Wesley’s World Revolution

OVER the past thirty or so years the religious map of the world has changed dramatically. In the developed West the liberal religious establishments have seen their constituencies shrink relative to those of conservative evangelicals. In the Third World, the World Council of Churches’ share of the Protestant constituency has dropped, and a protean indigenous Christianity has emerged indifferent to the Western theological intelligentsia. More often than not, this shift is toward a Pentecostal faith in the gifts of the Holy Spirit—healing, tongues, exorcism, prophecy, holiness.

Overall, perhaps a quarter of a billion people are involved, making this movement comparable to the advance of a “conservative” Islam. But whereas Islam is about reintegrating whole societies behind a single religious law, this “conservative” Christianity is a fissiparous movement undermining every kind of unifying ideology. Quite soon, the forty million evangelicals who make up 10 per cent of the population of Catholic Latin America could be matched by a similar number in Communist China (though that would be no more than 3 per cent of the Chinese population). You find such movements all over non-Islamic Africa (even inside the Coptic Church); in southern India, South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, and the Caribbean (including Cuba); and in Europe from Sicily to Kiev, with an outer ripple in Tbilisi. In our Father’s house, there are many mansions—of various designs to suit the local terrain:

DM

About the Author

David Martin

OVER the past thirty or so years the religious map of the world has changed dramatically. In the developed West the liberal religious establishments have seen their constituencies shrink relative to those of conservative evangelicals. In the Third World, the World Council of Churches’ share of the Protestant constituency has dropped, and a protean indigenous Christianity has emerged indifferent to the Western theological intelligentsia. More often than not, this shift is toward a Pentecostal faith in the gifts of the Holy Spirit—healing, tongues, exorcism, prophecy, holiness.

Overall, perhaps a quarter of a billion people are involved, making this movement comparable to the advance of a “conservative” Islam. But whereas Islam is about reintegrating whole societies behind a single religious law, this “conservative” Christianity is a fissiparous movement undermining every kind of unifying ideology. Quite soon, the forty million evangelicals who make up 10 per cent of the population of Catholic Latin America could be matched by a similar number in Communist China (though that would be no more than 3 per cent of the Chinese population). You find such movements all over non-Islamic Africa (even inside the Coptic Church); in southern India, South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, and the Caribbean (including Cuba); and in Europe from Sicily to Kiev, with an outer ripple in Tbilisi. In our Father’s house, there are many mansions—of various designs to suit the local terrain: