Christian Persecution: What Can We Do? Redux

I published a post calling for prayer for persecuted Christians a few days ago titled Christian Persecution: What Can We Do?

I cited a statistic in that post which was published in this National Catholic Reporter article. The NCR article cited a study done by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity. I did not read the underlying study, mainly because I have seen similar numbers in many other sources, including an official statement from the Vatican to the United Nations. 

Here is what I said:

According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, one hundred thousand Christians have died for their faith each year in the last decade. That works out to 11 Christians martyred for their faith every hour for the past ten years.

This statement and the call to prayer accompanying it raised the ire of one atheist blogger who claims that the numbers are based on poor methodology. (I am saying this a lot more politely than the blogger did.) I’m not going to reply to the blogger’s contentions. I think that reducing the suffering of persecuted Christians to com box mud-slinging would be a travesty.

At the same time, if there is a flaw in the numbers I’m using, I want to know it.

The trouble is, I don’t now enough about the area of the world in question to even begin to make a judgement about the author’s methodology. I’ve been looking at the information I could find on the internet and none of it really answered the questions that have been raised.

So, I’m asking experts in the field to help me. That takes time, and may not work, since they may not answer my requests. If they do, I’ll let you know.

The author of the study in question is Todd M Johnson, PhD. Dr Johnson is the Director of the Center for the Global Study of Christianity and a visiting research fellow at Boston University’s Institute for Culture, Religion and World Affairs. He is also co-editor of the Atlas of Global Christianity by Edinburgh  University Press, co-author of World Christian Encyclopedia by Oxford University Press, and World Christian Trends. He is editor of the World Christian Database, and co-editor of the World Religion Database.

I would assume, based on all that, that he knows this subject better than me or any other Patheos blogger. I have contacted him to see if he will help me sort this out.

As soon as I know more, I’ll tell you what I’ve learned.