The moment
In June 2025 Pew Research Center published its count of the world's religions in 2020: 1.9 billion people, 24.2 per cent of humanity, identified with no religion, up from 23.3 per cent in 2010, while Christians' share fell by 1.8 points to 28.8 per cent and Muslims' rose by 1.8 points to 25.6. The figures measure what people tell censuses and surveys, not belief or practice, and two-thirds of the unaffiliated live in China. The shift is sharpest in the West: the 2021 census found fewer than half of England and Wales Christian for the first time, and 29 per cent of American adults told Pew in 2023–24 that they had no religion.