Is there a place to find information on percentage of populace who were professing Christ in any given age?

[UKPuritan40]

Greetings Brethren and Sistren,

Edit-I realize having just discussed this with my DH that I'd need to define terms, and because at some point large numbers might be baptized and considered "members" it might be impossible to get anything close to an answer. And the Scottish church would baptize adherents' children if they were "faithful" adherents. Since I have no way of knowing what indicators even exist (ie community headcounts and church attendance rolls, it's pretty hard to pre-define) I do a lot of Scottish genealogy and I can say just from that, the records are sketchy even for marriages and baptisms.

I tried to google my question in several ways and was always rerouted to modern numbers of church attendees/members and so on. I know the Reformers nor the Covenanters had a Barna polling group. My guess is that one has to glean a "sense" but not a number from various church history books and contemporary writers, but surely some of you have done that!

I ask this because in a conversation with a friend who finds so much discouragement in the decline in faithful biblical churches/denominations. I know it is easy to think that the times we so often harken back to as golden ages in my friends case presumed to be the Reformation and the years soon after. I personally note that there was much good theological writing and recorded sermon work in those eras, but that doesn't tell us much about the culture at large. Reading various history books in Scotland during my studies, they seemed to point to a lively and persecution-willing group of saints, but not necessarily a large number of the population percentage-wise. Similarly reading what books I have about Session records in Geneva or Scotland also doesn't necessarily seem to point to what percentage of society at large professed Christ.

I'm not in any way wanting to rain on the historical church, I think they were amazing and much gifted by God, I just want a sense of the folk at street level. My friend and I both note and rejoice over much of the gospel fruit in the broader world today.

Even if you just have a sense, or remember a book that addressed this question "sort of" I'd be glad for the thoughts and recommendations.

With Christian Regards,

Susan Nye Ferrell

 

[davejonescue]

Greetings Brethren and Sistren,

Edit-I realize having just discussed this with my DH that I'd need to define terms, and because at some point large numbers might be baptized and considered "members" it might be impossible to get anything close to an answer. And the Scottish church would baptize adherents' children if they were "faithful" adherents. Since I have no way of knowing what indicators even exist (ie community headcounts and church attendance rolls, it's pretty hard to pre-define) I do a lot of Scottish genealogy and I can say just from that, the records are sketchy even for marriages and baptisms.

I tried to google my question in several ways and was always rerouted to modern numbers of church attendees/members and so on. I know the Reformers nor the Covenanters had a Barna polling group. My guess is that one has to glean a "sense" but not a number from various church history books and contemporary writers, but surely some of you have done that!

I ask this because in a conversation with a friend who finds so much discouragement in the decline in faithful biblical churches/denominations. I know it is easy to think that the times we so often harken back to as golden ages in my friends case presumed to be the Reformation and the years soon after. I personally note that there was much good theological writing and recorded sermon work in those eras, but that doesn't tell us much about the culture at large. Reading various history books in Scotland during my studies, they seemed to point to a lively and persecution-willing group of saints, but not necessarily a large number of the population percentage-wise. Similarly reading what books I have about Session records in Geneva or Scotland also doesn't necessarily seem to point to what percentage of society at large professed Christ.

I'm not in any way wanting to rain on the historical church, I think they were amazing and much gifted by God, I just want a sense of the folk at street level. My friend and I both note and rejoice over much of the gospel fruit in the broader world today.

Even if you just have a sense, or remember a book that addressed this question "sort of" I'd be glad for the thoughts and recommendations.

With Christian Regards,

Susan Nye Ferrell

Maybe this will help brother. https://mb-soft.com/believe/txx/numberch.htm

 

[Berean]

Maybe this will help brother.

Dave, Susan's a woman. A pastor's wife.

 

[Eyedoc84]

Dave, Susan's a woman. A pastor's wife.

She's still a brother, even if a sister.

 

[Phil D.]

https://mb-soft.com/believe/txx/numberch.htm

Of course in order to figure relative percentages, that information would need to interact with the estimated overall world population by century.

 

[itsreed]

PEW's religious landscape survey is helpful. While definitions are not consistent with the BIble's, they are consistent over the longest period of survey time (unlike Barna, which continually changes definitions). A little bit of tweaking, and one can come up with approximate definitions that are adequate, simply due to the number of people in view.

A couple of years ago, I used this to produce an analysis showing that 60% of ostensibly evangelical denominations (ostensibly those with the closest thing to a real claim to being closest to the biblical gospel. Results: 60% show affiliation with 3rd wave pentecostalism, an arminian gospel, increasingly coming under the sway of the heresies associated with the New Apostolic Reformation guys (e.g., Bethel Redding), heirs of the word of faith movement, etc.

 

[davejonescue]

Dave, Susan's a woman. A pastor's wife.

I apologize, I missed her name.

 

[CathH]

Even if you just have a sense, or remember a book that addressed this question "sort of" I'd be glad for the thoughts and recommendations.

If I can contribute at that kind of level, I'd vaguely think of various social history texts. Eg Margo Todd for Early Modern Scotland, or things like the analysis of the impact of the Disruption in Victorian Scotland.
Margo Todd (2013), The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland. Yale University Press
Stewart J Brown & Michael Fry (eds) (1993), Scotland and the Age of the Disruption. Edinburgh University Press

Also:
Callum G Brown (2000), The Death of Christian Britain. Routledge
- discusses the significance of declining baptism rates etc in society at large (from memory)

All of which I seem to remember offering percentages, but all also Scotland/UK specific I realise.

 

[UKPuritan40]

Thank you all for your thoughts. Please forgive me for taking so long to respond. I've found that in recent years the board is seemingly much less active and so I didn't check back right away. (I probably get notices on an email I don't regularly check that might announce that I've had a response. I should sign up for that to go to my usual account.)

Cath, thank you for these titles. I have the Todd book in my library and hadn't come across the Brown and Fry book. I'll work on getting access to those!

With Kind Christian regards to you all,
Susan Nye Ferrell