Footnotes
- Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (New York, Penguin Publishing, 2018), 40. Steve Denning, “Why The World Is Getting Better And Why Hardly Anyone Knows It,” Forbes (November 2017).
- Historically, this has been identified as the ten Roman provinces of Augustus Caesar, who ruled from 27 BC to AD 14.
- Rodney Stark, Triumph Of Faith: Why The World Is More Religious Than Ever (Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2015), 12.
- According to historical estimates by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity.
- The Gospel is reaching even the remotest places in the world, and Christianity is experiencing phenomenal growth globally. In 1910, about two-thirds of the world’s Christians lived in Europe, where the bulk of Christians had been for a millennium. Today, while about a quarter of all Christians live in Europe (26%), and more than a third now are in the Americas (37%); about one in every four Christians lives in sub-Saharan Africa (24%), and about one-in-eight is found in Asia and the Pacific (13%).
- Pew Research Report, “Global Christianity – A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Christian Population” (December 19, 2011).
- Various, “Global Christianity: Regional Distribution of Christians,” Pew Research Center (December 19, 2011). http://www.pewforum.org/2011/12/19/global-christianity-regions.
- Tertullian in Apologeticus.
- Various, “Statistics,” Pew Research Center, www.pewforum.org/Christian/Global-Christianity-exec.aspx.
- Roger Aubry, La misión: siguiendo a Jesús por los caminos de América Latina (Buenos Aires: Guadalupe, 1990), 105-115.
- See Wes Granberg-Michaelson, “Think Christianity is Dying? No, Christianity is Shifting Dramatically,” The Washington Post (May 20, 2015).
- John C. Green, “Pentecostal Growth and Impact in Latin America, Africa, and Asia” in Spirit and Power: The Growth and Global Impact of Pentecostalism, eds. Donald E. Miller, Kimon H. Sargeant, Richard Flory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 331.
- Paul Strand, “Spirit-Led Revival Movement Sweeps Brazil,” CBN News (March 11, 2011).
- Philip Jenkins, “The Future of Christianity in Asia,” Aletia (August 21, 2014), https://aleteia.org/2014/08/21/the-future-of-christianity-in-asia/.
- Hollie McKay, “North Korea: How Christians Survive in the World’s Most Anti-Christian Nation,” Fox News (August 18, 2017).
- David B. Barrett, George Thomas Kurian, and Todd M. Johnson, eds. World Christian Encyclopedia (Oxford University Press, 2001), 374.
- Tom Phillips, “China On Course To Become ‘World’s Most Christian Nation’ Within 15 years,” London Telegraph (April 19, 2014).
- Mark Noll, “Faith and Conflict: The Global Rise of Christianity,” Council on Foreign Relations and Pew Research Center (March 2, 2005).
- Wes Granberg-Michaelson, “Think Christianity is Dying? No, Christianity is Shifting Dramatically,” The Washington Post
- John Bingham, “Justin Welby Ponders Landmark China Tour to see the Explosion of Christianity,” The Telegraph, December 14, 2014.
- Bruce Milne, Know the Truth: A Handbook of Christian Belief (Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2010), 332.
- Various, “Global Christianity – A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Christian Population,” Pew Research Center (December 19, 2011).
- See Various, “Global Statistics, 2005-2010,” Operation World.
- See reports in David Garrison, A Wind In The House Of Islam: How God Is Drawing Muslims Around The World To Faith In Jesus Christ (WIGTake Resources, 2014).
- Audrey Lee, “Why Revival is Exploding Among Muslims,” Charisma (December 2012).
- See Duane Alexander Miller and Patrick Johnstone, “Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background: A Global Census,” Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion 11 (2015): 10. Also Timothy C. Morgan, “Why Muslims are Becoming the Best Evangelists: Missiologist Dave Garrison Documents Global Surge in Muslims Leading Muslims to Christ. He calls it, ‘Unprecedented,’” Christianity Today (April 22, 2014).
- Joel C. Rosenberg, Inside the Revival: Good News and Changed Hearts Since 9/11 (Wheaton: Tyndale Publishers, 2009), 3.
- Michael Ashcraft, “Christianity Exploding in Iran Despite Efforts of Government to Stamp it out,” God Reports (August 4, 2017).
- Christian growth in Iran is currently estimated at 19.6% by Operation World.
- Editor, “Al-Jazeerah: 6 Million Muslims Convert to Christianity in Africa each year,” Muslim Statistics (December 14, 2012).
- Very likely due to its fusion with politics and nationalism. Read more here.
- Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap (New York: Basic Books, 1992), p. 184.
- Ronald A. Wells, History Through the Eyes of Faith (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1989), p. 179.
- John D’Emilio and Estelle Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), pp. 65, 133-134.
- Arnold Toynbee, War And Civilization (New York: Oxford University Press, 1950), 4.
- Gregg Easterbrook, It’s Better Than It Looks: Reasons for Optimism in an Age of Fear (New York: Public Affairs, 2018), 109.
- Steven Pinker, “Violence Vanquished,” The Wall Street Journal (September 24, 2011).
- Various, Human Security Report 2013 (Vancouver: Human Security Press, 2014), 25.
- John Gramlich, “5 Facts about Crime in the U.S.,” Pew Research Center (January 30, 2018).
- See Johan Norgerg, Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future (United Kingdom: Oneworld Publications, 2016), 88.
- Douglas T. Kenrick, Ph.D., “Ten Ways the World Is Getting Better: Steven Pinker, Science, Humanism, and Progress,” Psychology Today (March 2018).
- Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (New York, Penguin Publishing, 2018), 168.
- John Gramlich, “5 facts about crime in the U.S.,” Pew Research Center (January 30, 2018). The homicide rate in the United States is now lower than five per 100,000. Manuel Eisner, “Long-Term Historical Trends in Violent Crime,” Crime and Justice 30 (2003): 83–142.
- See Suzanne Austin Alchon, A Pest in the Land: New World Epidemics in a Global Perspective (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003), 21. This infectious disease was caused by bacteria that spread in the air and by physical contact, and was carried by the fleas on rats.
- J. N. Hays, Epidemics and Pandemics: Their Impacts on Human History (Santa Barbara, California: ABC CLIO, 2005), 151.
- Various, Canadian International Immunization Initiative (September 2007), 3.
- Editor, “More than 1.5 million cancer deaths averted in last two decades,” CBS News (December 31, 2014). The number of new cases of HIV/AIDS worldwide has been falling for a decade, and deaths from the disease have been falling since 2005. Matt Ridley, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2010), 307-308.
- Matt Ridley, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2010), 307-308.
- William Fogel, The Escape From Hunger and Premature Death, 1700–2100: Europe, America, and the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 10.
- Abdel R. Omran, “The Epidemiologic Transition: A Theory of the Epidemiology of Population Change,” Milbank Quarterly 83:4 (2005): 731–57.
- Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (New York, Penguin Publishing, 2018), 59.
- Steve Denning, “Why The World Is Getting Better And Why Hardly Anyone Knows It,” Forbes (November 2017).
- Max Roser, “The Short History of Global Living Conditions and Why it Matters that we Know it,” Our World In Data. https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-conditions-in-5-charts.
- See Douglas T. Kenrick Ph.D., “Ten Ways the World Is Getting Better: Steven Pinker, Science, Humanism, and Progress,” Psychology Today (March 2018).
- See Hans Rosling with Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think (New York, Flatiron Books, 2018), 53.
- Steve Denning, “Why The World Is Getting Better And Why Hardly Anyone Knows It,” Forbes (November 2017). Also, see Max Roser, “It’s a Cold, Hard Fact: Our World is Becoming a Better Place,” Oxford Martin School (October 20, 2014).
- Nicholas Kristof, “Why 2017 May Be the Best Year Ever,” The New York Times (January 21, 2017).
- Otto Bettmann, The Good Old Days—They Were Terrible! (New York: Random House, 1974) 136.
- Various, “Drinking Water,” World Health Organization (February 7, 2018).
- Various, “Key Facts from JMP 2015 Report,” World Health Organization (2015).
- Stephen Devereux, “Famine in the Twentieth Century,” Institute of Development Studies (2000): 3.
- Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (New York, Penguin Publishing, 2018), 71.
- Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (New York: Penguin Publishing, 2011), 5.
- See Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (New York, Penguin Publishing, 2018), 222.
- Katie McLaughlin, “5 Things Women Couldn’t Do in the 1960s,” CNN (August 25, 2014).
- See Margo Wilson and Martin Daly, “The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Chattel,” in J. H. Barkow, L. Cosmides and J. Tooby eds., The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
- Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (New York: Penguin Publishing, 2011), 402.
- Stanley L. Engerman, Richard Sutch, and Gavin Wright, “Slavery for Historical Statistics of the United States Millennial Edition,” University of California Project on the Historical Statistics of the United States Center for Social and Economic Policy, Policy Studies Institute, University of California, Riverside, March 2003.
- Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (New York, Penguin Publishing, 2018), 219.
- See Dylan Matthews, “Woodrow Wilson was extremely racist — even by the standards of his time,” Vox (November 20, 2015). President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s choice for vice president and first Supreme Court nominee were former Ku Klux Klan members. Thad Morgan, “How an Ex-KKK Member Made His Way Onto the U.S. Supreme Court,” History (October 10, 2018).
- Megan Trimble, “KKK Groups Still Active in These States in 2017,” U.S. News and World Reports (August 14, 2017).
- Charles Kenny, “The Data Are In: Young People are Increasingly Less Racist than Old People,” Quartz (May 24, 2017).
- Victor Asal and Amy Pate, “The Decline of Ethnic Political Discrimination, 1950-2003,” in Peace and Conflict 2005: A Global Survey of Armed Conflicts, Self-Determination Movements, and Democracy, edited by Monty G. Marshall, Ted Robert Gurr (University of Maryland: Center for International Development, 2005).
- Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) is a Supreme Court decision on the issue of the constitutionality of laws that criminalized or restricted access to abortions.
- Katha Pollitt, “Abortion in American History,” The Atlantic (May 1997).
- Randall K. O’Bannon, Ph.D., “Out of the Long Dark Night: Abortion Statistics and Trends over the Past Thirty Years,” National Right To Life (2003).
- Matt Ford, “What Caused the Great Crime Decline in the U.S.?” The Atlantic (April 15, 2016)
- Editor, “Abortion Above the Law (In a Good Way),” Christianity Today 59:7 (September 2015): 16. The abortion rate was 11.8 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15-44 in 2015, compared with 12.1 in 2014 and 15.9 in 2006.
- Cha reiterates, “Fewer U.S. women are having abortions than at any time since Roe v. Wade.” Tara C. Jatlaoui, from the CDC’s division of reproductive health quoted in Ariana Eunjung Cha, “Number of abortions in U.S. hit a historic low in 2015, the most recent year for which data is available,” Washington Post (Wednesday, November 21, 2018).
- Various, “CDCs Abortion Surveillance System FAQs, Centers For Disease Control,” Center For Disease Control, (2015).