World Christian Encyclopedia

1st – 1982 The first edition, World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World A.D. 1900–2000 (WCE), by David B. Barrett, was published in 1982 by Oxford University Press. Barrett was a trained aeronautical engineer who became a missionary with the Church Missionary Society (Anglican). He arrived in Nyanza Province in Western Kenya in 1957. Over the course of 14 years he traveled to 212 of 223 countries and corresponded with Christians all over the world in search of the most up-to-date statistics on Christianity and world religions. His research resulted in the first edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia in 1982. 2nd – 2001 Barrett moved to Richmond, Virginia in 1985 to work with the Southern Baptists on missionary strategy. He continued his research as an independent researcher, joined by Todd M. Johnson in 1988. With George Kurian, Barrett and Johnson produced the second edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia, in 2 volumes, in 2001 (Oxford University Press). 3rd – 2019 The third edition, written and edited by Todd M. Johnson and Gina A. Zurlo (Barrett died in 2011), was released in November 2019. Johnson and Zurlo are co-directors of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (South Hamilton, Massachusetts, US). ==Reception==

One study found that the WCD's data was "highly correlated with other sources that offer cross-national religious composition estimates" but the database "consistently gives a higher estimate for percent Christian in comparison to other cross-national data sets". Concern has also been raised about possible bias because the World Christian Encyclopedia was originally developed as a Christian missionary tool. Regarding another faith group, the Anlgican Communion, David Goodhew, a researcher and fellow of St. John's College, Durham University, argued that the encyclopedia and WCD "give the best data on the current size of the Communion." Peer-reviewed work in the academic journal, Review of Religious Research, expressed mixed views, both saying the World Christian Encyclopedia's editors "provide reasonable methodological reflections" while also identifying the uncritical acceptance of religious group's membership claims as a weakness. Another review in the same journal, the Review of Religious Research, described the World Christian Encyclopedia as basing its information on "a direct analysis of primary organizational data," but again noted that a weakness is in relying on how religious groups define their own membership. Rodney Stark, publishing in the journal, Sociological Analysis, determined that the 1983 edition's "data are probably reasonably accurate..." ==References==