Status
Call number
Collection
Publication
Description
In this new and substantially expanded Third Edition, Philip Jenkins continues to illuminate the remarkable expansion of Christianity in the global South--in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Drawing upon the extensive new scholarship that has appeared on this topic in recent years, he asks how the new Christianity is likely to affect the poor, among whom it finds its most devoted adherents. How should we interpret the enormous success of prosperity churches across the Global South? Politically, what will be the impact of new Christian movements? Will Christianity contribute to liberating the poor, to give voices to the previously silent, or does it threaten only to bring new kinds of division and conflict? Does Christianity liberate women, or introduce new scriptural bases for subjection?… (more)
User reviews
Jenkins presents a convincing case that Christianity will dominate the future of humankind. Lots of data, and well-interpreted data too. I only wish he wasn’t so acritical towards neopentecostalism,
Crucially, he states the future of Christendom stems from the so-called ‘Global South’, or more precisely Africa, Asia, Latin America and their diasporas and missions; also, that future Christendom will stem from currently charismatic, conservative Christians (whatever they become in the future), and he implies mostly from Evangelicals (more so than from charismatic Romanists). As David Paul ‘Spengler’ Goldman puts it, the next Christian army on Mecca may be African or Chinese, but not European.
All in all, a nice counterpoint to the catastrophism about Islam and secularism.