Estimates in 2020 suggested that the portion had risen to 4% or 6%.[2][3][4]
Due to the small number of practitioners, Christianity has not influenced the island nation's Han Chinese culture in a significant way. A few individual Christians have devoted their lives to charitable work in Taiwan, becoming well known and well liked—for example, George Leslie Mackay (Presbyterian) and Nitobe Inazō (Methodist, later Quaker).
Early Protestantism was driven out of Taiwan by the Han ChineseMing dynasty loyalist Koxinga in 1661, when Koxinga's military forces defeated the EuropeanDutch military forces in Taiwan, effectively leaving no permanent religious influence. The 1860s saw the return of the Spanish Dominicans (via the Philippines), as well as the arrival of Presbyterian missionaries from England and Canada. One particular missionary, George Leslie Mackay, founded the island's first university and hospital.
During the Japanese era (1895–1945), no new missions were allowed, with the result that Catholicism and Presbyterianism remain the largest Christian denominations. The development of Christianity took a whole new turn after 1949, when Christians of various denominations followed the Kuomintang army in its retreat to Taiwan. During the dictatorships of Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo, the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan became outspoken in its defense of democracy, human rights, and a Taiwanese identity. The church is aligned with the Democratic Progressive Party. The number of denominations, and independent churches (often Evangelical or Charismatic), skyrocketed with the political liberalization and economic success of the 1980s.
Today, Taiwanese government statistics estimate that Christians comprise less than 3.9% of Taiwan's population, a figure which is about evenly divided between Catholics and Protestants. Nearly all of Taiwan's aborigines profess Christianity (70% Presbyterianism, the remainder mostly Catholicism).
Taiwan has been part of a missionary jurisdiction since 1514, when it was included in the Diocese of Funchal in Portugal. In 1576, the first Chinese diocese was established in Macau, covering most of China proper as well as Taiwan. The diocese was divided several times from the 16th century through the 19th; in chronological order, Taiwan belonged to the dioceses of Nanking (1660), Fukien (1696) and Amoy (1883). In 1913, the Apostolic Vicariate of the Island of Formosa (Taiwan) was established, being detached from the Diocese of Amoy. It was renamed for Kaohsiung in 1949.
Before the end of World War II, the Catholic Church had a very minor presence in Taiwan, based mainly in the south of the island and centered on Spanish Dominican priests who arrived from the Philippines in the 1860s. The following years saw a mass migration of religious communities from mainland China as Communist persecution began to take effect. As a result, the Catholic Church has many Mandarin-speaking postwar mainland immigrants and is under-represented among the native Taiwanese.
The first Presbyterian mission started in 1865, with the arrival of James Laidlaw Maxwell of the Presbyterian Church of England in Taiwan-fu (Tainan). His colleague George Leslie Mackay of the Presbyterian Church in Canada arrived in 1871, settling in Danshui. Mackay traveled widely throughout the island, and founded numerous churches. He also founded Tamsui Oxford College (now Aletheia University) in 1882, and Mackay Memorial Hospital in 1880.[5] In 1907, Mackay's son-in-law Tan Chemg-gi led the movement to separate form the Northern Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan, and was elected its first moderator in 1906. In 1912, the Southern Synod, formed by the members of the English Presbyterian Mission in Kaohsiung began meeting with the Northern Synod and together formed the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan (PCT).[6] The PCT doubled its membership between 1955 and 1965, perhaps as a result of its outspoken support for democratization, human rights, and Taiwan independence (against the view of the Kuomintang regime that as a notional province of the Republic of China (Taiwan), democratic elections in Taiwan would have to await the military reconquest of the mainland).
Other Protestant
A number of denominations (including Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Adventists, and Quakers) arrived on the island nation in the wake of the expulsion of foreign missionaries from China, and the 1949 retreat of Nationalist troops to Taiwan. The same is true of Witness Lee, protégé and co-worker of Watchman Nee, founder of The Local Churches or Church Assembly Hall movement.
The Chinese Baptist Convention and its predecessors had been planning a Taiwan mission since 1936; its first missionary arrived in 1948. Activity swelled in the 1950s. Baptist churches being congregationally governed, the CBC is not so much a denomination as a cooperative association of independent churches. It supports Taiwan Baptist Theological Seminary (f. 1952).
Taiwan Methodists erected a Taipei church in 1953. The national organization gained autonomy in 1972, and installed its first bishop in 1986.
The Taiwan Lutheran Church began meeting in 1951, and received formal recognition in 1954. One of several Lutheran denominations in Taiwan, it claims 18,000 baptized members.
The Adventists founded Taiwan Adventist College in 1951, and Taiwan Adventist Hospital in 1955.
The Taiwan Conservative Baptist Association was founded in 1960.
The Fellowship of Mennonite Churches in Taiwan (f. 1962) emerged from medical and relief projects carried out among Taiwan aborigines from 1948 (notably Hualien's Mennonite Christian Hospital, f. 1954). In 2004, it claimed 1,658 adherents, concentrated in three major urban areas.[8]
Taiwan is home to Asia's second largest population of Quakers. In 2017 the Taiwan Yearly Meeting (association) had around 5,000 members.[9]
In 2020, the number of Jehovah's Witnesses was 11,379 active publishers, united in 190 congregations; 16,678 people attended annual celebration of Lord's Evening Meal in 2020.[12] In July 2000, Taiwan was the first Asian country to recognise conscientious objection of Jehovah's Witnesses on Military service grounds.[13]
The history of Eastern Orthodox Christianity in Taiwan can be divided into three distinct phases. The first corresponds to the period of Japanese rule (1895–1945), when the first believers arrived on the island from Japan, and petitioned St. Nicholas of Japan to send them a priest. A Taiwan parish, named for Christ the Savior, was created in 1901.
The second period begins in 1949, with the arrival of some 5000 Russian emigres fleeing the Chinese Civil War. A House Church of St. John the Baptist was organized, and visited by various Orthodox dignitaries. At its height, this community numbered one or two hundred believers, and grew inactive during the 1980s. Sources differ as to whether these Russian believers had any contact with their Japanese coreligionists from the earlier period.
The third period begins in 2000, with the arrival of Fr. Jonah (Mourtos) to the island as a missionary priest under the Orthodox Metropolitanate of Hong Kong and Southeast Asia (itself under the Ecumenical Patriarch). Fr. Jonah established Taipei's Holy Trinity Orthodox Church, which formally registered with the government in 2003. Its congregation—a mixture of Russians and East Europeans, as well as Chinese and Western converts—numbers about 30 (rising to more than 100 at Christmas and Easter).
In 2012, the Moscow Patriarchate, apparently in response to petitions from local Russians, "reactivated" the 1901 parish, and established (in Taipei) the Church of the Elevation of the Cross, with Fr. Kirill (Shkarbul) as its first priest. OMHKSEA Bishop Nektarios (Tsilis) of Hong Kong responded by objecting to what he sees as an uncanonical attempt to extend the territory of Moscow beyond its canonical jurisdiction, and by excommunicating Fr. Kirill and a parishioner. (The Moscow-affiliated church did not reciprocate, but in 2018 the Moscow Patriarchate broke ties with the Ecumenical Patriarchate over the issue of Ukrainian autocephaly.)
Protestants in Myanmar make up 5% of that nation's population in 2023. Most Christians are from the minority ethnic groups such as Karen, Lisu, Kachin, Chin, and Lahu. An estimated 0.1% of the Bamar population is Christian.
Protestant denominations arrived in the Philippines in 1898, after the United States took control of the Philippines from Spain, first with United States Army chaplains and then within months civilian missionaries.
Protestantism in Puerto Rico officially was introduced in 1872 when the first Protestant church in the Anglican tradition was established on the island. Before the islands of Puerto Rico came under United States sovereignty in 1898, Protestantism was suppressed under Roman Catholic Spanish rule.
Protestantism in Brazil began in the 19th century and grew in the 20th century. The 2010 census reported that 22.2% of the Brazilian population was Protestant, while in 2020 the percentage was estimated to have risen to 31% of the population, over 65 million individuals, making it the second largest Protestant population in the Western world. Another 2020 study from the Association of Religion Data Archives estimated that Brazil's Protestant population was 15.12%.
Protestants in India are a minority and a sub-section of Christians in India and also to a certain extent the Christians in Pakistan before the Partition of India, that adhere to some or all of the doctrines of Protestantism. Protestants in India are a small minority in a predominantly Hindu majority country, but form majorities in the north-eastern states of Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland. They are also significant minorities in Punjab region, Konkan region, Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, with various communities in east coast and northern states. Protestants can trace their origins back to the Protestant Revolution of the 16th century. There are an estimated 20 million Protestants and 16 million Pentecostals in India.
There are around 500,000 to 1,000,000 Protestants in Egypt, with 300,000 to 600,000 being members of the Evangelical Church of Egypt, Pentecostals number 300,000 to 350,000, and various other Protestants scattered in smaller denominations.
Protestants in Thailand constitute about 0.77% of the population of Thailand. Protestant work among the Thai people was begun by Ann Judson in Burma, who evangelized Thai war captives who were relocated to Burma. Protestantism was introduced to the country of Thailand in 1828 through the work of Karl Gutzlaff and Jacob Tomlin, the first two resident Protestant missionaries in Thailand.
It was believed by some scholars that Christianity was first introduced to Thailand by European missionaries. By 2021, there were nearly 1 million Christians in Thailand and represented 1.4% of the predominantly Buddhist national population. Christians are numerically and organizationally concentrated in northern Thailand, where they make up an estimated 16% of the population in some lowland districts and up to very high percentages in tribal districts.
The population of Angola is more than 92% Christian as of 2023.
Christians have made many contributions in a broad and diverse range of fields, including the sciences, arts, politics, literatures, sports and business.
Christianity has been in Hong Kong since 1841 when British Empire started to rule Hong Kong.
Characteristic of Christianity in the 19th century were evangelical revivals in some largely Protestant countries and later the effects of modern biblical scholarship on the churches. Liberal or modernist theology was one consequence of this. In Europe, the Roman Catholic Church strongly opposed liberalism and culture wars launched in Germany, Italy, Belgium and France. It strongly emphasized personal piety. In Europe there was a general move away from religious observance and belief in Christian teachings and a move towards secularism. In Protestantism, pietistic revivals were common.
Telugu Christians or Telugu Kraistava are a religious community who form the third-largest religious minority in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. According to the 2001 Census of India, there are over a million Christians in Andhra Pradesh, constituting around 1.51% of the state's population. This is a decrease from the 1971 census figure which put the percentage of Christians in state as 2%, and this decrease is mainly a result of low birth rates and emigration.
A 2020 Pew Forum survey estimates that approximately 63% of the population of Tanzania identifies as Christian, 34% as Muslim, and 5% practitioners of other religions. Most Christians are Catholics and Lutherans, although there are also Anglicans, Pentecostals and other groups.
Christianity was introduced by Spanish settlers who arrived in Jamaica in 1509. Thus, Roman Catholicism was the first Christian denomination to be established. Later, Protestant missions were very active, especially the Baptists, and played a key role in the abolition of slavery.
The Protestant mission began in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan in 1877, when premises were rented by the China Inland Mission in Chungking. However, compared with Catholicism, which had been spread throughout the province for over two centuries at the time, it grew rather slowly, it was not until the late 1980s that Protestantism experienced rapid growth. The two largest denominations in the province before 1950 were Anglicanism and Methodism.
References
↑ "Taiwan Yearbook 2006". Taiwan Government Information Office, Department of Civil Affairs, Ministry of the Interior. 2006. Archived from the original on 8 July 2007.
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