue and stated that Muslim governments discouraged conversion but were unable to prevent it.


title: Growth of religion

text: Today, the majority of the world's Jewish population is concentrated in two countries, the United States and Israel, in 2013, the United States and Israel were collectively home to more than 80 percent of the global Jewish population, each country having approximately 41 percent of the world's Jews. Israel is the only country with a Jewish population that is consistently growing through natural population growth and extensive immigration, although the Jewish populations of other countries, in Europe and North America, have recently increased through immigration. In the Diaspora, in almost every country the Jewish population in general is either declining or steady, but Orthodox and Haredi Jewish communities, whose members often shun birth control for religious reasons, have experienced rapid population growth.


title: Growth of religion

text: Orthodox and Conservative Judaism discourage proselytism to non-Jews, but many Jewish groups have tried to reach out to the assimilated Jewish communities of the Diaspora in order for them to reconnect to their Jewish roots. Additionally, while in principle Reform Judaism favors seeking new members for the faith, this position has not translated into active proselytism, instead of taking the form of an effort to reach out to non-Jewish spouses of intermarried couples. Studies have shown that Haredi Jews population is rising rapidly due to the young age and very high fertility-rate, especially in Israel.


title: Growth of religion

text: The overall growth rate of Jews in Israel is 1.7% annually. The diaspora countries, by contrast, have low Jewish birth rates, an increasingly elderly age composition, and a negative balance of people leaving Judaism versus those joining.