The gang's all here

It's Reinhard Bonke, folks. He has been doing evangelistic crusades in Africa for decades and a bigger heart for the continent you will never see.

He is also a gifted healer and rumor has it when the call goes forth, the entire crowd moves forward!

A recent Google search reveals that the "entire" southern hemisphere now identifies themselves as Christian. (Google: "Third Church")

There are huge movements of God in the world that very few of us are privy to - unless we consciously seek it out. The government in China currently acknowledges 1,000,000 Christians - but non-official estimates are much higher.

Orthodox journalism professor and author Terry Mattingly has some interesting comments about this phenomenon in his interview in the new issue of AGAIN Magazine:

http://conciliarpress.pinnaclecart.com/index.php?p=page&page_id=again_mattingly_interview

"We have much we can learn from Anglicans in the Third World about what a liturgical evangelism might look like. Even though much of what they’re doing is charismatic, in a very real sense of that word, I still think we can pay attention to what they’re doing and learn from it. It might be Calvinistic, but it is still going to have more of a liturgical form than, say, the Southern Baptist Convention would have over there. There are going to be some very alive, highly Catholic elements. For example, the African church—African culture itself—has a heavy emphasis on authority and patriarchy. This means African bishops are going to be much more a kind of spiritual father model than you would experience in America, where bishops are thought of as super-theology professors who are appointed because of a combination of management skills and lecture skills. Instead of being primarily an intellectual or administrative leader, an African bishop is much more of a spiritual father or shepherd—even if that person has two degrees from Oxford.

"African Christians are also dealing with a situation in which some of their own children could be kidnapped by Moslems. Or if you’re the Anglican bishop in Singapore, you’re literally dealing with the occult in many, many cases. These are not people who doubt the reality of a pre-modern spiritual world. The lives of the saints speak to these people in ways that we just don’t have any understanding of.

Christ Bless,
Doug

(full disclosure...)
Douglas Cramer
Managing Editor, AGAIN Magazine

"The future of religion isn't in the bells and smells and chanting..."

Not necessarily true. First, many people (from whatever continent) who are originally enamored of charismatic/pentecostal worship find that it's difficult to maintain that level of enthusiasm over the long haul of a lifetime and wind up in liturgical churches. Second, charismata and liturgy/structure are not exclusive (as the very phenomenon of charismatic Anglicanism shows). Many of the spirit's movements in history have taken place in and indeed inauguarated monastic movements. Read Kyriacos Markides' Mountain of Silence, in which he relates many mystical experiences of the monks of Mount Athos and Panagia monastery; such things make your average pentecostal Christian look like a lightweight. Third, sociologists of religion have been finding recently that many young folks (admittedly in a North American context) want tradition and liturgy, smells and bells. Perhaps the baby boomers were an anomaly in the history of religious experience. Fourth, while the video Rod posted is impressive, I suspect you could find similar video from a World Youth Day or most Sundays at St Peter's Square.

"Where is the future of Christianity?"

I've read/heard estimates that within another generation or two, we Christians here in North America will be only about 4 percent of the population...
about the same as now in Europe...
it's not because we are smarter than those in the third world...
but we do have access to much more knowledge of the world...
it's no surprise that Christianity is accepted by such a large amount of third world persons...
since they lack access to information about the mythological basis of all religion...
the huge movements fueled by the God Myths will surely shrink in the third world as more of the people aquire access to the counter arguments that bring reasonable doubt to the validity of the Myths of the world...

faith hope love joy peace to all...

I'm a historian presenting working this summer in Gabon, a small country in Central Africa, where I joined briefly a Pentecostal church some years ago before becoming a Catholic based on my experiences here.

The kind of fervor one sees at evangelical and pentecostal revivals here certainly can be inspiring, no doubt. However, African churches here have their own problems, just like Christians everywhere else. Many people (at least here) live together outside of marriage, and
at times the search for mystical power and protection can skew things quite a bit. Some people - Catholic, Protestant, and those outside of the Christian tradition (Muslims and believers in local religious traditions) tend to view a lot of the commotion at rallies as exaggerated and/or a scam for money. The prosperity gospel is a pretty strong current within many Protestant circles here (and to a lesser extent Catholic), esp. since the vast majority of people are dirt poor. This shouldn't be seen as an attempt to belittle anyone's faith, or to suggest all African Christians are superstituous and ignorant. Far from it - the evangelicals in particular know their Bibles extremely well.

What is striking here is how seriously most people take the reality of spiritual warfare and supernatural evil. Unless churches here speak to those concerns, they wont go anywhere. One striking difference between the Catholic priests and laity here as opposed to Catholics I have met in the US for the most part (with a few exceptions) is that spiritual warfare is part of the daily vocabulary people use here.

I think this divide is as big as other issues that have received more attention (homosexuality, for example). What I am interested to see is how the seemingly growing opposition to religious beliefs in general in North America and Europe will cope with the concerns and practices of African Christianity. GIAH's hope in the decline of organized religion is going to be shared by many people, once the determined secularists realize more clearly how out of place their views will be among African Christians.

As far as traditional Catholicism goes, there is some support for the Tridentine mass here - the SSPX has a big church in the capital of Libreville that is popular, and a lot of its support comes from those who feel the post-Vatican II church made too many concessions to local beliefs as well as the fact that Catholic missions in the colonial era (to 1960) had a lot more power and wealth than most parishes do generally. At the Catholic church I attend, daily mass is preceded by morning prayer from the Office and Adoration of the Eucharist with "Tantum Ergo" sung in Latin, and this is pretty typical for most Catholic churches here.

If anyone wants to get a more detailed sense of these issues, read David Maxwell's recent book (Ohio University Press 2007) "Gifts of the Spirit" (I think that's the title! look up the ou press website to find it for sure) on the Assemblies of God of Zimbabwe - it really lays out a lot of issues regarding the growth of Pentecostal churches well in an even-handed way, I think.

A recent Google search reveals that the "entire" southern hemisphere now identifies themselves as Christian.

Indonesia - most of which lies below the equator - is the most populous Muslim country in the world, with more than 200 million people. New Zealand and Australia are probably about as "Christian" as Western Europe - i.e. nominally. So that leaves Antarctica (empty) South America and a chunk of Africa. So if countries like Brazil (land of topless beaches, thongs and bikini waxing) and Rwanda and Zimbabwe (machete rampages and kleptocracies) are the future of Christianity, then Christianity has its work cut out for it.

Put down the secularist koolaide tv.

I will when you stop wishing the sky-daddy would make it all better for you.

Jeremy, wonderful, insightful post.

Having spent a fair amount of time in Africa, I agree that the exuberance of African Christianity differs in significant ways from American Pentecostalism or evangelicalism. Also, for all its well-documented problems, the Catholic Church is growing by leaps and bounds across the continent. Catholicism is now close to the majority in several English-speaking countries, having left in the dust everything (including Anglicanism) other than Pentecostalism.

Also, a striking characteristic of the "charismatic" worship style of African Catholics is its reverence, which is simply expressed in a way consonant with local custom. They may bang on drums at Mass, but the effect is nothing like the happy-clappy affirm-our-community junk you get in so many American suburbs.

we need to rethink the faithful=baby making equation.

Such rethinking is being done. Check out the work of Mary Eberstadt:

http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/7827212.html

who makes a very persuasive argument that secularism is the result rather than the cause of low fertility rates.

From Douglas Cramer:

"It might be Calvinistic...

Lord have mercy on use all.

Right - because patriarchy has *absolutely nothing* to do with War.

Funny how you so rarely see women settling diputes by razing entire cities.

Aren't people in this discussion making the assumption that bigger churches are better? That the bigger the church means the closer to God? And isn't that obviously not true?
If you want to bring people to Christ, you first have to reach them where they are. Worshipping at a Catholic Church doesn't necessarily mean that one is close to God. Neither does believing in the Prosperity Gospel mean that one isn't moving closer to Christ.

TV - I didn't say patriarchy has nothing to do with war. I said it was silly of you to blame patriarchy for wars and oppression. There are much larger causes for wars in Europe than patriarchy. How about greed? Desire for power? There are many areas of the globe that have patriarchal societies that don't fight each other. In addition, most societies in Africa have been patriarchal for centuries so it's not like this is some big change for them. Your comment implied a big change, as if Africans are moving away from a peaceful history towards one of war and oppression now that they've supposedly developed a patriarchy.

jaybird - It's tough to chose but I'd have to say either your generalization that Brazil can be reduced to topless beaches (is bikini waxing unchristian?) or that sub-Saharan Africa can be reduced to fanatics with machetes.

MM - I'd agree it is a trend in certain areas of the global south, but also a lazy generalization.

Neither does believing in the Prosperity Gospel mean that one isn't moving closer to Christ

This is like saying just 'cause you sleep around you aren't moving closer to Christ. Sure you might be, but the sleeping around part is moving you away from Christ.

What I'm saying is the teachings of Christ are in direct opposition to the Prosperity Gospel. Just read the Gospels.

Women don't raze cities to settle disputes?

Two words, "Indira Ghandi!"

TV - There's also Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher, who both lead their respective countries at the time of war. In addition, there are many women from older time periods who lead their nations to war - Queen Victoria, Catherine the Great, and Queens Anne, Mary, and Elizabeth of England, come to mind. And there were female leaders of ancient Egypt as well as female leaders in the Bible who had no qualms about wars and using violence to solve a dispute. Now you can make the point that all these women led patriarchal societies, but then you really don't have any evidence that women can lead nations and resist war any more than men can.

TV - So your point that patriarchal societies are the cause of war is unfounded. There's no evidence to prove that a matriachal society would be any worse or better. So there's nothing on which to base your silly theory. Think before you write next time. Just admit it was a poor attempt at humor and move on.

Ross,

Sorry - I certainly cannot be held responsible for your patriarchal insistence that "evidence" of the success of something that has never been tried is required before it is attempted.

Women simply don't shoot first and ask questions later as men do. Women's organizations are less concerned with winning than they are with consensus, and I have sincere belief that *nothing* could be worse than the way men have run the world for the past 100 centuries.

But please, feel free to keep supporting a way of looking at the world that makes everyone an enemy if that gets you through the night.