The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity

In The Next Christendom, Jenkins begins by giving statistical evidence that the heart of Christianity is no longer in the West, but rather, in the southern continents of South America and Africa, and also in the East in Asia. He says the majority of Christians today are non-white and poor. He even says a “white Christian” will become an oxymoron. Throughout the book, Jenkins challenges the myth of Western Christianity. Jenkins points out that in spite of Muslim domination, in A.D. 1200 over half of those claiming Christian faith may have lived in the Middle East and Asia (23–24). Jenkins shows that the rapid growth of Christianity in the Global South is actually a return to a global faith. He claims Christianity will continue growing the fastest in the Global South. He quotes a lot of statistics. Throughout the book, Jenkins relates the historical development of Christianity over the centuries. He challenges the common secular view that Christianity is dying and shows instead how it is growing exponentially as it moves to the Global South (Africa, Latin America, and Asia). Jenkins proposes that though Islam might eventually become the dominant religion of Europe, the ongoing stream of Latin-American, African and Asian immigrants into the United States and Canada will probably lead to a “re-Christianization” of those nations (as opposed to the secularization predicted by academics). Because of this, Jenkins predicts that the nature of Christianity will eventually be shaped by the Christians in the Global South.

One thing that struck me was Jenkins's description of how churches in the global south are more conservative/traditional than those in the West at this point. There is also a much stronger supernatural orientation. The main reason for this being that unlike the West's tendency to form a distinction between the sacred and the secular, non-Western parts of the world do not see this separation. Therefore worship and faith have more practical application and relevance to all aspects of life. It seems like that would be a really good thing for Western Christians to learn from our brothers and sisters in the global south.

I was uncomfortable with Jenkins's open definition of what it means to be a Christian. He writes, “For the purposes of this book, a Christian is someone who describes him- or herself as Christian, who believes that Jesus is not merely a prophet or an exalted moral teacher, but in some unique sense the Son of God and the Messiah. Beyond that, we should not inquire into detailed doctrine, whether a person adheres to the Bible alone, accepts the Trinity, or has a literal belief in Jesus's bodily resurrection.” (111) Along with this, Jenkins's measure for success is all about the numbers, and no real measure of depth of faith, which would be much harder to discern of course, especially given the wide definition of Christianity.

Overall, I found the book rather laborious to get through because of all of the statistics and numbers, but Jenkins made some interesting points about the state of Christianity in the world and where he sees it going.