{"id":126445,"date":"2016-06-10T12:33:25","date_gmt":"2016-06-10T10:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=126445"},"modified":"2016-06-10T12:33:25","modified_gmt":"2016-06-10T10:33:25","slug":"the-most-popular-religions-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/126445\/the-most-popular-religions-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"The most popular religions in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A new report reveals that the vast majority of South Africans describe their religious affiliation as \u2018Christian\u2019 while 5.2% say that they are not affiliated to any religion in particular.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/publications\/P0318\/P03182015.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">General Household Survey<\/a>, published by StatsSA, showed that more than 5% of individuals subscribe to religions described as,\u00a0 \u2018ancestral, tribal, animist or other traditional African religions\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Muslims, who comprised 1.9% of the total, predominantly reside in Western Cape,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.<\/p>\n<p>Hindus comprised about 0.9% of the population of South Africa;\u00a0however 3.3% of the population of KwaZulu-Natal are Hindus.<\/p>\n<p><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Religious-affiliation-observance.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-126451\" src=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Religious-affiliation-observance.png\" alt=\"Religious affiliation observance\" width=\"612\" height=\"377\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Religious-affiliation-observance.png 612w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Religious-affiliation-observance-300x185.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 612px) 100vw, 612px\" \/><\/a><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Religious-affiliation.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-126453\" src=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Religious-affiliation.png\" alt=\"Religious affiliation\" width=\"628\" height=\"334\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Religious-affiliation.png 628w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Religious-affiliation-300x160.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 628px) 100vw, 628px\" \/><\/a>Three quarters (75.6%) of individuals that follow the Muslim faith attend religious services and ceremonies (excluding weddings and funerals) at least once per week. By contrast,\u00a0 52.5% of Christians and 36.6% of Hindus attend services on a weekly basis.<\/p>\n<p>The most infrequent participation in services were noted for individuals that said they followed ancestral, tribal, animist or other traditional African religions.<\/p>\n<p>Individuals affiliated to this religion (16.7%) were most likely to never attend religious services followed by Muslims (8.4%) and Hindus (6.6%).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Global religion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pewforum.org\/2015\/04\/02\/main-factors-driving-population-growth\/#the-potential-impact-of-religious-switching-in-china\">a study<\/a> by the Pew Research Center, Islam is growing faster than any other religion.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the world&#8217;s major religious groups are expected to rise in absolute numbers by 2050, the research finds, with Islam set to overtake Christianity and become the world\u2019s dominant religion by 2070.<\/p>\n<p><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Religion.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-126459\" src=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Religion.png\" alt=\"Religion\" width=\"640\" height=\"365\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Religion.png 640w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Religion-300x171.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a>In 2050, Christianity will still be the world\u2019s largest religious group, with around a third of the world\u2019s population adhering to its various denominations.<\/p>\n<div class=\"st__content-block st__content-block--text\">\n<p>Muslims however, make up the only major religious group projected to increase faster than the world\u2019s population as a whole.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\"><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Religion2-e1465554073531.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-126461\" src=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Religion2-e1465554073531.png\" alt=\"Religion2\" width=\"600\" height=\"431\" \/><\/a>More on religion in SA<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/84315\/religion-in-south-africa-and-around-the-world\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Religion in South Africa and around the world<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/98611\/watch-homo-naledi-science-religion-and-racism-tackled\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Watch: Homo naledi \u2013 science, religion, and racism tackled<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new report reveals that the vast majority of South Africans describe their religious affiliation as \u2018Christian\u2019 while 5.2% say that they are not affiliated to any religion in particular.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":84323,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[26,7605,5769],"class_list":["post-126445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-headline","tag-pew-research","tag-statssa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126445"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126475,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126445\/revisions\/126475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}