The Indian Catholic Church has raised alarms over a perceived decline in faith, particularly among its youth, with fears of mirroring Europe’s empty churches and priestless parishes. Archbishop Emeritus Thomas Menamparampil of Guwahati has warned that internal conflicts and a failure to address societal shifts could weaken the Church’s influence in India.
However, this concern is overshadowed by an alarming global and regional surge in Christianity, including a rise in the number of crypto-converts.
What does the Archbishop say?
At a gathering of over 3,000 missionaries in Kerala’s Diocese of Palai, Archbishop Menamparampil highlighted concerns about declining faith among Indian Catholics, especially young people. He attributed this to weak family faith formation and global cultural influences driven by higher literacy and living standards. “In Europe, people are losing faith. A similar trend, though smaller, is emerging in the Indian Church,” he noted.
He said the Church has to build a bridge to the mind of the next generation. “We have to change our life and our attitude towards the youth. We have to become open to changes,” he added.
“We have to be humble when people praise us for our missionary contributions at different levels in society and the Church,” said the prelate who advocated the theory of “whispering to the soul of Asia” as a means of evangelisation in the continent with multi religions and thousands of ethnic communities.
Notably, more than 3,000 brothers, nuns and priests from Palai serving as missionaries in various parts of the world attended the May 10 event the diocese organised at St Augustine’s Church in Pravithanam, as part of its platinum jubilee celebrations.
According to Bishop Joseph Kallarangatt of Palai, the diocese has more than 320,000 faithful, 449 diocesan priests and 163 seminarians.
Christianity across the Globe
According to the 2013 report Christianity in its Global Context, 1970–2020: Society, Religion, and Mission by the Centre for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, the Christian faith has seen a marked expansion across the globe, especially in the Global South.
In 1970, just 41.3 per cent of the world’s Christians lived in the Global South, which includes Africa, Asia, and Latin America. By 2020, that share had surged to 64.7 per cent, signalling a dramatic geographic shift in Christianity’s centre of gravity from the Global North to the South.
Asia, although still the least-Christian major region by percentage, has witnessed steady growth. In 1970, Christians made up only 4.5 per cent of Asia’s population. That figure rose to 8.2 per cent by 2010 and was projected to reach 9.2 per cent by 2020. This represents a 104.4 per cent increase in Christian population share in Asia over the 50-year period.
Between 2010 and 2020 alone, Christianity in Asia grew at an annual rate of 2.1 per cent, more than double the general population growth rate of 0.9 per cent, a trend largely driven by conversions through missionary efforts.
Regional Dynamics in Asia
Missionaries have played a significant role in driving the expansion of Christianity across Asia. In Eastern Asia, the Christian population grew from 1.2 per cent in 1970 to 8.1 per cent in 2010, with projections estimating a rise to 10.5 per cent by 2020. This remarkable growth has been especially pronounced in China, where Christians increased from just 0.1 per cent in 1970 to 7.3 per cent by 2010—amounting to over 106 million believers—largely propelled by missionary-backed “house church” movements operating outside official structures.
South-Eastern Asia holds the highest proportion of Christians in the continent, with numbers rising from 17.7 per cent in 1970 to a projected 23.4 per cent by 2020.
In contrast, Western Asia has experienced a decline in Christian presence. The Christian share dropped from 7.3 per cent in 1970 to 6.1 per cent in 2010, with further decline projected to 5.4 per cent by 2020. This drop is largely attributed to emigration from conflict-ridden countries such as Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq.
South-central Asia, which accounts for over a quarter of the world’s population but only about 4 per cent of its Christians, has seen steady growth in Christianity, primarily due to missionary activity. Between 1970 and 2010, Christianity in this region grew at an annual rate of 2.3 per cent—slightly ahead of the region’s general population growth of 2.1 per cent. As a result, the Christian population rose from 3.5 per cent to 4 per cent, with a projected increase to 4.1 per cent by 2020. India, which is home to nearly 85 per cent of the region’s Christians, stands at the heart of this expansion.
While countries like Sri Lanka have seen a revival of Christian numbers since 1970 after earlier declines, others—such as Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Maldives, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—witnessed significant growth over the past century but are now expected to see a decline in Christian proportions between 2010 and 2020.
The rapid rise of Protestant and Independent churches, driven by active missionary work, has altered this balance. Between 1970 and 2010, the share of Independents rose from 14 per cent to nearly 27 per cent, showing growth in nearly every country except Kyrgyzstan.
In India, much of this growth is fueled by hidden Hindu believers in Christ, so-called crypto-converts, who have been nurtured through underground missionary networks. Across Asia, Independent churches are projected to surpass Roman Catholics by 2020, with 3.7 per cent of the population identifying as Independents compared to 3.5 per cent as Catholics. Notably, Independents have grown at an annual rate of 4.8 per cent from 1970 to 2020, the fastest growth among all Christian traditions in the region.
The Role of Crypto-Converts
A key driver of Christian growth in India and Asia is the rise of crypto-converts—hidden believers from Hindu, Muslim, or other backgrounds who practice Christianity covertly, often guided by missionaries. In India, where Christians make up just 2.3 per cent of the 1.4 billion population (with 18 per cent in Kerala), the presence of these covert Christians, alongside missionary-led underground communities, suggests that Christianity’s true extent is underreported. Missionaries have been pivotal in fostering these communities, particularly through the growth of Independent churches and “house church” movements, which offer flexible, culturally resonant expressions of faith.
The Christianity in its Global Context report highlights that global religious adherence has risen from 82 per cent in 1970 to 88 per cent in 2010, projected rise of 90 per cent by 2020, partly due to religion’s resurgence in China. Christianity and Islam are expected to account for 57.2 per cent of the global population by 2020, up from 48.8 per cent in 1970, as per the report.
As per the report In the global South, Christianity is outpacing population growth, while in the global North, particularly Europe, it is declining amid shifts to agnosticism and atheism. Asia, the world’s most religiously diverse continent, hosts nearly all major religions, including 98.4 per cent of global Christians in 2010, making it a focal point for missionary activity.
Missionaries are also addressing social challenges, such as poverty and hunger, which affect regions like Southern Asia, where one-third of children were underweight in 2010. By combining spiritual outreach with social action, missionaries are enhancing Christianity’s appeal and impact, further driving its growth.
In India, the surge of Independent churches and so-called “crypto-converts”—individuals who secretly convert to Christianity while retaining a Hindu identity in public—signals a growing religious transformation that operates outside established ecclesiastical and legal frameworks.
Fuelled by missionary funding and outreach, these underground conversions often avoid scrutiny, yet their impact is far-reaching, contributing to community fragmentation and tension.
While the Indian Catholic Church has raised concerns about a decline in formal church attendance and youth participation, this narrative is complicated by the explosive rise in covert and independent Christian activity.
According to Christianity in its Global Context, the Christian population in Asia was projected to reach 420 million by 2020, with South-central Asia, particularly India, accounting for 85 per cent of that growth. Far from a decline, Christianity is experiencing an aggressive expansion, much of it under the radar, supported by international missionary networks.
Indian Census and Global Reports
While Christianity has surged across Asia, fuelled by aggressive missionary networks and the rapid rise of Independent and Protestant house churches, India’s official figures tell a vastly different story. According to the 2011 Census data, Christians made up 2.3 per cent of the population, around 2.78 crore people, in a nation of over 121 crore. In contrast, the Christianity in its Global Context report outlines a dramatic Christian expansion across East and Southeast Asia, especially in Asia, where they rose from 1.2 per cent in 1970 to 8.1 per cent in 2010, with projections reaching 10.5 per cent by 2020. Even in South-central Asia, where India is said to be at the heart of this growth, Christianity expanded at a rate outpacing population growth. These global projections, however, stand at odds with India’s census-based reality. Much of the supposed growth in India is attributed to “crypto-converts,” meaning the Hindus who secretly practice Christianity but retain Hindu identities to avoid legal and social backlash.
Unlike the transparent religious transitions elsewhere in Asia, India’s Christian expansion is largely subterranean, bypassing legal scrutiny and exploiting social vulnerabilities. What appears to be a religious phenomenon is, in fact, a strategic and covert transformation, raising alarms about the erosion of India’s cultural cohesion and the silent recalibration of its religious landscape, hidden behind unchanged official numbers.
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