Posted on 02/26/2011 1:41:13 PM PST by Salman
...
Highlighting this realization is the acknowledgement that Christianity is fast becoming a non-Western religion. Although not the first to make the point, and certainly not the last, Philip Jenkin’s The Next Christendom popularized the notion that Christianity is undergoing a metamorphosis. Jenkins, an Englishman and the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of the Humanities at Penn State University, maintains that the heart of Christianity soon will be, if it is not already, Africa and Latin America. And the shift is not merely a demographic one, but an ideological one as well. Various African and Latin American expressions of Christianity are currently eclipsing the European version of Christianity. Eight years out from the first publication of The Next Christendom, now with a revised and expanded edition and two accompanying books in the trilogy, Jenkins’ observations in the first edition still hold true, a fact that he seems to celebrate in a pointedly anti-Western tone.
...
(Excerpt) Read more at brusselsjournal.com ...
Well, it seems inevitable. As Christianity grows in Africa and Asia (especially China) things will change dramatically. China might very well have the largest Christian population of any nation on earth in just one generation. They already have the largest Bible publishing plant in the world!
Although it’s been a while since I first read his book (1st ed.) I don’t remember it being anti-western; I do recall him being amused at how conservative these 3rd world Christians were however, and how much that will clash with our “enlightened” western clergy.
If you look at what populations are expanding the fastest, and the ones that aren’t, it becomes clear a lot of things are going to turn out more Latin and non-European.
In the short term, until those populations become more modernized and successful, we can look for them to bury us numbers wise.
That’s not going to stop at the religious shores either.
Maybe they’ll evangelize us and return us to God’s Word...
I know that most of my father’s Episcopalian congregation deserted its perverted doctrine for a Ugandan based Anglican Church. They left an old established church, bought a new sanctuary and moved en masse. I have been a few times and they seem like some of the most enthusiastic Christians I have ever seen!
Yes, that’s what Jenkins seemed to be saying in his book.
A lot of our countrymen seem to increasingly worship Unions, Socialism, Gaia (the Earth Goddess), and Homosexuality. No thanks.
This links to an FR thread sourced to Jenkins. Very interesting!
Global Schism:
Is the Anglican Communion Rift the First Stage in a Wider Christian Split?
The Pew Forum | 5/14/2007 | Philip Jenkins
Jenkins seems anti-West to me in a lot of his views. It is NOT necessary for immigrants to be the factor in spritual re-vitalization...what IS needed is the Holy Spirit.
He leaves out this very large factor in many of his arguments while seeming to go along with the notion that the syncretism of much Asian and Latin "christianity" is OK.
Jenkins seems much more of a sociologist to me (and I betcha he's a liberal one at that) than one that should be consulted on theological matters.
My guess would be that over 95% of the people who have earned PhDs in sociology from American universities within the last twenty years are committed leftists.
To my mind this is the weenie:
"Regarding the politics of the Next Christendom, European terms like ‘right’ and ‘left’ do not apply. While these Third World Christians may agree with American social conservatives on a few issues, they practice anti-Western identity politics and often demand wealth redistribution from the First World to the Third. Third World Catholics, for instance, may cite the 1967 papal encyclical Populorum Progressio, calling for “bold transformations to redistribute wealth globally”. In this respect, Samuel Huntington has identified the modern Catholic Church as one of the principal engines for Third World progressive movements in the 1980s. The Catholic Church also sides with the Third World and against the West on the issue of mass immigration.
Collectivism, involuntary wealth redistribution, identity politics for all except heterosexual white males (for whom it is forbidden), and mass immigration to the West (but to nowhere else) are the foundational tenets of leftism.
This is not Christianity but rather is its opposite.
They may leave us behind in numbers, but we need not let them bury us with numbers. Western nations need not admit them in the first place. Both the US and Europe could cut back legal immigration as much as we choose (even to zero), and we could stop most illegal immigration. With superior military strength, the West could protect itself from immigration-driven demographic destruction, even with dwindling numbers.
We (i.e. those who rule us) just choose not to do this. It is not inevitable.
What you say may be true, but your mindset sounds a lot like the misguided thinking of (Southern Baptist leader)Richard Land on immigration. Land has bought into the myth that Hispanics are natural conservatives, and only vote Democrat because Republicans drive them away. They really want to vote Republican, but we’re just too mean! So he supports amnesty (’path to citizenship’ as he puts it...but that’s the same way all advocates of amnesty put it). He’s clueless. It apparently has escaped Land that it hasn’t been an embrace of liberalism by the American people that has resulted in abortion on demand and growing recognition of gay marriage; it has been a renegade judiciary imposing these things.
The decline of Christianity has of course contributed heavily to the decline of Western Civilization. It’s sad. The natives of Europe are largely ‘Christian’ in name only. The zeal that believers in Africa and Latin America have is admirable, but that doesn’t mean we will benefit by letting them come here. The idea that Western Civ can be saved by an influx of Third World people is just unfounded.
Ping for your possible interest, folks. Interesting discussion.
It's the old COMINTERN strategic vision, dressed in a chasuble.
My father saw the thinned-out congregations of western Europe in 1945 and commented on them to me 15 years or so later, when I was old enough to receive such things. He told me that the only men he saw at Mass in France and Germany were gray-haired. None of the men of military or family age were in church. He didn't know why, but it doesn't take a mental giant to link the phenomenon to the rise of godless ideologies and scientism.
So do you think we’ll be saved by believers from Africa and Latin America?
Thank you, will read it tomorrow.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.