Category — History

In preparation for a conference in February, I am reading about World Christianity.  I invite you to think with me via some key quotes. 

Sociologist Paul Freston characterizes Christianity as both declining and expanding.  It is losing ground in its more traditional heartland and yet expanding in non-Western regions. 

[Christianity] was 81 percent white (i.e., European and North American) in 1900; but by 2000 that figure was down to 40 [citing Barrett and Johnson, IBMR, 23/1, Jan. 1999, pp. 24-25]. … The result is that Christianity has become a predominantly non-Western religion and indeed probably the leading non-Western religion (only Islam could possibly rival it). …  For the first time since the seventh century, the majority of Christians are not of European origin; Christianity is finally breaking out of the “Western” mold imposed on it by Islam. (”Globalization, Religion, and Evangelical Christianity: A Sociological Meditation from the Third World” in Interpreting Contemporary Christianity: Global Processes and Local Identities, Eerdmans, 2008, pp. 29-30)

The same trend has been chronicled by Andrew Walls (The Missionary Movement in Christian History, Orbis, 1996), Lamin Sanneh (Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel beyond the West, Eerdmans, 2003), Dana Robert (”Shifting Southward: Global Christianity Since 1945,” IBMR, 24/2, April 2000), and Philip Jenkins (The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, Oxford, 2002).  The common refrain among these writers is that the strength and vitality of the Christian movement has relocated.  And yet, the shift has been more than an adjustment in numerical strength or geographical locus.  The character and constitution of the faith, that which gives meaning to its forms and expressions, have changed as well.  While Andrew Walls characterizes this as “a seismic shift in Christianity,” Dana Robert nuances the change as “the seismic shift in Christian identity” (Robert, “Shifting Southward,” p. 50).

The gospel has moved beyond accommodated forms, rituals, and customs to penetrate and even renew peoples’ mentality or psyche with Christ-meaning and purpose.  Turning to Jesus, as Lamin Sanneh points out, has become “a refocusing of the mental life and its cultural/social underpinnings and of our feelings, affections, and instincts, in the light of what God has done in Jesus” (Sanneh, Whose Religion, pp. 43-44).  In other words, the faith is no longer a foreign guest in a strange land.  Rather, it is native to the soil, at home in locales throughout the world, and in touch with the deepest needs.  Thus, while Christianity may appear to be the world’s largest religion, it is in fact, as Dana Robert explains, “the ultimate local religion” (Robert, “Shifting Southward, p. 56).

And thus, the faith expands as it takes the form and shape of local societies.  Why?  Because Christianity finds a home in these places.  According to Walls, “The faith of Christ is infinitely translatable; it creates ‘a place to feel at home’” (Missionary Movement, p. 25).

Christianity is unique in its translatability; its ability to be at home in a myriad of languages, forms, mental frameworks (worldviews), histories, personal and national aspirations, etc.  This, of course, assaults the tendencies of some Western missionaries and church leaders to ‘internationalize’ their particular brand of Christianity.  And yet, the Christian faith was never intended to be captured or realized in one particular cultural form.

No primal form is prescribed that is to be introduced worldwide.  Indeed, it can be said that the church is infinitely translatable or adaptable.  The church can be established in every language and culture, taking the form that is appropriate to each particular cultural-linguistic group.  (Wilbert R. Shenk, “New Wineskins for New Wine: Toward a Post-Christendom Ecclesiology,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 29/2, April 2005, p. 74)

Christianity is translatable, and so the church in a particular society, cultural setting, and mentality must be translated as well.  For Christianity to be vibrant and authentic, a church in Ghana must be different than a church in Chicago.  Shenk concludes that

When we turn to examples from history where churches have shown authentic spiritual vitality, we observe that such churches have been marked by a strong sense of their identity as the body of Christ engaged in faithful witness to the world. To carry out this witness has invariably required new structures and forms appropriate to the cultural context. Old wineskins cannot handle new wine. (Ibid., p. 79)

Lamin Sanneh takes the discussion a step further to distinguish how new wineskins exist alongside older, more established ones.

“World Christianity” is the movement of Christianity as it takes form and shape in societies that previously were not Christian, societies that had no bureaucratic tradition with which to domesticate the gospel.  In these societies Christianity was received and expressed through the cultures, customs, and traditions of the people affected.  World Christianity is not one thing, but a variety of indigenous responses through more or less effective idioms, but in any case without necessarily the European Enlightenment frame.  “Global Christianity,” on the other hand, is the faithful replication of Christian forms and patterns developed in Europe. … It is, in fact, religious establishment and the cultural captivity of the faith.  (Sanneh, Whose Religion, p. 22)

Sanneh draws a sharp distinction between Christian faith that springs from the soil and that which is imported from a far.  The language of ‘world’ and ‘global’ distinguishes the two.  World denotes the new and emerging phenomenon, while global is representative of the period of colonial expansion and is now associated with globalization, McDonaldization, internationalism, etc. 

Ogbu U. Kalu develops the concept of globalism …

There has been a shift, however, from the global village concept to one of rather bewildering disintegration and flux.  One aspect is the pace and direction of change.  The other is that, at the core, globalism is a power concept, bearing the seeds of asymmetrical power relations.  There is no guarantee of equality or benefit for all.  Globalism is akin to the New Testament concpet of kosmos, the world order, controlled by an inexplicable, compulsive power, dazzling with allurements or kosmetikos. (”Changing Tides: Some Currents in World Christianity at the Opening of the Twenty-first Century,” in Interpreting Contemporary Christianity: Global Processes and Local Identities, Eerdmans, 2008, p. 7)

Thus, Global Christianity is to be viewed negatively as power religion accomplished via homogeneity or sameness.  Whatever the motivation (fear of syncretism, reinforcement of doctrinal orthodoxy, or naive and uncritical cultural imperialism), the result is the same - an “asymmetical power relation.”  And usually it is the one with the money which dominates in the relation. 

Some would argue that globalization has forever changed the world, and thus there are few place that exist in a cultural vacuum.  They contend that technologies and ideas run wild via television, radio, Internet, print mediums, movies, travel, etc., so talk of translation, indigenization, or contextualization is no longer relevant to the reality on the ground.  And yet, others argue that while secularization is taking place and plurality exists, it is “optionless plurality” (Freston, p. 31).  There are real and substantial barriers to conversion to a foreign (American) faith, and thus, if Christianity is to expand and thrive there must be “new structures and forms appropriate to the cultural context.”  Data indicates that the more vigorous expansion of Christianity is not occurring in places where traditional mainline denominations reign but where the faith has successfully delinked or disengaged from European and American influence and money. 

There is much more that could be cited and discussed, but this is enough for now.  The discussion is important for the North American Church as it contemplates its missionary program, its relationship to the surrounding culture, and how it relates to brothers and sisters half a world away.  Is the North American church really in a new position in its relationship to Christianity around the world?  If so, then in what new ways must it relate, participate, and contribute?

I eagerly await Dana Robert’s forthcoming book on the history of the Christiam mission.  Christian Mission: How Christianity Became a World Religion (Wiley-Blackwell) will be released in March 2009.  My hope is that in Robert’s book we have a replacement for Stephen Neill’s A History of Christian Missions.  It is time for a fresh re-telling of the story of the expansion of the Christian faith.  The story needs to be retold in a way that a broader audience can read and appreciate.  Previews indicate that in Part I, Robert chronicles “The Making of a World Religion,” and in Part II, she deals with “Themes in Mission History.”  Dana Robert is the Truman Collins Professor of World Christianity and the History of Missions at Boston University.  She has authored numerous works on the history of Christian missions and non-Western Christianity.