China will be home to the majority of the world's Christians within the next two decades, a prominent theologian said at a recent book launch in Rome, reports the Catholic News Agency.

“Interfaith dialogue is something that China, which will have the world's largest Christian population in 20 years, lives with every day,” said Harvey Cox during the presentation at the city's Jesuit Gregorian University.

Cox presented the book Catholic Engagement with World Religions: A Comprehensive Study, in dialogue with its two editors on Friday with Cardinal Karl Josef Becker, a German theologian of the Vatican's the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The editors include Ilaria Morali of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, who also presented the book, and Cardinal Becker.

Cox, who teaches at the Harvard Divinity School in Massachusetts, said the new book “will play an invaluable role”  in determining “where we've been in the past, where we are now, and where we're headed.”

“There are two world phenomena happening right now,” he added. “The first is that we can't recognise Christianity as a western religion anymore and the second is that countries with the fastest growing number of Christians don't have a Christian culture or traditions.”

Ilaria Morali, a Harvard professor who teaches theology at the university and specializes in dialogue with Islam, noted that the “starting point of the book was the experience we had in different contexts.”

FULL STORY Theologian says China to have world's largest Christian population (CNA)