Missiologists have long spoken of the explosive growth of the church in Iran.
Now they have data to back up their claims—from secular research.
According to a new survey of 50,000 Iranians—90 percent residing in Iran—by GAMAAN, a Netherlands-based research group, 1.5 percent identified as Christians.
Extrapolating over Iran’s population of approximately 50 million literate adults (the sample surveyed) yields at least 750,000 believers. According to GAMAAN, the number of Christians in Iran is “without doubt in the order of magnitude of several hundreds of thousands and growing beyond a million.”
The traditional Armenian and Assyrian Christians in Iran number 117,700, according to the latest government statistics.
Christian experts surveyed by CT expressed little surprise. But it may make a significant difference for the Iranian Church.
“With the lack of proper data, most international advocacy groups expressed a degree of doubt on how widespread the conversion phenomenon is in Iran,” said Mansour Borji, research and advocacy director for Article 18, a UK-based organization dedicated to the protection and promotion of religious freedom in Iran.
“It is pleasing to see—for the first time—a secular organization adding its weight to these claims.”
The research, which asked 23 questions about an individual’s “attitude toward religion” and demographics, was run by professors associated with the respected Dutch universities of Tilburg and Utrecht. “The Iranian authorities lost oversight of it,” said Nicolai. “There was nothing they could do to stop the spread of the gospel.”