The Changing Face of Christianity

February 15, 2005 == MEDIA ADVISORY

In 1900 there were about 9 million Christians in all of Africa. By the year
2000 that number had grown to 380 million.

Calvin College provost and professor of history Joel Carpenter says that
Africa is home to the greatest growth of Christianity in the world right now.

He and Lamin Sanneh, D. Willis James professor of missions & world
Christianity at Yale Divinity School, are editors of a new book on the topic
from Oxford University Press called "The Changing Face of Christianity."

"It is in Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America and Oceana that Christianity
is flourishing," says Carpenter. "In the global north - North America and
Europe especially - the religion is barely holding its own. In addition the
shape that Christianity takes in the global south and east is markedly
different from how it looks in the north."

Indeed Sanneh, a West African Christian, says in the book's conclusion that
northern, liberal Christianity has become a "do-as-you-please" religion, deeply
accommodated to the post-Christian values of the secular northlands. And, he
adds, the new Christianity of the global south and east, which bears the scars
of hardship and persecution, will clash increasingly with its urbane and
worldly northern counterpart.

That's because outside the North Atlantic region Christianity is much more
dynamic and is marked by communal relationships and mutual obligations.
Christianity in the north, says Carpenter, tends to be much more
individualistic. In addition, Carpenter asserts that Christianity in the
global south and east may be closer to classic Christian doctrines and
imperatives than in the north where it has assumed modern, post-Christian
cultural norms.

Carpenter believes that the Roman Catholic Church is probably more profoundly
impacted by the rise of Christianity in the global south than any other
religion.

"About 40 percent of the College of Cardinals," he notes, "comes from the
global south and east. The new story there is Africa. All of these former
British colonies are no longer primarily identified with the Church of England.
 The Catholic church is just taking off in places like Uganda and Nigeria."

So much so, says Carpenter, that he believes some day we will see an African
pope.

"Then," he says, "you'll have a very visible reminder of the changing face of
Christianity."

Contact Joel Carpenter at 616-526-6102 or jcarpent@calvin.edu
For more on this story see:
http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2004_05/changing_face.htm

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Received on Tue Feb 15 13:41:12 2005