AHC: Another Christian majority nation in Asia.

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

I was thinking about how the Philippines is the only Christian-majority nation in Asia. As well as how it contrasts to the number of Christian-majority nations in Africa today.

With that in mind, what would it take for another Asian country to get a majority Christian population?

 

[Mightyboosh5]

Depends how you define Asia because Georgia and Armenia could easily be added

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

Depends how you define Asia because Georgia and Armenia could easily be added

I specifically was thinking more of central and eastern Asia.

 

[GorillaTheater]

East Timor is too, I think.

South Korea wouldn't be a huge stretch.

 

[oshron]

i seem to remember reading that (South) Korea also has a pretty substantial Christian population (though the majority of Koreans are irreligious with Buddhism in third place), as @GorillaTheater mentioned, so it would probably be easy to extrapolate that, especially if it was part of a butterfly effect where Korea is united

 

[Nagisaki]

I was thinking about how the Philippines is the only Christian-majority nation in Asia. As well as how it contrasts to the number of Christian-majority nations in Africa today.

With that in mind, what would it take for another Asian country to get a majority Christian population?

East Timor is too, I think.

South Korea wouldn't be a huge stretch.

i seem to remember reading that (South) Korea also has a pretty substantial Christian population (though the majority of Koreans are irreligious with Buddhism in third place), as @GorillaTheater mentioned, so it would probably be easy to extrapolate that, especially if it was part of a butterfly effect where Korea is united

South Korea is majority Christian. 45% Protestant, and like 20% Catholic. East Timor is like 70% Catholic.

 

[Jared]

South Korea is majority Christian. 45% Protestant, and like 20% Catholic.

The figures I've seen are that South Korea is around 55% no religion, 20% Protestant, 15% Buddhist and 8% Catholic.

 

[kasumigenx]

Actually, Majapahit is a possibility as they had allied with Portugal on their demise.

 

[WheelyWheelyLegsNoFeely]

I think Japan could have very easily converted to Christianity in an alternate timeline where the persecutions under the Tokugawa Shogunate never occurred. Maybe have the Christian daimyo be more influential (or even have more daimyo convert), making it a bad move politically for the Shogun to try and persecute Christianity and alienate his powerful vassals.

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

What about former French Indochina?

 

[CountDVB]

Maybe a new form of Christianity dominating Central Asia?

 

[Atterdag]

Russian Orthodoxy could become the majority in some -stan country.

 

[BenC]

If Sarawak gains independence, never federates with Malaysia, avoids annexation by Indonesia, and receives the same level of missionary activity, it might fit the bill.

It's still currently plurality Christian even in a country with Islam as the state religion.

 

[Jürgen]

I was thinking about how the Philippines is the only Christian-majority nation in Asia. As well as how it contrasts to the number of Christian-majority nations in Africa today.

With that in mind, what would it take for another Asian country to get a majority Christian population?

There’s also East Timor, and the easiest way to get another is if Netherlands New Guinea wasn’t given up by the Dutch, but instead integrated with the metropole and later when the the Indonesians left East Timor, the Dutch also left.

 

[ramones1986]

Maluku/Moluccas, Halmahera included, but under Spanish instead of Portuguese rule. The rest of Nusa Tenggara as well.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

I think Japan could have very easily converted to Christianity in an alternate timeline where the persecutions under the Tokugawa Shogunate never occurred. Maybe have the Christian daimyo be more influential (or even have more daimyo convert), making it a bad move politically for the Shogun to try and persecute Christianity and alienate his powerful vassals.

"Very easily" might be an exaggeration, but I could see it happening along the lines of:

(1) The southern clans get converted to Christianity (at least the upper classes, if not the peasantry).
(2) The head of one of these clans manages to unite Japan.
(3) The situation plays out much like in the fourth-century Roman Empire, with the Shogun supporting Christian missions, giving Christian churches and clergy various legal privileges, and so on. Gradually the new religion spreads, until eventually the country is majority Christian.

 

[ArchimedesCircle]

Kazakhstan is already a quarter Orthodox Christian. If a less secular government was in charge of Russia during most of the 20th century, I could see it going majority Orthodox.

Hawaii, if it remains independent. Though that one isn't exactly Asia I suppose.

And of course, there's always the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

I'm always sort of surprised that Christians never came close to a majority in French Indochina honestly. Same with possibilities regarding British Malaya.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

If the Dutch kept control of Formosa/Taiwan, we might see that island go majority Christian.

Or -- although it's bending the OP a bit -- have Russia partitioned somehow along the line of the Urals. The eastern half would be majority Orthodox, and entirely in Asia.

 

[Mr_Fanboy]

The German population of Soviet Kazakhstan is given their own oblast and, upon the (perhaps messier in this timeline) collapse of the USSR, this area gains independence.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakhstan_Germans