The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity

By the year 2,050 only one Christian in five will be non-Latino and white, and the center of gravity of the Christian world will have shifted firmly to the Southern Hemisphere. The Next Christendom is the first book to take the full measure of the changing face of the Christian faith. Philip Jenkins shows that the churches that have grown most rapidly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are often more morally conservative and apocalyptic than their northern counterparts. Mysticism, puritanism, faith-healing, exorcism, and dream-visions--concepts which more liberal western churches have traded in for progressive political and social concerns--are basic to these newer churches. And the effects of such beliefs on global politics, Jenkins argues, will be enormous, as religious identification begins to take precedence over allegiance to secular nation-states. Indeed, as Christianity grows in regions where Islam is also expected to increase we may even see a return to the religious wars of the past, fought out with renewed intensity and high-tech weapons far surpassing the swords and spears of the middle ages.