Female Future of Faith with Gina Zurlo | Created In The Image of God 244

Most people hear “Christianity” and think of their own congregation, country, or a handful of familiar headlines. Gina Zurlo spends her days looking at the whole picture. A Senior Researcher and Lecturer in World Christianity at Harvard Divinity School, editor of the World Christian Database, and co‑editor of the third edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia (which she personally presented to Pope Francis), she tracks how religious and non‑religious affiliation is changing in every country on earth—past, present, and projected into the future.In this episode, Gina pulls back the curtain on how that work is done. She describes what it means to maintain a database that follows nearly every world religion and tens of thousands of Christian denominations, why she might be working on Burkina Faso one day and Brazil the next, and how raw numbers get turned into a coherent story. Along the way, she tackles common misunderstandings about “the rise of the non‑religious,” the shifting center of gravity of Christianity toward the Global South, and the surprisingly important role that gender plays in global religious life.One of Gina’s central passions is what she calls the “female future” of faith—the fact that women make up the majority of Christian believers worldwide, yet are often underrepresented in leadership and in how we tell the story of the church. Drawing on her background in history, sociology, and demography, she explains why paying attention to women’s religious lives is key to understanding where Christianity is actually headed. Throughout the conversation, she keeps bringing the data back to everyday questions: What does this mean for local churches? For mission and evangelism? For how believers relate to their secular neighbors?For anyone curious about what Christianity really looks like beyond their own country—or wondering how numbers and faith can speak to each other without flattening the mystery—this episode offers a clear, accessible guide. Gina’s work invites listeners to see global Christianity as a living, changing mosaic—and to consider their own place within it. Get full access to SOOPMedia on Substack at soopllc.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Created in the Image of God at wadefransson.substack.com/subscribe