Saturday, May 26, 2007

Africa, the Future of Christianity

The guy I always quote:

Christianity is going south very rapidly in terms of numbers. I've give you a quick overview, and I'm going to talk about Africa a lot. Simple reason: back in 1900, Africa had 10 million Christians representing 10 percent of the population; by 2000, that was up 360 million, to 46 percent of the population. That is the largest quantitative change that has ever occurred in the history of religion. A rising tide lifts all boats, and all denominations have been booming. The Anglicans have done very well, and the Anglican Church is going to be overwhelmingly an African body in the near future.


Philip Jenkins
From Here.

3 comments:

Steve Scott said...

Abu,
I'm not Anglican, but if I remember correctly I've heard that some zealous African Anglicans have had some positive sway within the US church. There are also reports of "reverse" missionary activity, with Africans and Koreans in the US doing mission work. If I were a betting man, I would place my wager on Christians in China and Africa to affect the world in the next century. Let's just hope American Christians aren't so envious as to dismiss them.

SocietyVs said...

I also think that is cool to hear - good point Steve about us giving them the respect they deserve.

Abu Daoud said...

Good points. One scholar wrote in EMQ (Evangelical Missions Quarterly) that 1998 would come to be seen as the great year of the shift from the West to the Global South. Why?

The Anglican bishops gather together once every decade and in Lambeth 1998 the Global South bishops totally shot down a Western movement to OK gay activity. We had never seen before such a clear and resounding use of influence by the Global South, such that it overrode clearly the desires of the Western regions which had founded them over the previous two centuries.