David Goodhew's February 22, 2022 analysis for Covenant (The Living Church), reporting World Christian Database figures showing the worldwide Anglican Communion's combined membership roughly doubling from 47.394 million in 1970 to 90.771 million in 2015, even as the Episcopal Church in the United States roughly halved over the same period and the Communion's center of gravity shifted toward Africa, which grew from 7.718 million to 56.947 million.
Facts
Assessment
Reliability Tier2
A February 22, 2022 analysis piece by the Rev. Dr. David Goodhew, editor of the academic volume Growth and Decline in the Anglican Communion, presenting worldwide Anglican Communion totals for 1970 and 2015 drawn from the World Christian Database, compiled by Gina Zurlo and Todd Johnson of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, work widely regarded among religion demographers as the best-quality data on world Christianity. The publisher's own site (livingchurch.org) returned a 403 to direct automated access; content was verified via an independently accessible mirror whose title, byline and figures were cross-confirmed against the canonical URL and multiple independent search results. Tier 2 rather than 1 because this is the author's presentation of a third-party database in an analysis piece, not a peer-reviewed publication of the database itself. Citation
AuthorDavid Goodhew
PublisherCovenant, The Living Church
Publication Year2022
URLhttps://livingchurch.org/covenant/is-anglicanism-growing-or-dying-new-data/
Source Typeacademic article
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Africa directly: "center of gravity shifted toward Africa, which grew from 7.718 million to 56.947 million."
This source names The Episcopal Church directly: "to 90.771 million in 2015, even as the Episcopal Church in the United States roughly halved over the same period and the Communion's center of gravity shifted toward Africa, which grew from 7.718..."
Claims Backed By This Source (15 claims)
This source backs 15 claims across the atlas. As facts: 12 well-attested. As cited relationships: 2 holds. Plus 1 entities citing it as a general reference with no single fact or relationship attached.
Disposition By Topic
- Sources, 9 claims: 7 well-attested, 2 holds.
- Denominations, 6 claims: 5 well-attested, 1 general references.
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