Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, Revised and Expanded Edition. Oxford University Press, 2007.
Referenced in: Theology of Mission, Missional Context
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
The LifeandLeadership.com Ministry Resource Guides are not focused on global missions, but upon work within established churches in North America (primarily U.S.). It is naïve, however, to fail to acknowledge how “glocal” (i.e. global diversity becoming local reality in a given address) the ministry settings in North American have become. Also, authors like Jenkins help us see how Latin American and Islamic populations encounter the gospel, and just how culturally conditioned our western appropriation of the biblical witness has been. The Next Christendom is an eye-opening picture of how the current face of Christianity has changed. It is also an undeniably well-researched and hard to contest prognostication of how these trends, if they continue, will affect the future of the world. Its place in the reading diet of leaders of established North American churches will have to be determined individually. But adding Jenkins’ insights will no doubt contribute to any ministers missional readiness.
From the Publisher
The first edition of The Next Christendom has been hailed as a landmark in our understanding of modern Christianity. In this new and substantially expanded second edition, Jenkins continues to illuminate the remarkable expanion of Christianity in the global South—in Africa, Asia, and Latin America—as well as the clash betwen Islam and Christianity since September 11. Among the major topics covered are the growing schism between Northern and Southern churches over issues of gender and sexuality, immigrant and ethnic churches in North America, and a special section on the split within the Anglican Communion. The first in a three-book trilogy on the changes besetting modern Christianity, this award-winning book will be welcomed by all of those who have come to recognize Philip Jenkins as one of our leading commentators on religion and world affairs.
From the Back Cover
By the year 2050 only one Christian in five will be non-Latino and white, and the center of gravity of the Christian world will have shifted firmly to the Southern Hemisphere. The Next Christendom is the first book to take the ful measure of the changing face of the Christian faith. Philip Jenkins shows that churches that have grown most rapidly in Africa, Asia and Latin America are often far more morally conservative and apocalyptic than their northern counterparts. Mysticism, Puritanism, faith-healing, exorcism, and dream-visions – concepts that more liberal western churches have traded in for a progressive political and social concerns – are basic to these newer churches. And the effects of such beliefs on global politics, Jenkins argues, will be enormous, as religious identification begins to take precedence over allegiance to secular nation-states. Indeed, as Christianity grows in regions where Islam is also expected to increase we may even see a return to the religious wars of the past, fought out with renewed intensity and high-tech weapons far surpassing the swords and spears of the middle ages.
About the Author
Philip Jenkins is Distinguished Professor of History and Religious Studies at Pennsylvania State University.
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