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"A TIDAL WAVE OF CHRISTIANITY"

Acts-celerater Posts: 900 **8/18/16 12:32 pm**

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.

http://www.cbn.com/CBNNews/News/030819a.asp
_________________
http://geraldabreu.info

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
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There are two ways to enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.
John Adams

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 16646 **8/18/16 1:29 pm**

Gerald,
Is this verified by other sources?
I have seen these types of reports, but I don't see major African Christian responses to trouble in Africa...so it makes me skeptical that there are that many in Africa.
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Whether you like it or not, learn to love it, because its the best thing going today!

Golf Cart Mafia Consigliere Posts: 3147 **8/18/16 1:29 pm**

Praise the Lord. I love it. I've already heard of Latin Missionaries coming to the US to preach the gospel. It seems odd that America is now missionary territory, but I'm grateful.

Acts Mod Posts: 3346 **8/18/16 2:50 pm**

Gerald that was an interesting article. Thanks for sharing.
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No one who died without Christ is happy about their decision.

Acts-celerater Posts: 900 **8/18/16 4:56 pm**

Acts-celerater Posts: 900 **8/18/16 4:59 pm**

It seems the link in the original article leads to no where. I apologize for that. I received the article in an email from a friend overseas. It seems that it may be older than CBN archives.
_________________
http://geraldabreu.info

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
Abraham Lincoln

There are two ways to enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.
John Adams

Acts-perienced Poster Posts: 11849 **8/18/16 8:29 pm**

I've read about the idea of the center of the Christian population moving south, to the Southern Hemisphere. Maybe that was Pentecostalism rather than 'Christianity' in general.

My wife had a kind of prophetic word about the baton of leadership shifting from Europe and the US to the East. Just looking at demographics and the number of evangelicals (and Pentecostals, too) there has certainly been a shift.

As far as Buddhists go, there are multitudes of Chinese Christians, including Chinese Pentecostals, in Indonesia whose parents or grandparents were Buddhists. Just thinking of it in terms of the Chinese people-group(s), there has been great growth in the church up in China, but also among the Chinese diaspora. We can interpret it as decades of a great move among the Chinese where they are located throughout the world. There is still much evangelism to be done. It seems more typical that a Chinese person would be Christian here in Indonesia, at least in these parts, than Buddhist. There are lots of Reformed, but also lots of Pentecostals/Charismatics. GBI (COG here) have multitudes of Chinese believers.

As far as Africa goes, the problems I see coming out of Africa have to do with the exaltation of preachers. Like in the US, many preachers are calling themselves 'apostles' for pastoring large churches I suppose. There are video clips of pastors having the people follow him around on hands and knees 'baa'ing like sheep or eating grass because he tells them so. I read a cessationist's article on the problem of seeing the preacher as the replacement for the witchdoctor. That man clearly had an unbiblical prejudice, but I'm sure Africa has its own problems. But like in the US, often it is the problem preachers who make the news more than the faithful servants.

In Indonesia, with the Reformed and Lutheran churches, they seem to be conservative. One of the Lutheran churches my wife's family are a part of ordain women. That is pretty common here. Maybe within Lutheranism that is seen as 'liberal.' But I don't really hear much about liberal theology on the broader scale here. When I went to a family gathering and had the opportunity to talk with some of my wife's cousins, some of them were concerned about the LGBT movement in the US, and were rather disapproving of it. Their church has a relationship with the German state church. I suspect the values are quite different. One of my wife's relatives just went to serve in Germany as a missionary pastor with the Lutheran church there.
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