Missions Resources - Bibliography
The Expansion of Christianity
Authors: Timothy Yates
ISBN: 0830823581
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Number of pages: 192
Type of cover: Soft Cover
Summary:
The Church is more than an African Church! For many a year American missionary-subculture residents have been trying to convince provincial North Americans that Jesus is not a tribal god, primarily occupied with stateside politics.
The time may be coming, however, when North Americans' daily walk in faith will be informed and shaped by events in Africa - much like it currently is for Africans, relative to Europe and North America.
The growth of the Christian church in the last century is arguably the most significant development in world culture in many centuries: the effects of this growth, from China to Brazil, from Uganda to Ghana, will last far longer than communism, or even colonialism.
In 2002, the discussion of Global Christianity jumped out of dusty academic circles into mainstream consciousness, upon the publication of Philip Jenkins' The Next Christendom, which asserted that "Kinshasa, Buenos Aires, Addis Ababa, and Manila are replacing Rome, Athens, Paris, London, and New York as the new centers of Christianity." It was only a few months later that this analysis struck home: The American Episcopalian church found itself in dire strife with the global Anglican communion, whose opposition to the Episcopalians' ordination of a homosexual bishop was expressed in the most vehement of terms.
At this juncture a good history is needed, because whenever there is confusion or transformation, we easily lose perspective. Though the 20th century growth of the church was astonishing and beyond comparison, this growth was not a gross divergence from pattern, but a continuation. Since Jesus ascended to heaven and left the Holy Spirit with his followers, the gospel has steadily moved forward. For a long time, however, the population centers of the church lay in Europe, and this story continues to inform much of the church's self-understanding.
Memory is often passed to the next generations - we were a European faith, so we continue to be a European faith, long after the reality has changed on the ground. The function of history-telling (historiography) is to figure out who we are. If we - especially those of us in strongly Anglo-European churches - want to be more useful partners in the future of the church, we need to learn a new history of the church, a history that does not skew the facts, but emphasizes the developments that turned out to be most significant in the long run.
The Expansion of Christianity tells the story of the growth of our faith from Jerusalem to Samaria, to the ends of the earth. China and Korea get deserved increased treatment, as do India and South America. The book adds a chapter at the end on the "African Century", the decades in which the continent was largely converted through the vehicles of local, black African missionaries.
Full of maps and useful pictures, this small volume is the perfect medium for developing your understanding of God's great work in transforming this world.
reviewed by Paul Grant
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