Edwin Keshish-Abnous

A Window Behind the Headlines: What GAMAAN Reveals About Iran’s Spiritual Shift

The GAMAAN Institute’s 2020 survey results sent shockwaves around the world, especially among Christian ministries that focused on Iran. No one expected such a bold picture of how religion is changing. For a lot of us, it felt like a door had suddenly opened into a society that is often hidden behind official stories. The survey provided a unique opportunity to observe emerging spiritual trends with greater clarity, contrasting with the perceptions influenced by government statistics and public opinion, and to consider the implications of these shifts for the future of Iran and the mission of the Church.

The 2020 GAMAAN report on how Iranians feel about religion gives us a rare, data-driven look at changes that are hard to talk about openly in the country. The survey was done online in June 2020 and had more than 50,000 respondents, about 90% of whom lived in Iran. It focused on literate Iranians over the age of 19 and says that its results can be applied to that large group of adults.

The significance of this study is not that it settles every debate, but in its ability to clarify the changing religious landscape more effectively than just a rumor or story.

One of the most striking signals is the growing distance between the Islamic Republic’s religious narrative and the personal beliefs of everyday Iranians. Only about a third of the people who answered said they were Shi’ite Muslims. Many others said they were atheist, agnostic, spiritual, Zoroastrian, Sunni Muslims, or had other worldviews. A large number of people also chose “none of the above.” This diversification does not automatically equal Christian growth, but it clearly suggests a society in spiritual transition, one that is far more open, curious, and unsettled than official rhetoric suggests.

GAMAAN also reports that approximately half of the population said they had moved from being religious to non-religious over their lifetime, while around 6% said they had converted from one religious orientation to another.

Importantly for our purposes, the report notes that a significant number of converts to Christianity came from a different religious orientation. In other words, Christianity shouldn’t be seen as just a small part of history; it is part of a living, changing story of spiritual realignment among ethnic Iranians.

This trend is especially important because it could change Iran in ways that politics, the economy, or even war can’t. Pressure from outside can make a regime weaker, but it almost never makes a people stronger from the inside out. A real movement toward Christ, on the other hand, can help people develop new moral imaginations, like choosing forgiveness over revenge, dignity over despair, truth-telling over survival-driven double-speak, and community over isolation. That kind of change becomes social, not just personal, over time. It brings families back together, changes local networks, and can slowly reconnect the social fabric in ways that ideology and force never can.

The way the survey was done also gives a clue as to why this time is so important. Because so many people in Iran use the internet and social media, the digital world has become a huge place to share ideas, explore identity, and find spirituality.

That reality is in line with what many ministry leaders have seen for years: when public space is limited, private and digital spaces become very important.

The lesson for ministries like Heart4Iran is clear. We need to read these signals with humility and wisdom. We shouldn’t blow things out of proportion, but we also shouldn’t miss the moment. The GAMAAN results show that people are very open-minded, that religions can change, and that Christianity is a real part of the change.

This is a time to make content better, add more ways for people to become disciples, and strengthen partnerships that can help seekers and the growing house church movement. If Iran is changing in terms of beliefs and morals, then the best way for the country to move forward may not be through violence, but through spiritual renewal that no government can stop for good.

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GAMAAN, Iran Religion Survey 2020 (September 2020), https://gamaan.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GAMAAN-Iran-Religion-Survey-2020-English.pdf