Christianity is no longer a Western religion
Since the Roman Emperor Constantine adopted Christianity as a the official religion of the most powerful and influential empire in the modern world in 312 A.D. Christianity has been a religion for the advanced and “civilized” west.
Almost every European country made Christianity their national religion with the emergence of the Roman Catholic Empire, and even after the reformation some sort of Christianity was practiced in Europe. Famously the United States of America was founded by the Christian Puritans seeking religious freedom, and the religiousity has continued until present day. There has still yet to be a President of the U.S. that is not a public Christian and many in the world perceive the U.S. as the preeminent Christian nation.
However, that is no longer the case. While 70% of Americans still culturally identify themselves as Christians, it is estimated by the Pew Research center that only 37% of U.S. citizens attend church. This is in stark contrast with Brazil, with 90.2 % of their population being Christian, and Mexico with 95%.
ABWE international published a blog on this very topic, titled, “World Christianity is Undergoing a Seismic Shift.” They comment on a set of research that was done by the Center of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary that outside of the U.S. the top countries that are sending missionaries are from the Global South. A huge change from 50 years ago when the missionaries were being sent there. The three in the top ten are Brazil, South Korea and India. Three different countries in three different continents.
This also isn’t the first time that this has happened either. The Pentecost forced the first global shift in the gravitational center of Christianity from Judea all over the Mediterranean.
This shift to the global south should excite us as Christians. It should encourage and exhort us. In the year 1800, 99% of Christians lived either in North America or Europe. Now less than 30% live on the two continents.
Now, the application of such knowledge is the fun part. Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes by E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien focuses on this phenomenon. In the introduction to their book the authors point out how Christianity can no longer just be looked at through the perspective of someone who lives in suburban America, but in a global sense.
They state that with the realization of this change in the landscape of Christianity should come a new way of reading scripture. Such as when one of the authors was working as a missionary in a global south country and they had cast out a young couple from the church that had eloped. Other than eloping they had been a consummate young couple and the church leaders had asked the author if they should allow them back into the church. To the author their wrong doing seemed innocuous and forgivable. However to his friends from the Global south to obey your parents was is in the bible and to disobey your parents in the most important decision in your life seemed a much larger sin than any American would.
Likewise, when the author was working at a school in the Philippines he noticed that the majority of the kids would leave multiple choice questions unanswered rather than guessing. They believed that if they answered a question and got it right, then they would have lied about the information that they knew. I told my roommates who are both pre-med school students this and they could not fathom viewing school like this. They both pride themselves in not just testing their knowledge, but their ability to play the game of standardized test and making “educated guesses.”
As we as Christians move forward in the global Christian shift, we should do so with an expanded perspective, on how we can help our brothers and sisters across the globe, but also how we can learn from them.
