The Day After Tomorrow! #dmingml Apparently, today was supposed to be a big day!

#dmingml

No, it wasn’t the World Cup or the World Series. Wall Street didn’t collapse, and the banks weren’t depositing money back into everyone’s bank accounts, although, the U.S. Federal Treasury were still printing more money! :)

I woke up this morning to an array of comments, questions and irritated people who were frustrated that there was so much hype around a ‘prophecy’ given by an 89 year-old tele-evangelist that the world was going to come to an end. Fortunately, living in the Southern Hemisphere and in a time zone that would usher in a new day before most other countries, I was able to reassure a friend that today clearly was not going to mark the end of the world.

Although we get annoyed by the outlandish predictions of people in relation to the world coming to an end and who speak as if they have unequivocal authority from God to do so, most of the world’s population continue to be fascinated with the mystery of God and the beliefthat the physical and material world provides an inadequate explanation for why we exist and what happens when we die. One only has to do an Internet search on Rob Bell’s recent book on hell to see that it has been Amazon’s best selling book. Ever!

While I can’t say that I’m reading a riveting, fast, page-turning book about how the world will come to an end, it does describe a fascinating journey about the historical development of Christianity throughout the centuries, both its highs and lows, and how it has shaped modern Christianity. Philip Jenkins in his book, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity provides a meticulous look at the shaping influences on how Christianity spreads, including how increasingly it is returning to its roots in what he calls The Global South. Until recently, the overwhelming majority of Christians have lived in the West, which probably explains why most of us are largely ignorant of the increasing spread of Christianity in Africa and Asia.

He challenges common views held by secular ‘authorities’ in the West and modern skepticism that Christianity is dying. In fact, he presents overwhelming evidence that well and truly debunks this theory, showing its remarkable growth as it shifts from the West to the South. He argues that where Christianity has collapsed in the face of secularism, it is spreading to places where it can find a more receptive home. As author Philip Yancey says simply, “God goes where He’s wanted” (19).

But while the process of globalization has helped to facilitate this shift, it is not merely transferring another form of American, British or Western imperialism that played a significant role in earlier missionary endeavors. Not only is the Global South replete with thegrowth of non-traditional denominations and bears little resemblance to mainline Protestantism in the U.S, there is a much stronger supernatural orientation. It has an identity of its own. It is uniquely different to Christianity in the West. Jenkins says that, “The day of Southern Christianity is dawning” (3).

Specifically in relation to the growth of Christianity in the South, and Africa, the spread of Christianity didn’t originate from major marketing campaigns, or well organized and coordinated endeavors fromtraditional religious institutions in the West. What enabled it to spread as a grassroots movement was “the networking effect, as the word was passed from individual to individual, family to family, village to village.” Christianity was not considered to be for merely individual consumption, but to be shared.

As I conclude this portion of my review, I also discovered that finding a receptive home for Christianity doesn’t necessarily equate to finding a comfortable home, as someone who lives in the West would naturally assume. There was no “conversion for convenience” or as we often hear in the West that, ‘Christianity is only a crutch for people to lean on in difficult times.’ Jenkins provides horrendous statistics that show Christians as the most persecuted religious group that has ever existed.

More to come soon.