"A TIDAL WAVE of CHRISTIANITY"
Posted by: prophetic <prophetic@...>
by cbn
We like to think of ourselves as the Christian West. But there is
growing evidence that the center of Christendom has moved.
Africans are running to accept Jesus Christ. It is a scene playing
out all across the developing world.
It may sound like an exaggeration, but it's not: Christianity is
sweeping across the southern hemisphere and Asia like a tidal wave.
"The scale of Christian growth is almost unimaginable," said Dr.
Philip Jenkins, distinguished professor of History and Religious
Studies at Penn State University.
Jenkins shocked and probably panicked some of America's political
and media elite with his acclaimed book, 'The Next Christendom:
The Coming of Global Christianity'. Jenkins argues the greatest
movement of the past century was not communism or capitalism.
Do the math and the winner is Spirit-filled Christianity, or what he
terms in his study as "Pentecostalism." "
The modern Pentecostal movement begins at the start of the 20th
century," Jenkins said. "So say this begins with a few hundred, a
few thousand people... today you're dealing with several hundred
million people, and the best projections are by 2040's or 2050's,
you could be dealing with a billion Pentecostals worldwide. By that
stage there will be more Pentecostals than Hindus. There are
already more Pentecostals than Buddhists." Jenkins says in just
20 years, two-thirds of all Christians will live in Africa, Latin America
or Asia."
Back in 1900, there were about 10 million Christians in Africa,
representing about 10 percent of the population. Today there are
360 million, representing just under half the population.
That is one of the most important changes in religious history, and
I think most of us didn't notice it," he said. A lot of people still
haven't noticed it. When scandal or controversy hits an American
church, the U.S. news media tends to treat it like a worldwide crisis
for that denomination.
But it is not a crisis for those churches in the developing world.
Most of them are not gripped by debates over homosexuality or
abortion that is a problem for European and American liberals -
they believe the Bible. "The Bible is alive in Africa and Asia and
Latin America,"
Jenkins said. "Overwhelmingly, th[is] kind of Christianity is one
which is very Bible-centered, which takes the Bible very seriously,
takes authority very seriously, both the Old and the New Testament,
in a way which I don't think western Christianity has done probably
since the Enlightenment." But the growth of Christianity threatens
Islam, and Christians are being slaughtered in places like Nigeria
and Indonesia.
Jenkins thinks the conflict will intensify in nations where the two
faiths compete. And he debunks the notion that Islam is the fastest
growing religion in the world. Christianity is growing faster." If you
look at the 25 most populous countries in the world in the mid-21st
century, 20 of those are going to be divided to a greater or lesser
extent between Christianity and Islam," Jenkins said.
Then there is China. There are about 80 million Christians in China,
according to former Time Magazine Correspondent David Aikman,
who predicts China will be a Christianized nation in 20 to 30 years.
He does not predict a Christian majority, but a China that is 25 to
30 percent Christian. Enough, he says, to change society and
government. "If you have a Christianized China, the leadership of
China would reflect a Christian worldview to some degree," Aikman
said. "A China that's Christianized would not be a threat to the
United States."
And Aikman says the Chinese church leaders have a burden to take
the gospel the rest of the way across the globe, to the Muslims.
"It's part of a sense that they call 'back to Jerusalem,'" Aikman said.
-Source-