ATLANTA (ABP) — Christians need to prepare for religious struggles ahead as the center of Christianity shifts to the south, says historian and author Philip Jenkins.
In his book, “The Next Christendom,” Jenkins says by the year 2050 the heart of Christianity will move to the Southern Hemisphere, with the majority of Christians living in Latin America and Africa.
Jenkins is a distinguished professor of history and religious studies at Penn State University.
The coming global shift will have ramifications not only for Christians, according to Jenkins, but also the growing Muslim world, as the two religions find themselves in political and religious clashes in the midst of world population changes.
“Muslim and Christian nations will expand adjacent to each other, and often Muslim and Christian communities will both grow within the same country,” he noted in his book. As those populations grow, so does the rivalry, with struggles for converts, and “competing attempts to enforce moral codes by means of secular law. Whether Muslim or Christian, religious zeal can easily turn into fanaticism.”
Religious struggles facing the world today will only continue to escalate, Jenkins said in a recent interview. “It might be that regardless of what Christians do, what churches do, we are in for an age of religious struggle,” he said. “I don't see much chance of avoiding religious confrontation.”
Although the confrontations might be inevitable, one of the first things Jenkins recommends that Christians in the western tradition do is change their perceptions and concepts of what it means to be a Christian. “Recognize that this situation is changing,” he said. “It also affects language. When people say today, 'Christians today believe …,' who do you mean?”
Because of this global Christianity phenomenon, the face and meaning of missions is changing, said Jenkins, author of numerous other books, including “The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice” and “Images of Terror: What We Can and Can't Know About Terrorism.”
“For one thing, it changes the whole idea of mission as sending,” he said. “That suggests you're sending from a Christian world to a non-Christian world. We need to consider the whole world as a missions area. A lot of the missions arrows are going south to south, such as Asia to Africa and Latin America to Asia.”
When Jenkins addresses an audience, he said he asks them to think about what kind of church presence in their cities represents the “Global South.” He finds it surprising how many people do not know about these churches. “If you don't know, it's a good idea to find out, because those people have a good connection to their home countries,” he said.
Finding and connecting with different diaspora communities, such as the large Nigerian population in Houston, is a key way churches can learn from and create partnerships with different ethnic churches in their own areas and use those relationships as a way to build up missions partnerships in the countries of origin, Jenkins said.
He also encouraged Christians to think more about their concept of history, particularly the history of Christianity. “We need to be aware that Christianity is much more of a global thing. [We need to look at] what is cultural and what is the core of our religion.”
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