Help! They're Being Oppressed!

In spite of the above overall result of a just-released study, Christian sites are expressing their usual concerns over this:

In Europe, Latin America, and Northern America Christianity is declining as a percentage of the population. Latin American Christians, however, represent an increasing share of the global Christian population, up from 22.0% in 1970 to 23.5% by 2020, and Evangelical and Renewalist Christianity is growing rapidly there. In Europe, individuals are increasingly leaving the faith, mainly to agnosticism and atheism, and many European countries have rapidly aging populations and birth rates below replacement level. A new trend in Northern America is the rise of the unaffiliated (those who would check “none of the above” on a survey about religion), both religious and non-religious.

According to the study, while the total number of Christians in North America will have increased by 77 million over the time frame examined, their percentage of the population will have declined to 76.9%, down from 91.2%.  (The steepest decline is seen in Canada.) The overall percentage of atheists and agnostics is plummeting worldwide, due in part to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the resurgence of the Russian Orthodox Church, and Christian missionary efforts in China and Africa.