Evangelical Politics in the Third World: What’s Next for the ‘Next Christendom'
Timothy Samuel Shah Monday, 1 September 2003
As the great ship of world Christianity continues to adjust course in its 21st century, the ballast is shifting from the global North to the global South. The reason is clear: more than any other form of Christianity, it is the explosive growth of evangelicalism in the Third World that is transforming global religious demography and casting new doubt on conventional assumptions about the North's leadership vis-à-vis the transnational Body of Christ.
There is, consequently, a great deal of curiosity and expectation about what a more empowered evangelicalism might be able to achieve in the Third World and beyond. Some have likened the possibilities to "The Next Christendom"—none more famously than Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History and Religious Studies at Pennsylvania State University, who has recently issued under this title a widely cited book and an Atlantic Monthly cover story. It is a rich, learned, and provocative thesis. And, not surprisingly, invoking a "Christendom" frame for the future of the faith has generated as much anxiety as anticipation, because it conjures up images of an imperial political program.
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