Describing the Worldwide Christian Phenomenon

Abstract

Christian movements were already present in the sixteenth century. Although Christianity was dominated by the North from 950 to 1950,7 its center of gravity has been steadily shifting southward.8 In the early part of the twentieth century, Christianity broke the bonds of Europe and the Americas and began to spread widely in Africa and Asia. Nonetheless Cragg noted that “the geographical universality of the Church, or nearly so, had been achieved only in the context of a deep cultural partiality.”9 Cragg was aware of burgeoning movements of indigenous Christianity, but he recognized that Christianity was largely still characterized by Western culture. Only in the late twentieth century did Christianity around the world begin to disentangle itself from its colonial character. This change was entirely appropriate, for “the full-grown humanity of Christ requires all the Christian generations, just as it embodies all the cultural variety that six continents can bring.”10 No longer is the picture of the average Christian a white Westerner. Indeed, in 1980 an average of 7,600 such Christians were abandoning the faith each day.11 Rather, we have witnessed the coming of age of the younger churches within the context of decolonization and rising nationalism. In spite of the accusations of anti-Christian nationalists and of critics who accused it of being cultural-imperial in nature, Christianity provided the tools (e.g., education) for national resistance to colonial domination.12 Instead of destroying indigenous societies, Christianity, especially with its emphasis on the translation of the Scriptures into the vernacular, allowed for the preservation of indigenous languages and cultures.13 Churches persisted and grew in the face of opposition because of the strength it provided people in sociopolitical, economic, and cultural upheaval.14 Not only is the church growing in the non-Western world, but the voice and sense of identity of Southern Christians among the global Christian community is growing as a result of globalization. The European colonial empire system left a legacy of “a global religious heritage”—a common experiential and historical interconnectedness between former colonies and imperial powers.15 This legacy is being transformed by the exponential rise of the world population, urbanization, and migration in the last two centuries. Much of the global population growth in the coming decades will occur in urban centers, and fifteen of the seventeen urban conglomerations over 10 million in population are located in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.16 These burgeoning urban centers are also the loci of new Christian growth in the South. Christian ecclesiology and theology will likely develop in this context and be exported to the rest of the world. This trend is especially important in light of Andrew Walls’s observation that the course of Christian history is “not progressive but serial,”17 which implies that the South might be the center of Christian life for some time to come.