The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South

The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South

Christianity is increasingly moving to the global South. Africa, South America, and Asia are continuing to see vast numbers turn to Christianity while in North America and Western Europe numbers are stagnating or declining. What will this mean for the shape Christianity will take in the years to come?

In the thralls of the Fundamentalist/Modernist controversy Harry Fosdick asked, “Shall the fundamentalists win?” From Jenkins perspective the answer is clear – the fundamentalists did not win. But what about the Christianity of today and tomorrow? Will the fundamentalists win?

The Anglican church is a prominent example of the different approaches Northern and Southern Christians sometimes take to reading and applying the Bible. Anglicans in the South reject homosexual practices while Anglicans in the North accept those same practices – both based on their reading of Scripture.

Part of what makes it easier for Southern Christians to read the Bible more literally is their relative similarity to the cultures of the Bible. They can identify with the poverty, famine, oppression, competing religions, demon possession, and persecution found in the Bible in ways that many Western Europeans and North Americans cannot. The Bible was not written to a postmodern, postindustrial, and secular audience. It was written to people with much more in common with the people of modern day Zimbabwe than modern day England.

It may just be that the “fundamentalist” readings of the Two-Thirds World will remind North Americans and Europeans of the long forgotten traditions of Christianity. Belief in healing, demon possession, and miracles have been central to the ancient Christian faith. The new face of Christianity may well embrace those beliefs.

This is a fascinating book. Jenkins provides many specific examples of Southern readings of familiar texts. For example, Psalm 23 is used in exorcisms and to denounce oppressive regimes.

Though I didn’t enjoy this one as much as The Next Christendom, I’d still recommend this book. If you read the Bible somewhat like I do (call it “literally” if you like), if you believe there was a global flood, there are real demons, God supernaturally heals the sick, you may struggle to identify with Jenkin’s perspective. His own view gives valuable insight into common Western interpretations of Scripture – however novel and heterodox those readings may be.