PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE OF CHRISTIANITY.
By Paul Merkley
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Some Contradictory Trends in the Church today.
Two contradictory trends mark the situation of the Church today.
Despite the consensus among journalists and media types,– always supremely confident, almost always supremely wrong — the Church of Jesus Christ is growing in numbers everywhere in the world –in some places rapidly, in others barely. Nowhere in the world is the church in absolute decline, although here in the West it may be in modest, relative decline.
The notion that the church is in decline supports the self-esteem of people who dimly remember being hauled off reluctantly to Sunday School or to Mass as children, and who now draw their imagery of self-liberation from the elite establishment’s contempt for the uneducated masses.
The other false generalization about the Church today – dominating most minds in the West, whether “religious” or not – is that Christianity began here in our midst somewhere and was subsequently disseminated there, throughout the world, through various missionary enterprises – the missionaries being nowadays reckoned as prominent pioneers in the story of oppression of other races. On all counts, this is historically indefensible.
When Christianity appeared in the second quarter of what we call the First Century Anno Domini, its home was in the place where now stands the State of Israel, but what was then Palestina—a Province of Rome’s Empire. The masters of that Empire despised the Jews for their record of un-governability; and, after destroying the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, they made clear their contempt for the Jews by naming the region Philistia, after Israel’s ancient enemy, the Philistines.
So thorough and so brutal was Israel’s campaign against the indigenous “Canaanites” that they ceased to exist as an intact nation. In Jesus’ time on earth, however, travelers might encounter pockets of non-Jewish folk who called themselves “Philistines”. In the usage of the Jews of Jesus’ time, Philistines had become a generalizing and invidious label to describe Jews who dissented from the traditions of the mainstream of Jewish people.
The people who call themselves “Palestinians” today are of course Arabs, descendants of the warriors who swarmed out of the deserts of Arabia on the advice of Prophet Muhammad in the mid 7th century, sweeping away the several small Christian Kingdoms that then occupied these lands and imposing by force the new religion of Islam.
Perversely, some leaders of churches here in the West have gone along with the hoax, advanced by Mahmoud Abbas and the PLO, that the local Arabs, the descendants of Muhamad’s conquering warriors, the people who call themselves “Palestinians”, are descendants of the Canaanites, and thus have an “aboriginal” claim to the land—trumping the claim of the Israelis. The complicity of some church leaders in this massive hoax, is of course driven by contemporary deconstructionist politics and has no foundation in history. The fact that it gets off the ground at all is made possible by the massive spirit of contempt for history, which operates in tandem with the spirit of anti-Judaism – the source of all so-called “anti-Semitism.
Geographical Aspects of the Future of Christianity
But now get a grip on something! It now seems that the centre of gravity of Christendom is shifting to Africa. This should not come as an earth-shaking thought, given that, as Professor Brian Stanley of Edinburgh University’s Centre for World Christianity, points out, “The period in which [Christianity] appeared to be indissolubly linked to western European identity was a relatively short one, lasting from the early sixteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries.” https://www.christiantoday.com/article/a-growing-church-why-we-should-focus-on-the-bigger-picture/49362.htm
About six centuries after Jesus’ time on earth, an entirely unrelated race, the Arabs, illiterate and uncouth, came screaming out of the East, bent on destroying everything related to the history of the region – for that matter, to all history everywhere. Christian people had been the masters on that scene, and therefore Christians suffered most from the depredations of these masters. But it was not until the Twentieth Century that it became feasible for Christians born in that part of the world to take their families, their culture, and (usually) their faith to the New World and begin a new life. For most, this involved trans-planting their old churches in unfamiliar soil.
Christians are today under persecution everywhere. In our own part of the world, the persecution takes mild forms. Clergymen and bishop as well as virtually all persons who publicly identify themselves as Christians are excluded from the discussions that take place at the highest levels of social and political life. Our elites never stand up for Christianity; indeed, they do everything possible to be seen as indifferent or hostile to it. This fact creates great disadvantages in some respects; but, perversely perhaps, it can create advantages of a limited sort. Only the most poorly informed imagine that Christians or Christianity are part of any oppressive force. No informed person sees Christians as part of the power elites.
Perhaps the last toe-hold that Christian theology had in the open air was for that brief few days when the Baby Jesus appeared in public spaces everywhere in His wooden crib, while angels and shepherds presided. Even these vestiges are gone – driven away from popular gaze by atheist-zealots who imagine that they are protectors of the young minds from religious zealots The spaces previously occupied by manger-scenes is now give over to advertising Black Friday and Boxing Day Sales.
The theme of the Death of Christianity is assisted by the circumstance that the particular churches that might be remembered from youth by presently-aging members of the cultural establishment have been declining for decades. These would include Anglicans (Episcopalians), Lutherans, Presbyterians, some branches of Methodism and a certain constituency among the Baptists. The branch of Protestantism that has most successfully overcome the pattern of decline that seems to apply everywhere else has been the branch called Evangelicals. Under which most include the Pentecostals. This company of “Evangelicals” includes a growing category of churches that are entirely unaffiliated to any denominations. “Evangelicals” now make up fifty-five percent of all U.S. Protestants.
Evangelical Growth is Good News for Israel.
It is among these Evangelical Christians that support for the State of Israel is most solid. Also worth noting by beleaguered Israelis is the fact that Evangelical Christianity has grown in numbers in most European countries since 1990 — even while the population of these same countries has declined.
Informed Jews (not the vast majority) know that the most devotedly pro-Israel, pro-Zionist, constituency of all is here, among Evangelical Christians To take only one indicator- self-described “Evangelicals” make up a larger portion of the annual company of visitors to Israel than do American Jews!.
But while these indicators of modest growth among European and American Evangelicals should re-assure most Jews this is as nothing compared to the dramatic the growth Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, in Africa and South America.
As for Africa: in 1900 there were fewer than 9 million Christians in Africa. Now there are more than 541 million. This works out on average at around 33,000 people either becoming Christians or being born into Christian families each day in Africa alone.
According to Molly Wall, the programme director of Operation World, “Generally speaking, the world is becoming more religious, and that is because the world’s largest historical non-religious populations (former Communist countries, especially China) are becoming more religious. Non-religious populations are in decline there, and overall global figures reflect that change.” https://www.christiantoday.com/article/a-growing-church-why-we-should-focus-on-the-bigger-picture/49362.htm
The Church is growing dramatically in most of the world.
Most spectacular of all is the growth of the African Church, although this fact never gets noted in our secular press. In 1900 there were fewer than 9 million Christians in Africa. Now there are more than 335 million. In the last 15 years alone, the Church in Africa has seen a 51 per cent increase, which works out on average at around 33,000 people either becoming Christians or being born into Christian families each day in Africa alone.
Summary.
Today there are more than 2.4 billion Christians worldwide — just over a third of the world’s total population. This figure includes many in our part of the forest who are of nominal belonging only but who nevertheless, speaking to the census-taker at the door, declare themselves as Christian.
Islam comes second, with 700 million fewer adherents than Christianity has
All around us there is taking place a campaign of low-grade mockery as well as overt mockery of Christian faith. All positive reference to Christian faith has disappeared from the academic literature as well as from secular commentary in the newspapers and journals. Persons known to have a sincere Christian commitment never make it onto the rolodexes (or whatever they use today) of television talk show producers. This is happening precisely as our indigenous intellectuals are standing in solidarity against any negative public expression about the virtues of Islam.
It is not yet clear what price we will ultimately pay for this perfidy. Sincere Christians should pray that it will stop short of complete erasure of the Christian legacy from our public life.
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