Since adding a religion doctorate from Columbia University to his technical background, he has spent 40 years systematizing information on world religions, a calling he discovered while assigned as an Anglican missionary in Africa.
Now 73, Barrett recently culminated his oddly remarkable career with publication of the second edition of his global accounting of faiths and the faithful — trends, details and his best estimated count of believers of all religions in each of 238 nations and territories.
Never has there been such a thorough reference as the two large volumes, running 1,699 pages, of the World Christian Encyclopedia, published by Oxford University Press. Barrett has doggedly visited most of the lands in person, collecting raw material, including national census figures and United Nations data, and recruiting the 444 specialists who feed him material. Among them: Vatican missions librarian Willi Henkel and editor J. Gordon Melton of the Encyclopedia of American Religions. Barrett’s encyclopedia sought to count each human being in each religion and religious subcategory in each country as of 1900, 1970, 1990, 1995 and 2000, with projections to 2025.
The 2001 edition, successor to his 1982 first edition, which took a decade to compile, identifies 10,000 distinct religions, of which 150 have 1 million or more followers.
Within Christianity, he counts 33,820 denominations.
Barrett also calculates religious populations for the Encyclopedia Britannica Book of the Year, standard estimates that are used in turn by the World Almanac and innumerable journalists. Such numbers are always debatable, but they’re the best available. “We don’t really have any rivals,” Barrett says. “That’s the problem.”
Title: World Christian Encyclopedia : a comparative survey of churches and religions in the modern world
Authors: David B. Barrett, George T. Kurian, Todd M. Johnson.
Edition: 2nd ed.
Published: Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2001.
Description: 2 v. : ill., col. maps ; 32 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
Contents:
v. 1. The world by countries : religionists, churches, ministries
v. 2. The world by segments : religions, peoples, languages, cities, topics.
I wasn’t disputing the number; I don’t particularly care about that. I was disputing the notion that each of those Protestant denominations claims to “authoritatively” interpret Scripture. They may claim to do so correctly, but I don’t think most of them claim to do so authoritatively. That’s a real and important difference.
So you didn’t read the articles then. Instead of showing where you don’t agree with them, you just give credentials of someone who is wrong? Odd.
Since you seem to believe that the more degrees a person has, the more right they are, let me ask you this. Do you have a law degree? If not, then in the same way that you seem to believe in the truth of how Barrett interprets religions, do you think that Obama then puts forth a better interpretation of Constitutional law? If I understand you right, then you believe and will argue that most of the Freeper here, not having law degrees are wrong and our current president is right. Correct?
Also, what about a PhD who touts global warming? Does their degree mean everything they say or write is correct?