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Baker Publishing Group - W. Sunquist Scott

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114 pages

English

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In 1900 many assumed the twentieth century would be a Christian century because Western "Christian empires" ruled most of the world. What happened instead is that Christianity in the West declined dramatically, the empires collapsed, and Christianity's center moved to Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific. How did this happen so quickly? Respected scholar and teacher Scott Sunquist surveys the most recent century of Christian history, highlighting epochal changes in global Christianity. He also suggests lessons we can learn from this remarkable global Christian reversal. Ideal for an introduction to Christianity or a church history course, this book includes a foreword by Mark Noll.

Sujets

Philosophie et théologie

History of religions

Christianity

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	29 septembre 2015
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441266637
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	3 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0662€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2015 by Scott W. Sunquist
Published by Baker Academic
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakeracademic.com
Ebook edition created 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4412-6663-7
Scripture quotations labeled NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
Scripture quotations labeled NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Endorsements
“The transformation of Christianity into a predominantly non-Western faith is one of the great facts of our time. In this compelling assessment, historian Scott Sunquist analyzes the complex roots and historical significance of this epochal development. The treatment is fully attentive to the interaction between worldwide trends and local peculiarities, and the global perspective brings pressing missiological issues of the day into sharp focus. Written in accessible language but with penetrating insight, The Unexpected Christian Century sheds considerable light on Christianity’s prospects in this century by reviewing the last. A valuable addition to a vital discourse.”
— Jehu J. Hanciles , Candler School of Theology, Emory University
“This volume could be Sunquist’s best offering yet. He remarkably bridges the self-aggrandizing, imperialistic Christian world of a century ago, which he represents as an English-literate, hypereducated, resource-wielding, Caucasian, middle-aged male, and today’s unencumbered, multilingual, migrating, dispossessed, suffering, and multitudinous throng of Jesus’s Spirit-led followers, in which he enthusiastically participates. Sunquist’s insightful interpretations of world Christianity’s transformations over the last one hundred years provide empowering gateways through which those who hear this book’s message can stride forward with renewed vision, hope, and courage.”
— J. Nelson Jennings , Overseas Ministries S tudy Center
Dedication
Dedicated to the memory of Dr. Samuel Hugh Moffett (1917–2015), pastor, missionary, professor, scholar, mentor, and friend. Sam lived through most of the twentieth century and with his wife, Eileen, made it a better century through their lives of grace and love of the church of Jesus Christ.
Contents
Cover i
Title Page ii
Copyright Page iii
Endorsements iv
Dedication v
List of Figures ix
Foreword by Mark A. Noll xi
Preface xv
Acknowledgments xxiii
Introduction: From Jesus to the End of Christendom 1
1. World Christianity: The Gilded Age through the Great War 15
2. Christian Lives: Practices and Piety 37
3. Politics and Persecution: How Global Politics Shaped Christianity 77
4. Confessional Families: Diverse Confessions, Diverse Fates 95
5. On the Move: Christianity and Migration 135
6. One Way among Others: Christianity and the World’s Religions 153
Epilogue: Future Hope and the Presence of the Past 177
Appendix 1: African Independence and Colonizers 189
Appendix 2: Asian Independence and Colonizers 191
Bibliography 193
Index 205
Back Cover 214
Figures
1. Church turned Waldorf School campus xviii
2. President McKinley and Admiral Dewey bow in prayer with Cardinal Gibbons 19
3. The assembly at the World Missionary Conference at New College, University of Edinburgh, 1910 25
4. Archbishop Desmond Tutu at a December 2009 press conference 43
5. Mother Teresa 49
6. Professor Madathilparampil Mammen Thomas 50
7. K. H. Ting and other participants gathered together for the World Council of Churches Meeting of the Central Committee 55
8. Dom Hélder Pêssoa Câmara 58
9. Mural of Archbishop Oscar Romero by Giobanny Ascencio y Raul Lemus 61
10. Professor Karl Barth 69
11. Bishop Newbigin and Father Florovsky during the Committee of 25 at Bossey in 1953 74
12. Y. T. Wu and Mao Zedong 89
13. Baptismal service for an infant at St. George Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 102
14. Vatican II Assembly by Lothar Wolleh 106
15. Chart of the documents of Vatican II, highlighting the interlinking themes and teachings 107
16. The African Inland Church of Oreteti, Kenya, is situated on a prominent hill overlooking the Great Rift Valley 128
17. Stateless children of migrant workers in Sabah, Malaysia 143
18. Muslims as a share of the population of Europe 148
19. Map tracking the global statistical center of Christianity 150
20. 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions, Chicago 160
21. Gathering of the Interfaith Peace Council to honor the memory of massacred villagers in Acteal, Chiapas, Mexico 163
22. The Islamic Center of America, the largest mosque in the United States, located in Dearborn, Michigan 174
23. The church in Brazil reflected in Christian graffiti and a rural church plant 178
24. Chongyi Church in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province 181
25. A Masai Christian youth takes advantage of evangelistic and discipleship camp opportunities led by a consortium of African churches during school breaks 186
Foreword
M ARK A. N OLL
The great merit of Scott Sunquist’s book is to narrate the recent history of Christianity as a genuinely and thoroughly world history . It is no longer fresh news that over the course of the last century the Christian faith has expanded into world regions where it was previously unknown, and that it has also receded significantly from areas that it once dominated. A distinguished array of learned experts—Andrew Walls, Dana Robert, Philip Jenkins, Lamin Sanneh, David Martin, among others—has provided landmark academic and popular publications announcing these facts. Such scholars have been joined by editors, denominational officials, mission executives, interested laypeople, and sometimes governmental leaders in analyzing, interpreting, projecting, strategizing, and reconceptualizing in the face of these new realities. Nevertheless, accessible histories that feature the broad general developments of the recent past, and yet that remain connected to particular stories of particular places, remain rare. The Unexpected Christian Century is a notable addition to such efforts.
Scott Sunquist features five themes that serve him well for charting a complex history. These themes are his way of keeping faith with both forest and trees—both the large-scale patterns in recent history and the individual people, movements, denominations, conflicts, circumstances, tragedies, and triumphs that make up the nitty-gritty of historical development. Others might come up with different interpretive categories, but it is hard to imagine a better set for summarizing a history that sprawls in every possible direction.
One theme describes twenty-five notable Christians as illustrating the most important world Christian developments. They include figures like Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King Jr., and Popes John XXIII and John Paul II, who are widely recognized in North America and Europe. But to follow Sunquist as he explains why Simon Kimbangu, Mercy Amba Oduyoye, John Sung, and Georges Florovsky belong on such a list begins to reveal the broader dimensions of a world history.
It is similar with the interinfluencing of modern Christianity and modern warfare. The blow to the traditional European churches from World War I and World War II is well known, but not the very significant fallout of these conflicts for Christian faith throughout the whole world. How these large wars, as well as a never-ending series of smaller conflicts, have both promoted and retarded Christian expansion shows how thoroughly the “sacred” and the “secular” have marched together in the recent past.
The apparently most conventional chapter of the book sketches the story of Christianity’s major denominational families: Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and the newer spiritual and Pentecostal movements. Yet as Sunquist traces the unfolding trajectory of these families throughout the globe, they come alive with telling interpretive impact. How Orthodoxy survived under Communist rule, how the Catholic church balances decline in Europe with dramatic expansion in the global South, how formal and informal instances of Protestant ecumenicity affected vast numbers, and how the universe of nonaligned Christian movements has burgeoned spectacularly—these individual stories, when woven together, demonstrate the relevance of traditional denominational history to the new global Christianity. As only one of many examples, Sunquist shows that, in their particular local engagements, similar traits can nonetheless be observed in many of the world’s Pentecostal and independent spiritual movements. Just this kind of approach is needed to realize how much, despite also real differences, has been shared by John Sung in China, Aimee Semple McPherson in Los Angeles, Pandita Ramabai in India, the Methodist Pentecostal Church in Chile, and the Church of God in Christ led by Charles Mason.
Sunquist’s fourth theme is migration. Bible readers should not be surprised at the revelations of this chapter. For believers, the scriptural accounts of the exodus, the Hebrew experiences of exile, the itinerant teaching of Jesus, and the journeys of the apostle Paul have always defined the character of living Christian faith. The settled history of Western Christianity, howeve