Christianity in Thailand - Numerical Data

Numerical Data

Since 2007 Thai Christianity has been growing faster than population growth. There are many sources for estimating the affiliation of Thai people in Christian denominations. The primary sources are from the government population data and from the membership records of the individual denominations. Reliable data on determining religious affiliation are not based on objective standards in all cases. The most objective report that counts individuals is government census data. Less objective standards would seek to include theological criteria in the counting of members such as belief, baptism, confirmation as well as age criteria such as persons over age 12, 15, 18 or adulthood. None of these standards of various denominational data discriminate based on gender, health or ethnicity.

Government data are based on the National House Register in which heads of households register the members of the household with the local District Office. At birth, persons declare their religious affiliation in this manner. A national census is taken of this data every 10 years. As of 2000, the latest currently available, 486,840 people were registered as affiliates of Christian denominations or under 1% (0.7%) of total population (60 million). Comparisons of this data to determine whether Christians in Thailand are predominantly a certain gender, age or are from urban/rural areas does not show any remarkable variation from the near 1% figure, although the age group of 10-14 shows the highest (1.0%) ratio of Christians to national population. There may be limitations to this approach to verifying religious affiliation, such as inconsistent reporting, the change of religion to Christianity of young people under their parent's house register, reversion of young people to Buddhism and local administrative bias towards Buddhism. However, no available evidence currently demonstrates these limitations. Religious denominations each report different sets of affiliation data. The next official census is scheduled for 2010.

Evangelical Fellowship of Thailand data come from the individual organizations that work under its auspices, since membership in the EFT is open to church organizations. It was recognized by the Department of Religion as a Christian denomination in Thailand on June 19, 1969 as a locus for a plethora of small groups that had been in Thailand at least since 1929 when the Christian and Missionary Alliance established its presence in Thailand.

The Church of Christ in Thailand, founded in 1932, is a member of the World Council of Churches, Christian Conference of Asia and World Reformed Alliance. The CCT generally only counts adult baptized members as reported by its districts, which the CCT then reports at its annual General Assembly meeting. In 2008,the CCT reported 120,000 members divided into 19 districts. Of the parts of the Church of Christ in Thailand, 52,601 were of Baptist origin. Southern Baptist Convention and Seventh Day Adventists have other criteria.