God is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the World

That’s the title of a just-published book by John Micklethwait, Editor-in-Chief of The Economist; and Adrian Wooldridge, The Economist’s Washington correspondent. The authors provide a brief introduction to their main theses here. The global spread of evangelical Christianity is a phenomenon the authors investigate with enthusiasm. An interview with the authors here. An excellent transcript of a Carnegie Council event featuring the authors here.

To be sure, the global spread of evangelical Christianity is treated with more authority by Philip Jenkins (The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, followed by The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South, and God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis). Furthermore, rather than reading a few stray quotes from an interview with sociologist Peter Berger, why not read the master himself? His take on “the prosperity gospel” as it is impacting Africa is iconoclastic in the best sense of the word (go here).  

For close readings of evangelicalism in "Third World" locations by trained sociologists, go here (Maya Presbyterianism) and here (Pentecostalism in Venezuela and Ghana).

Meanwhile, James Carse in his The Religious Case against Belief (the book, it must be said, makes a number of excellent points) brashly predicts the demise of Bible-believing Christianity within his lifetime. According to his “religious” lights, nothing would be sweeter. But his prediction - of course - is wish-projection and nothing more. For an introduction to Carse’s take on things, go here.

Comments

[Alan Lenzi]

No one can deny the expansion of religion in certain parts of the world. Unfortunately, the anti-intellectual Pentecostal brand is leading the way. Let's just hope pluralism and tolerance are more important values among these groups than upholding their version of a divine Banner of Truth. History does not give me much optimism.

Most Christians aren't like Berger, who seems adept at separating empirical observations and theological dogma. You have to respect his methodological self-consciousness.

[JohnFH]

Peter Berger is an excellent role model. He has a robust faith of his own, and it isn't difficult to catch a glimpse of it between the lines of his academic work.

But he has a sense of irony and a sense of the inscrutability of the deeper questions. His epistemological humility sits fine with me.

[Ranger]

I'll look forward to this volume. I love these types of books because they allow me to see if their understanding of the church in China is similar to how I evaluated it during my time partnering with its leaders, or if it is even in line with how the Chinese leaders envision themselves.

Although there was some anti-intellectual pentecostalism (mostly in areas where pentecostal missionaries were heavily concentrated post-1980), I found that the Chinese church was:

1. Urban - Christianity has been strongly resisted in the villages due to primarily strong Marxist (atheistic) leadership, or villages with a higher percentage of elderly who kept their pre-1949 ancestor worship despite the laws prohibiting it.

2. Young - Most of the churches that I partnered with were composed of largely 20-40 year olds.

3. Educated - It was very common for young atheists to enter college and have their worldview exploded when they come face to face with actual intellectual people of faith. From middle school they were taught that intellectualism and faith were opposed and thus Buddhist, Muslim and Christian professors usually shake their previous "faith." It's very similar to the American phenomenon of students raised in fundamentalism who have their worldview shaken upon meeting nice atheist professors. I would guess that whereas nearly all students come to college as atheists, well over half leave as Christians, Daoists or Mahayana Buddhists. Since they are primarily college educated, they are interested in biblical education. As such, there has been a recent surge in seminaries throughout the country and partnerships between foreign seminaries (primarily Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia) and mainland ones.

I'm sure that the growth of Christianity in Africa, South America, post-atheist Russia, etc. are not the same as China, but it seems to me that those who claim that the booming Chinese church are nothing but "third world ignorants" are rather ignorant themselves.

[Ranger]

It would be interesting to hear Anthony Loke's perspective as well (blogs at OT Passion), since he is a seminary professor here in Malaysia. My perspective here in Malaysia is still very much Chinese/China focused so I can't accurately assess the church at this point.

[JohnFH]

Ranger,

Thanks for commenting. Very, very interesting observations. I would love to see Anthony Loke or Tony Sieuw blog on these matters.

[Alan Lenzi]

I've always wondered how many "conversions" in college are actually intellectual or more motivated by emotion, desire for freedom from childhood restraints (the morals of mom and dad), or simply a need to fit in with the dominant/influential worldview. I now wonder the same about the conversions in China.

Also, it seems to me any time simplistic approaches to difficult questions are imposed (whether well-meaning or not) on people, they may easily abandon those simplistic answers when the opposition to them does not fit a certain stereotype. So atheistic professors here in the States aren't what some fundamentalists are told they will be. And the intellectualism of the religious professors in China don't fit the party-line, top-down atheism of state education. All of this presents an interesting problem for the sociology of religion.

[Ranger]

"desire for freedom from childhood restraints (the morals of mom and dad)"

Alan,
In the West, this is frequently the case. It's not as common in the East. It's possibly a factor in the more Westernized cities, but not among the population as a whole. Veneration of elders factors into daily life in very deep ways, and a rejection of parental value and authority borders on the blasphemous (whereas in the West we deem it as necessary for "growing up").

If anything, there is an inherent defensive posture in support of family values, beliefs and practices against those imposed by the state or outside contexts.

"All of this presents an interesting problem for the sociology of religion"

I agree and would love to read more on the topic.

Conversions in general (whether religious, political, ideological, etc.) are very complex and often driven by emotional situations in life. They are rarely (if ever) a purely intellectual matter. Reason plays a factor in all decision making, but our reasons and reasoning abilities are often built on foundations that are emotional and existential.

[JohnFH]

Luther, as often, put it more succintly: "reason is a whore."

That's a project I've not gotten to: an online introduction to Luther's disputatio de homine theses. Gerhard Ebeling's 1977 introduction to them (in German) is fabulous, and the theses themselves remain of extreme interest.