Missionaries from the Church of the East, traditionally called the “Nestorians,” were the first Christian group that set foot in China. In 645, missionaries from this group traveled along the Silk Road and arrived in Xi'an, the Capital City of China at the time, and built multiple churches in China.
The first known missionaries in China arrived during the Tang Dynasty, when the Church of the East established congenial relations with the Chinese emperor's court. The next major contact came when the Roman Catholic Church sent a group of Italian missionaries to meet with Mongol ruler Genghis Khan.
Francis Xavier was a Jesuit born in the Basque Country of Spain. He was the first to bring Christianity to Japan and was known as the apostle to the East. He landed in Kagoshima in 1549, and for the subsequent two-plus years he proselytized in such places as Hirado and Yamaguchi, baptizing more than 500 people.
James Hudson Taylor (Chinese: 戴德生; pinyin: dài dé shēng; 21 May 1832 – 3 June 1905) was a British Baptist Christian missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission (CIM, now OMF International).
Missionaries from the Church of the East, traditionally called the “Nestorians,” were the first Christian group that set foot in China. In 645, missionaries from this group traveled along the Silk Road and arrived in Xi'an, the Capital City of China at the time, and built multiple churches in China.
During the Cultural Revolution believers were arrested and imprisoned and sometimes tortured for their faith. Bibles were destroyed, churches and homes were looted, and Christians were subjected to humiliation. Several thousand Christians were known to have been imprisoned between 1983 and 1993.
Over the past four decades, Christianity has grown faster in China than anywhere else in the world. Daryl Ireland, a Boston University School of Theology research assistant professor of mission, estimates that the Christian community there has grown from 1 million to 100 million.
At its peak, there were up to 500,000 people in Nagasaki that identified as Christian. But over time, Japan's political authorities decided the rapid growth of the religion posed a threat to the central government. They decided to crack down.
Christian missionaries led by Francis Xavier entered Japan in 1549, only six years after the first Portuguese traders, and over the next century converted hundreds of thousands of Japanese—perhaps half a million—to Christianity.
According to the stela, unearthed in the early 1600s, Christianity came to China in A.D. 635, when a Nestorian monk named Aluoben entered the ancient capital of Chang'an -- now modern-day Xi'an -- in central China.
Though closer to a philosophy than a true religion, Confucianism was a way of life for ancient Chinese people, and it continues to influence Chinese culture today. The founder of Confucianism, named Confucius, lived from 551 to 479 B.C.E.
The Bible is printed in China but legally available only at church bookstores approved by Beijing. Roughly two years ago, the Chinese government banned online Bible sales. Audio Bible players, nevertheless, have become popular with people of faith in China because of their ease of use.
However, due to this small initial population base, immigration from Muslim majority countries has made Islam one of the fastest growing religion in the country in terms of percentage increase, with its followers growing by 110%, from 110,000 in 2010 to 226,000 at the end of 2019, out of the total population of Japan ...
1South Korea has no majority religious group. Its population includes a plurality of people with no religious affiliation (46%) and significant shares of Christians (29%) and Buddhists (23%).
Islam becomes the fastest growing religion in Japan, according to recent study. ?? The number of Muslims living in Japan, though small, has more than doubled in the past decade, from 110,000 in 2010 to 230,000 at the end of 2019. The country now boasts more than 110 mosques.
The Chinese government is wary of religion for several reasons. China is officially an atheist state and Communist Party members are banned from believing in or practicing any faith; there is concern that religion can function as an alternative to Communism and thus undermine loyalty to the government.
In Shingo, the Greatest Story Ever Told is retold like this: Jesus first came to Japan at the age of 21 to study theology. This was during his so-called “lost years,” a 12-year gap unaccounted for in the New Testament.
Mendicant orders fiercely accused the Jesuits of being corrupt and even considered their activity as the primary reason for Japan's ban on Catholicism. Mendicant orders themselves were not necessarily uninvolved in commercial activities.
The number of people affiliated with Christianity in Australia decreased from 12.2 million (52.1%) in 2016 to 11.1 million (43.9%) in 2021.
The United States has the largest Christian population in the world, followed by Brazil, Mexico, Russia, and the Philippines.
Christianity has been estimated to be growing rapidly in South America, Africa, and Asia. In Africa, for instance, in 1900, there were only 8.7 million adherents of Christianity; now there are 390 million, and it is expected that by 2025 there will be 600 million Christians in Africa.
Studies in the 21st century suggest that, in terms of percentage and worldwide spread, Islam is the fastest-growing major religion in the world.
According to the Pew Research Center, the Muslim population in Europe (excluding Turkey) was about 30 million in 1990, and 44 million in 2010; the Muslim share of the population increased from 4.1% in 1990 to 6% in 2010.
Muslims are a minority group in China, representing 1.6 to 2 percent of the total population (21-28 million people) according to various estimates. Though Hui Muslims are the most numerous group, the greatest concentration of Muslims are in Xinjiang, which contains a significant Uyghur population.
Hindus by state or territory
Hinduism is one of the fastest growing religion in absolute numbers in every state and territory of Australia.