Half of Brazil's Population to be Evangelical Christian by 2020

An international missions organization reports that evangelicals are expected to reach 57.4 million in Brazil this year in accordance with the evangelical annual growth rate of 7.42 percent.

Researchers at "Servindo aos Pastores e Líderes" (SEPAL) announced this 2011 figure last Monday based on findings from its groundbreaking study last year that predicted Brazil's evangelical growth rate over the next decade.

SEPAL had conducted this study utilizing results from Brazil's Census 2000 survey by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) and other information from a March 2007 study conducted by Datafolha, a major domestic information firm.

Based on figures obtained from both sources, SEPAL concluded that over half of the nation's population will be evangelical in less than a decade.

"We believe 52 per cent of the population will be evangelical by 2020, or about 109.3 million evangelicals within a total population of 209.3 million," said SEPAL researcher Luis André Brunet, in an interview with The Christian Post this week.

Brunet said that the findings were 95 percent accurate provided that the evangelical growth rate from 1990 to 2000 remains consistent in the next 40 years.

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