The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity Essay -- essay

Christianity is becoming extinct. In order for it to impact on it must modernize its beliefs. The average Christian is white, middle mob and is from atomic number 63 or America. The religion of Islam is expanding quickly and will soon command Christianity. These be all common claims made ab aside Christianity that many nation believe, yet Philip Jenkins claims and proves them untrue in his book, The Next Christendom The Coming of Global Christianity. tally to his book, Christianity is moving out of the global north and into the global south. In fact, Christianity is maturement rapidly in countries such as Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He alike writes about how Africa and Brazil will, within the next fifty years, replace Europe as the center of Christianity. Both of these countries have been heavily missionized within that whizztime(prenominal) hundred years, and the number of Christians in each has raised millions. The expansion product in these countries is due primar ily to their high reproduction rates and their longing for the Christian beliefs that the missionaries brought with them. Jenkins says in this book that the missionaries faced no problems trying to explicate about a higher deity or other bafflingly disaffect world views to the Africans, because it followed closely with many of their own tribal beliefs. Many of the tribes worshiped star higher power already and also found that many of the Christian beliefs fell in sync with their own heritage and customs. They did though, encounter one problem the beliefs fell so in sync with their tribal traditions, that last the African culture started to incorporate their customs such as exorcism, ambition visions, forebode, healing, and mysticism into their Christian churches, creating an entire sub group of Christianity. These sub groups are closely related to the more Pentecostal churches, but are faraway from the ritualistic practices of the Anglicans and Catholics that primarily missi onized them. Pentecostal churches, because of the resurgence in countries such as Africa and Brazil will soon be the dominant Christian sects. They powerfully emphasize views about personal relationships with God, biblical literism, speaking in tongues, visions and prophesy just as the African churches do. The Pentecostal church tends to mainly overstretch the poor or lower class of society, which also happens to be what Bra... ...nto the approximation that religious wars may occur, be he completely left out the ideas that the Islamic nation, being known for terrorism and other such acts of violence, could potentially eliminate Christianity from any form of mainstream. This is a serious topic to stand for about considering what they have done to other religions, and to Christian sects residing in the shopping mall East. I think Jenkins should have presented this as more of an issue and an certain threat then claiming that it might cause slight conflict. The book definitely ha d some strengths and some weaknesses. I believe the information that Jenkins provided was extremely good established and proven. This is exactly the type of information that people need to know, because the fairness is being denied. I think for the book to be effective, it needs to be laid out better. I wouldnt recommend this book to anyone as well as a theological scholar due to the manner that it flows, even though it has very good reviews and is on best seller lists for Christian books. I commend Jenkins for going against the flow and writing against the average beliefs, but censure him for writing the information in such an incomprehensible manner.