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David B. Barrett: Missionary Statistician

Article  in  International Bulletin of Mission Research · January 2012

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I n 1982 Time magazine called David Barrett (1927–2011) Union’s Missionary Research Library, with its 100,000 volumes
the “Linnaeus of religious taxonomy” and dubbed his and vast archives, Barrett earned his Ph.D. in 1965 in a joint
magnum opus “a miracle from Nairobi” and a “bench mark program between Union Theological Seminary and Columbia
in our understanding of the true religious state of the planet.”1 University. His two main faculty advisers were Marxists, but
Against all odds, for the prior fourteen years the Rev. Dr. David they supported his research into 6,000 schismatic movements
B. Barrett had traveled to nearly every country in the world, in Africa. Barrett’s dissertation was later published by Oxford
compiling information on the religious status University Press and today is considered
of “every soul on earth.” The result was the one of the classics on the subject.2
World Christian Encyclopedia (WCE), a thou- A confirmed bachelor until age forty-
sand-page oversized volume listing 20,000 five, Barrett married fellow British mis-
Christian denominations and recounting the sionary Pam Stubley in 1972. The new Mrs.
history of Christianity in every country from Barrett brought an outgoing and friendly
the time of Christ to the present. Barrett also hospitality to Barrett’s researcher persona.
provided a detailed snapshot of the status of She also helped her new husband organize
all religious affiliations, the first time such a his overwhelming collection of papers,
comprehensive treatment had been achieved. letters, maps, and photos piling up in the
In the years that followed, the WCE was cited Nairobi office. Together they hosted hun-
extensively in both Christian and secular dreds of Christian leaders in their home in
publications. Consequently, Barrett is largely Africa and later in Virginia. They had three
responsible for launching the modern field of children: Claire, Luke, and Timothy.
religious demography. In 1985, after the WCE had been pub-
David Brian Barrett was born on August lished, Barrett (still under appointment as an
30, 1927, in Llandudno in northern Wales in the Anglican missionary) left Nairobi for Rich-
United Kingdom. As a teenager, Barrett cycled mond, Virginia, and a position as a research
with school friends around secret airfields, consultant at the Foreign (now International)
making models of new wartime secret aircraft. David B. Barrett, 1982 Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Con-
Following receipt of his B.A. in aeronautics vention, where he remained until 1993. Until
from Cambridge University, Barrett began his career at Britain’s his death Barrett continued as an independent researcher of global
Royal Aircraft Establishment in 1948. (He would receive his M.A. Christianity through the World Evangelization Research Center
from Cambridge in 1952.) in Richmond and its successor, the Center for the Study of Global
He was ordained a deacon in the Church of England in 1954 Christianity (established in 2003 by Todd Johnson at Gordon-
and a priest in 1955 and appointed as a missionary to Kenya Conwell Theological Seminary, in South Hamilton, Mass.).
through the Church Missionary Society in 1956. “Forget science Barrett’s contributions to the field of religious demography
completely,” his bishop advised. But Barrett could not. are extensive, and his published research continues to influence
Upon arrival in Kenya Barrett found that a massive ecclesi- both Christian missionary effort and secular understanding of
astical schism was under way and that it included the seven Luo religious adherence. He spent more than ten years compiling
priests with whom he was assigned to work. Although warned and serving as editor of the World Christian Encyclopedia (1982),
to have nothing to do with these schismatics, Barrett befriended which was followed in 2001 by a second edition (with coeditors
them and was given access to rare documents and interviews. George Kurian and Todd Johnson) and the companion volume
After learning Luo and Swahili, he began to compile the history World Christian Trends (coauthored with Johnson). He was also a
of their movement. longtime contributor of statistics on global religious adherence
In 1962 Barrett was on leave in Britain, where he worked to the Britannica Book of the Year and the International Bulletin of
with famed Anglican evangelist Bryan Green. That same year Missionary Research. The reliability of his estimates was acknowl-
he was invited to Union Theological Seminary in New York edged in 2008 by a group of Princeton scholars studying data on
as a fellow in a twenty-member ecumenical studies program religious affiliation.3
with Pitney Van Dusen, Kenneth Scott Latourette, and others. In one of the great ironies of Barrett’s career, it was his place-
He went on to take doctoral studies in the social-scientific ment as a missionary in Africa that helped him see significance
study of religion. There he discovered that his schism experi- in counting religionists. In the United States and Europe, leading
ence among the Luo was not unique. Working extensively in sociologists were predicting the imminent demise of religion,4
celebrating its passing as a sign of man’s ability to overcome
Todd M. Johnson is Associate Professor of Global superstition. Barrett, however, saw a different future and boldly
Christianity and Director of the Center for the Study set forth his own views in a seminal article in 1970 that projected
of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theologi- 350 million Christians in Africa by the year 2000.
5

cal Seminary, South Hamilton, Massachusetts. He is Barrett had a dry but playful sense of humor. On one occa-
coeditor of the Atlas of Global Christianity (Edin- sion he was asked to address a crowd of wealthy donors on the
burgh University Press, 2010) and coauthor of World most effective means of evangelization. He had been studying
Christian Encyclopedia, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Christian martyrdom, so he presented the idea that martyrdom
Press, 2001). —[email protected] might be the most effective means of evangelization. After an

30 International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 36, No. 1

“A well-balanced emphasis on
spiritual life & high academic
standards distinguishes the
quality of this scholarly
community . . .”

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awkward pause, one of the donors ventured, “Dr. Barrett, what 80 percent of the people groups our missionaries serve among
is the second most effective means of evangelization?” are unreached.”7
Barrett was very concerned with the use of Christian resourc- Perhaps David Barrett’s greatest achievement is that his
es in evangelization. In the late 1980s he decided to investigate the research continues after his death. He gathered younger scholars
deployment of the missionary forces of various agencies—which around him and modeled an unbending commitment to pursue
turned out to be one of his most unpopular projects. The results this research whether or not it was popular in the academy or
showed that, while most agencies claimed to be evangelizing among church leaders. Barrett treated younger colleagues as
the world, few had workers among the unevangelized.6 Like equals, always interested in their ideas and perspectives and often
so much of Barrett’s work, this analysis eventually produced changing his own ideas as a result. He pioneered a “reconnaissance
some remarkable results. Shortly after Barrett’s death in 2011, perspective” in mission, in which research is seen as essential
the International Mission Board reported, “When David Barrett for strategic planning. The impact of his methods and findings
came to the Foreign Mission Board as a consultant in 1985, less reverberates around the world, as young researchers continue
than 3 percent of our mission force was deployed to this last to use and develop his much-treasured scientific and biblical
frontier. Today, as a result of Barrett’s prophetic push, more than perspectives to understand and pursue world evangelization.

Selected Bibliography
An extensive collection of David Barrett’s correspondence, articles, and Univ. Press. 1,010 pp., 1,500 photographs, 24-page atlas.
books is housed at the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, at Resulted in 350 book reviews. Second edition in 2001 with
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Massachusetts. George T. Kurian and Todd M. Johnson.
In addition, over one million documents collected by Barrett and his 1983 “Silver and Gold Have I None: Church of the Poor or Church
colleagues documenting the global spread of Christianity are filed there. of the Rich?” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 7, no. 4
The collection also includes thousands of photographs, drawings, maps, (October): 146–51.
and other forms of media. 1988 (with James W. Reapsome) Seven Hundred Plans to Evangelize the
World: The Rise of a Global Evangelization Movement. The AD 2000
Ten Seminal Books and Articles by David B. Barrett Series. Birmingham, Ala.: New Hope. 123 pp.
1965­ (with James S. Lawson and B. B. Ayam) The Evangelization of 1989 (with T. John Padwick) Rise Up and Walk! Conciliarism and the
West Africa Today: A Survey Across 21 Nations and 150 Tribes. African Indigenous Churches, 1815–1987. Nairobi: Oxford Univ.
Yaoundé, Cameroon: DWME/AACC. 39 pp. Press. 111 pp. A sequel to Schism and Renewal in Africa (1968).
1968 Schism and Renewal in Africa: An Analysis of Six Thousand 1990 (with Todd M. Johnson) Our Globe and How to Reach It: Seeing the
Contemporary Religious Movements. Nairobi: Oxford Univ. Press; World Evangelized by AD 2000 and Beyond. The AD 2000 Series.
2nd printing, 1970. 363 pp., with foldout map. Resulted in Birmingham, Ala.: New Hope. 136 pp. Official Data Book of
seventy book reviews, 1968–72. NARSC/Indianapolis 1990 and ICCOWE/Brighton 1991.
1970 “AD 2000: 350 Million Christians in Africa.” International 1995 (ed., with Todd M. Johnson) AD 2000 Global Monitor: Keeping Track
Review of Mission 59, no. 233 (January): 39–54. Issue “Sixty Years of World Evangelization. Pasadena, Calif.: William Carey Library.
After Edinburgh.” Background paper, in French and English, Consolidated volume, first forty monthly issues, 1990–94, with
for Abidjan Assembly, All Africa Conference of Churches, extensive full index.
September 1969. 2001 (with Todd M. Johnson) World Christian Trends, AD 30–AD 2200:
1982 World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Survey of Churches Interpreting the Annual Christian Megacensus. Pasadena, Calif.:
and Religions in the Modern World, 1900–2000. Nairobi: Oxford William Carey Library. 952 pp.

Notes
1. Richard Ostling and Alistair Matheson, “Counting Every Soul on year 2000, “religious believers are likely to be found only in small
Earth: Miracle from Nairobi; The First Census of All Religions,” Time, sects, huddled together to resist a worldwide secular culture” (“A
May 3, 1982. Bleak Outlook Is Seen for Religion,” New York Times, April 25, 1968,
2. Schism and Renewal in Africa: An Analysis of Six Thousand Contemporary p. 3).
Religious Movements (Nairobi: Oxford Univ. Press, 1968). 5. “AD 2000: 350 Million Christians in Africa,” International Review of
3. See “Estimating the Religious Composition of All Nations: An Mission 59, no. 233 (January 1970): 39–54.
Empirical Assessment of the World Christian Database,” by Becky 6. The results were first published in June 1991. See the consolidated
Hsu, Amy Reynolds, Conrad Hackett, and James Gibbon, Journal for volume AD 2000 Global Monitor: Keeping Track of World Evangelization
the Scientific Study of Religion 47, no. 4 (2008): 678–93. (Pasadena, Calif.: William Carey Library, 1995).
4. See, for example, Peter Berger’s statement in April 1968 that by the 7. See www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=35901.

32 International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 36, No. 1

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