The next Christendom

Now let the weak say 'I am strong'

THE NEXT CHRISTENDOM
By Philip Jenkins
Oxford University Press
270 pages. £20.00
ISBN 0 19 514616 6

This book will give you a new take on the world and its future. It comes from a US academic and begins with the startling encouragement that the movement of the last century that has had the most impact on the world was not Marxism or Feminism or Environmentalism, but Christianity.

Though the Faith may be under severe pressure in Europe, elsewhere in the world, especially in the Southern hemisphere, growth of immense proportions has been going on. By the year 2050 six nations could have over 100 million Christians, and only one of those, USA, is from the Western world. I ought to temper this by saying, that things are not quite as rosy as Professor Jenkins claims. This is because he uses a definition of Christianity which is too loose to be taken too seriously (see page 88). But he says that 'none of the reasons the churches have been growing so astonishingly is likely to change in the near future'.

The book, though, is full of interest. The author exposes the commonly-held idea of Christian mission being a handmaid to Western imperialism. He shows that very often it is after the missionaries left, with the collapse of European colonialism in the 1960s, that the church in many countries really took off. He also sees Christianity in the South as being much more enthusiastic, spontaneous, fundamentalist and supernaturally oriented than its forms in the North.

Centre of gravity

We have to take seriously that the future centre of Christianity is in the South, not least because of falling birth-rates among Europeans, whereas despite the spread of AIDS the population in the South continues to expand rapidly. In 1900 Europe, America and the lands of the old USSR accounted for 33% of world population, whereas by 2050 that will have fallen to a mere 10%. This is bound to reshape worship and theology. We need to be aware of this.

The author believes that with the spiritual deadness we see all around us the best hope for the church in Western nations comes from immigrants. It is certainly many people's experience that overseas students, for example, seem far more open to the gospel than people from Britain. Back in 1933 Charles Williams published his fantasy 'Shadows of Ecstasy' in which the peoples of Africa are inspired to invade a spiritually desolate Europe. No serious observer expects a literal southern invasion, but while traditional Christianity is weakening in large sections of the north it is indeed being reinforced and reinvigorated through immigration and evangelisation from outside.

The book contains a discussion of the whole idea of inculturation. How far should Christianity be adapted to local ways? At what point does inculturation end and falls over into syncretism, being replaced or submerged by another religion? Should all other religions simply be dismissed or should they be utilised in terms of being seen as preparing the ground for the gospel? Here the book is certainly no sure guide. The author's apparent tendency towards Catholicism and against evangelicalism has to be born in mind.

Christianity in the Southern hemisphere is pictured as having very little time for the Western attitudes which have tended to separate church and state, as well as Christianity and politics. The global South is seen as intellectually closer to a medieval outlook rather than Enlightenment ideals. This close link between church and political life may well lead to more religious wars. Both Islam and Christianity lay claim to the world. If both have political agendas then there is bound to be trouble. The book is refreshing in its blunt estimate of the problems with Islam and the way the secular Western press even now ignores and minimises much of what is going on.

At the Lambeth Conference of the global Anglican Communion a few years ago, it was the delegates from developing countries which opposed and voted down the liberal/ gay agenda. The Southern bishops formed a solid bloc in favour of traditional Christian standards. Professor Jenkins's book is difficult to sum up as it touches on so many different matters, but he would see Lambeth as a harbinger of the future. The growth of the church in the South leaves the Western nations with a very interesting situation. Thinking of the US in political terms, Jenkins says: 'Conservatives generally dislike immigration and the browning of America, and fear the loss of cultural homogeneity. At the same time, though, this process might promote other issues that conservatives do favour... For exactly the same reasons, liberals who generally favour racial diversity will discover that rainbow America also espouses an uncomfortably traditional kind of religion. Traditional mappings of left and right are ill-fitted to comprehend present and future religious changes.'

The book concludes with a humble but hopeful attitude towards the future. 'In 500 Christianity was the religion of empire and domination; in 1000 it was the stubborn faith of exploited peoples, or of barbarians on the irrelevant fringes of great civilisations; in 1900, Christian powers ruled the world. Knowing what the situation will be in 2100 or 2500 would take a truly inspired prophet. But if there is one overarching lesson, it is this - Christianity is never as weak as it appears, nor as strong as it appears. And, time and again, Christianity demonstrates a breathtaking ability to transform weakness into strength.'

Centre of gravity

JEB

John Benton

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