In the 21st century, the center of religion and religious thought will likely be Africa

Why? Shifting demographics is the main reason. As this article, Conceptual Trends and Current Topics, points out,

“The centers of the church’s universality [are] no longer in Geneva, Rome, Athens, Paris, London, New York, but Kinshasa, Buenos Aires, Addis Ababa, and Manila.”

Likewise, with the decline in birthrate in the “canonical Muslim” countries now. It goes without saying that this will have a major affect on the world. What religious leaders in those emerging regions think now will likely be how the rest of the religious world thinks towards the middle and end of the century.