Do Christians in the Western world really believe in what the Bible says? Do Christians in Europe and North America see the Bible as a book of real power or just see in the Scriptures a historic, cultural and even eccentric collection of myths, not so accurate biographies and theologies based on superstitious pre-modern assumptions? Have we in this time replaced the Scriptures with a world view that sidelines the Bible?

Philip Jenkins has written this book as a part of his trilogy on the growth and changing realities of Christianity in the early 21st century. His first book in the series, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, was an eye opening discussion of the tremendous numerical growth of what used to be called “Third World Christianity.” His third book centers on the changes in the European religious world. I will review that book next month.

The New Faces of Christianity explores the Global South’s fastest growing religion, Christianity. Jenkins editor on the book’s dust jacket says it best:

“The faith of the South, Jenkins finds, is first and foremost a biblical faith. Indeed in the global South, many Christians identify powerfully with the world portrayed in the New Testament—an agricultural world very much like their own, marked by famine and plague, poverty and exile, until very recently a society of peasants, farmers and small craftsmen. In the global South, as in the biblical world, belief in spirits and witchcraft are commonplace, and in many places—such as Nigeria, Indonesia, and Sudan—Christians are persecuted just as early Christians were. Thus the Bible speaks to the global South with a vividness and authenticity simply unavailable to most believers in the industrialized North.”

Jenkins contends accurately that the western Christian view of the Scriptures has been seriously shaped by the Enlightenment and the skepticism of the scientific mindset. He lists example after example how the Western Church minimizes the plain meaning of Scripture in order to shape it to conform to modern Western presuppositions. Exorcism would be one case. In the West, we are more interested in counseling than in exorcism since our modern educated mindset acknowledges value in counseling but not in exorcism. We do not share the Scriptures views of the demonic. Indeed, the existence of “evil spirits” is not acknowledged, and even its very idea ridiculed or dismissed as being “fundamentalist” by mainline Western Christians. Christians in Asia, Africa and South America would disagree with the exclusion of spirits and exorcism, since the power of evil is for them a daily reality.

So why does any of this matter? Tensions between Christians in the Global North and in the South are being elevated by differing views of the Scriptures. Jenkins details the current struggle in the Anglican community over homosexuality as an example of how this matter of scriptural interpretation can shake a Church. He reminds us that the largest Anglican Church bodies in the world are not in Europe or North America but are in Nigeria and Uganda. Indeed the Episcopal Church (and he could add Lutheran, Methodist and Roman Catholic) are only growing in membership in the Global South! The current battle over acceptance of homosexuality, he predicts, is only the first major struggle that will soon cover all the world church bodies as we contend with moral and ethical issues. These struggles are really matters of Biblical interpretation.

This is a good book. It is a quick read with only 193 pages of text. I would recommend it to any of us who wants to understand both the modern Christian world and the cultural bondage into which all humans have been placed. Martin Luther wrote centuries ago, “The Bible is alive—it has hands and grabs hold of me, it has feet and runs after me.” The scandal of the Church that bears Luther’s name in 21st century America is that its members do not take seriously the Scriptures. The average Lutheran spends more time in our “checkbooks” than we do with the Word of God. Bible study in our churches reaches 1-2% of our members. Daily Bible reading is not common in our American congregations. Pastors report to me only minimal interest in adult studies of God’s Word. Perhaps, the people of God’s Church in the Global South are challenging us to find our roots again in the Word of God. We need to be challenged!

Thomas A. Skrenes
Bishop