An academic paper by Duane Millar and Patrick Johnstone* has given numbers to the recent dramatic increase in Christians from an islamic heritage.
Indonesia leads the way with a christian movement well established since the 1960s. More recently, Christ-followers from an islamic background have started to appear in large numbers in parts of Africa, in south Asia, Iran and some Western countries. Millar and Johnstone’s study claims that even Saudi Arabia, home of Islam, is home to 60,000 islamic-heritage followers of Christ
The study dovetails with A Wind in the House of Islam, a 2014 book by Southern Baptist researcher David Garrison. Garrison’s book reports almost no mass movements to Christ in Islam’s first 1,000 years, two mass movements in the mid-twentieth century, a further eleven in the final decade of the twentieth century and 69 more since then. Proof, Garrison claims, that “something is happening”.
Below is Millar and Johnstone’s list of the countries with 10,000 or more followers of Christ, from an islamic background. Their figures date from 2010 and will have increased since then, in most cases.
List of countries with over 10,000 Christians of Muslim background (Source, Millar and Johnstone, 2010).
*In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that Patrick is a colleague of mine!
