|
by
Doug Ward |
MAY, 2013-When you hear the phrase "Christian
missionary", what images pop into your mind?
Perhaps
you are picturing an American serving in Africa or Asia. If so, you are not
alone, but be aware that this picture is far less representative than it once
was. There are still many Western missionaries, but there are also large
numbers of missionaries from places like Nigeria and South Korea who travel to
the West.
Over
the past century the center of world Christianity has shifted from the West to
the global South.1 How did
this shift occur, and what implications does it have for the future of
Christianity?
One
scholar who has investigated these questions, with a particular focus on
Africa, is missiologist2 Jehu Hanciles. Dr. Hanciles, who comes
from the African nation of Sierra Leone, is the D.W. and Ruth Brooks Associate
Professor of World Christianity at Emory University's Candler School of
Theology. On March 21, 2013, he discussed the growth and international impact
of African Christianity in a lecture delivered at Miami University.
|
Dramatic
Growth |
Professor Hanciles began his lecture by
presenting a perspective from 1910. From June 14-23, 1910, a World Missionary
Conference was held in Edinburgh, Scotland. The number of delegates in
attendance was 1215, representing various missionary societies in proportion to
the size of their incomes. Most of the delegates came from Europe and North
America, the centers of Christianity at that time. Only nineteen came from
outside the West, and only one was from Africa.
The
prospects for evangelism in Africa and Asia were discussed at the conference.
In 1910, there were about ten million Christians in Africa, compared to about
sixty million Muslims. It therefore appeared to the delegates at the conference
that realistically, Islam had the upper hand in Africa.
As
it turned out, the missionary societies of 1910 were overly pessimistic. During
the next century, Christianity experienced huge growth in Africa. By 1970,
there were a hundred million African Christians. By 2000, that number had risen
to over 300 million, and the total was up to 360 million in 2006. In 2010, over
sixty per cent of Africans were Christians, and twenty four per cent of the
world's Christians were Africans.
The
1910 conference underestimated Christianity's prospects in Africa, Dr. Hanciles said, because it was only thinking in terms of
Western agency. What the Western missionaries in Edinburgh failed to take into
account was the great success that African evangelists would have in spreading
the Gospel to their own people. He commented that it is still too common for
people to think of Christianity in Africa as a Western imposition, while
viewing the spread of Islam in Africa as a natural development. In fact,
Christianity has been spreading rapidly in Africa largely through indigenous
means.
|
Increasing
Global Influence |
Growth in the number of African Christians has occurred both in
traditional Western denominations and in independent charismatic groups.
African members may play a major role in determining the futures of several
denominations. For example, the Anglican Church in Africa has grown rapidly,
while the number of Anglicans in England and Episcopalians in the United States
is declining. Since Anglicanism is more biblically conservative in Africa than
in England or the United States, it seems likely that African influence will
move the denomination eventually in a more evangelical direction. Analogous
remarks can be made about the United Methodist Church, which for some time has
been growing in Africa while losing members in the United States. The
Seventh-day Adventist Church, a denomination founded in the United States, has
not quite a million members in the United States but over four million in
Africa. African membership in
churches of the Stone-Campbell tradition, another American branch of
Christianity, equals or exceeds North American membership in 2013.
Dr. Hanciles asserted that African migrants are having a
growing impact on Christianity in both Europe and the United States. In Britain,
he noted, the largest Baptist congregation is largely Ghanaian in composition.
In London, Nigerian Matthew Ashimolowo pastors
Kingsway International Christian Centre, a church with over 12,000 members.
The
influence of African Christians even extends to countries with few African
immigrants. In the Ukraine, Nigerian Sunday Adelaja
founded the Embassy of God, which has become the largest megachurch
in Europe with over 20,000 members. Adelaja has
planted several hundred churches around the world.
According
to Hanciles, immigrant churches are the fastest
growing segment of Christianity in the United States. Many churches of African
immigrants start as house churches and, with great dynamism and missionary
zeal, grow quickly from there. Such groups are characterized, he said, by
vibrant worship, an emphasis on personal piety, and an openness to the
supernatural-e.g., divine healing.
Hanciles discussed one prominent example, the Bethel World Outreach
(BWO) Church of Silver Spring, Maryland. BWO was founded by a Liberian pastor, Darlingston G. Johnson. Johnson, who had come to the United
States for some advanced university courses, was prevented from returning to
Liberia by the outbreak of civil war there. Praying about how to proceed, he
concluded that God had called him to be a missionary rather than a refugee. In
ten years, BWO grew from seventeen to 3000 members. It now has services in
French and Spanish as well as English. All together, Johnson's ministry has
founded some 200 churches with a total of 30,000 members.
As
Dr. Hanciles observed, immigrants have always played
a major role in American religion. In recent years about seventy five per cent
of immigrants to the United States have been Christians, a trend that could
lead to a Christian resurgence in America. Perhaps African immigrants
will help spark another Great Awakening.
Christianity does not just go from the West to the rest of the world;
now it is coming back in the other direction. Global evangelism now has come
full circle.
1See, for example,
Philip Jenkins's The Next Christendom: The Coming
of Global Christianity, Oxford University Press, Third Edition, 2011.
2Missiology
is the study of Christian missionary activity.
File
translated from TEX by TTH,
version 3.66.
On 28 May 2013, 14:44.
