World Christian Encyclopedia


World Christian Encyclopedia is a reference work published by Edinburgh University Press, known for providing membership statistics for major and minor world religions in every country of the world, including historical data and projections of future populations.

History

The first edition of this encyclopedia, by David B. Barrett, was published in 1982 by Oxford University Press.
The second edition, by Barrett, George Thomas Kurian, and Johnson, was published in 2001, also by Oxford University Press. The research team was originally based in Nairobi, Kenya, and later relocated to Richmond, Virginia.
The third edition, edited by Todd M. Johnson and Gina A. Zurlo, was prepared by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. It is scheduled for release in 2020.
Despite the name, the encyclopedia includes membership data for numerous non-Christian religions. However, the work has been described as serving as "an informational undergirding for Christian missionary work".
The data incorporated into the World Christian Encyclopedia have been made available online at the World Christian Database. One study found that the WCD's data was "highly correlated with other sources that offer cross-national religious composition estimates" but the database "consistently gives a higher estimate for percent Christian in comparison to other cross-national data sets". The database also contains some numerical inaccuracies such as the inflated 70,000 figure given for Ahmadi Muslims in the year 1900, which directly opposes the 1901 Census of India figure of 12,000.
As of 2009, the World Christian Encyclopedia and the World Christian Database were widely recognized to belong to the set of "the most comprehensive sources of data on Christian denominations around the world."