>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
>> Good afternoon, everyone.
I am Carolyn Brown, Director of the Office of Scholarly Programs
in the John W. Kluge Center here at the Library of Congress.
And it gives me great pleasure to welcome you here this afternoon
for today's lecture by Wesley Granberg-Michaelson,
entitled "The Pilgrimage of World Christianity: A Post-Christian West
and the Non-Western Church."
But before we begin, let me ask you to please
if you have any cell phones or other electronic equipment that is apt
to go off and interfere with the program,
would you please turn it off or at least turn it to mute
so it will not be disturbing.
Today's event is presented by the John W. Kluge Center here
at the Library of Congress.
The center was established through a really generous endowment grant
by John W. Kluge to create a scholarly venue on Capitol Hill
where the finest, maturest scholars
and thinkers might have opportunities to meet
with the nation's leaders, the thinkers and doers as we
like to say, a space where those two groups have the opportunity
to come together in a way that they can share ideas
and thinking in informal venues.
The center also supports the rising generation of fine young scholars.
And as part of our programs, our senior scholars
and our postdoctoral fellows all give public presentations
such as this one.
We also will sometimes do small conferences and symposia.
I invite you to sign up in the back of the room, if you would,
for further information about the programs
and opportunities at the Kluge Center.
There's also a brochure back there as well.
Today's speaker,
Wesley Granberg-Michaelson is the former general Secretary
of the Reformed Church of America, a position that he held for 17 years;
however, he is no stranger to Capitol Hill.
He served eight years as a legislative aide
to U.S. Senator Mark Hatfield before he --
not Mark Hatfield but Granberg-Michaelson --
went on to the ministry as his career.
He completed his theological education
at Princeton Theological Seminary,
and then Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan;
served for six years as director of Church and Society
for the World Council of Churches in Geneva.
He's written several books including "Inside Out: Spirituality
and Organizational Change"; and "Unexpected Destinations:
An Evangelical Pilgrimage to Western Christianity."
At the Kluge Center he's been studying the major shift
in Christianity's presence from -- into the world of Africa, Asia,
and Latin America, and some of the kind of challenges that that poses
for the whole notion of global Christianity.
We're especially privileged
because he's both been the practitioner who's had considerable
experience from that side of the desk, you might say,
dealing with this issue, and then here that Kluge Center in a role
as scholar reading and researcher the issue.
So it's a great opportunity to have someone with that kind
of experience talking about this kind of question,
which is such a pragmatic as well as interesting intellectual subject.
So without further ado,
please welcome our distinguished visiting scholar,
Wesley Granberg-Michaelson.
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you very much Carolyn.
First of all, I want to think the Library of Congress
for the extraordinary opportunity that I've been able to have.
As Carolyn said, I worked for some time on Capitol Hill,
and during that time, I knew the Library of Congress as a resource.
I've come to discover the Library of Congress
as an incredible national treasure.
And I have such profound respect for the colleagues who work here
and for what this institution represents.
My gratitude goes to, first, the librarian, Dr. James Billington,
and for the leadership that he has given in the intellectual life
of this nation and the leadership he's given to this institution.
And then to Carolyn Brown, the director of the Kluge Center.
The John W. Kluge Center is just a real jewel.
It's an amazing place that does some very helpful things
as she explained, and it's been just a thrill of my life to be a part
of the John W. Kluge Center and what it has allowed.
And the staff there who have been so helpful at every step of the way,
Travis Hensley, Jason Steinhauer, Mary Lou Reker, Tracy Dobson,
Sally Aaronson, Denise Robinson, Jemiah Mosley;
each one of them have gone out of their way to make me welcomed
and comfortable and supported so I thank them all.
As you entered the Jefferson Building of the Library
of Congress today, hopefully, you passed through the great hall.
Pass the commemorative arch, two of the most valuable treasures
of the library are on display.
On the right is the Giant Bible of Mainz.
It's a magnificent example of the text of the Bible copied into pages
and bound together in a process that would take 15 months to complete.
On the left is the Gutenberg Bible.
This, of course, was the first book in Europe printed with movable type.
Both of these Bibles were produced in Mainz, Germany in the mid-1950 --
1450s, but the technological difference
between the two is a hinge point in history,
dramatically altering the pilgrimage of world Christianity.
Bibles produced like the Giant Bible of Mainz, laboriously copied
by hands, were kept -- kept the text of scripture in the hands
of well-educated clergy as well as princes and nobles
with enough money to pay for one.
Before the advent of the printing press,
the literacy rate amongst males in Europe was
about five to ten percent.
But following Gutenberg's innovation,
literacy rates rose to about 50 percent.
The century which followed marked a decisive turn
in the journey of Christianity.
The democratization of the Bible dramatically altered patterns
of authority, power, and governance in the life of the church.
By the beginning of the sixteenth century,
printing presses had expanded so rapidly that throughout Europe,
volumes of printed materials
and books appeared estimating towards 20 million.
And all of this was foundational to the spread
of the protestant reformation.
Today, the full Bible is translated into at least for 450 languages,
and parts of scripture into more than 2500 tons.
Hundreds of millions of people read and study their own Bibles.
With continuing technological change, those words are now held
in smart phones and iPads.
Christians take for granted this personalized electronically
ubiquitous access to scripture; yet for the first 1500 years
of Christianity, the direct and personal availability of the Bible
to believers was virtually unknown.
This change marked a whole new trajectory
in the pilgrimage of Christianity.
Now today, five centuries later, Christianity is in the midst
of another dramatic pilgrimage.
It's most obvious expression is geographical.
The center of world Christianity in terms of sheer numbers of Christians
and the growth of their churches has moved decisively
to the southern hemisphere or the global south.
Over the past century this astonishing shift in the presence
of the globe's Christian population is the most dramatic geographical
change of this sort that has happened in 2000 years of history.
And the consequences of this change are just barely being imagined.
But the shift is not simply about geography.
It's also a shift in the culture and mindset shaping expressions
of Christian faith, changes far more difficult to map,
but in the end, more decisive.
So Christianity is not only moving from settled lands to new frontiers.
It's also evolving from established forms and structures
to fresh manifestations of its life, and from dogmatic systems
to spirit-filled discoveries.
For today the world is witnessing a post-Western awakening
of Christianity.
The majority of Christians now are living in societies
that have freed themselves from the colonial power of the west.
They are fashioning expressions of faith
that can appropriately be called non-Western.
So in many ways we are witnessing the pilgrimage
of Christianity moving out of the dominance of modern Western culture
and beyond the framework of the modern enlightenment.
Of course, it's important to note immediately
that several historic expressions of Christianity have never functioned
in the framework of Western culture, most notably the orthodox churches
with their ancient presence in the Middle East, Asia, and elsewhere.
But overall, we see a gravitational shift in the dominant places
of Christianity's global presence.
The pilgrimage geographically of Christianity took centuries
to move to the global north.
You can see from this map that it's possible
to trace the statistical center of gravity for world Christianity.
Meaning, to identify the point on the globe where an equal number
of Christians are found to the north, south, east,
and west at any given time.
For almost the first millennium of Christianity,
its center of gravity was in west Asia and a majority
of Christians were in the global south.
Around the year 600, Christianity began its gradual
but clear pilgrimage towards the north and the west,
and you see how that line begins to go.
But it wasn't until sometime in the tenth century,
almost a thousand years after Jesus was on earth, when a majority
of Christians found themselves living in those regions.
By the year 1000, Christianity's statistical center had moved near
one of its great spiritual centers, Constantinople.
Five centuries later, by 1500,
92 percent of Christians were northern Europeans.
But at that point, world Christianity began a slow
but steady path back towards the south.
After four centuries, by 1900, its center of gravity had moved
from Budapest, Hungary, which was its northern-most important
that you see in the center, to Madrid, Spain,
but still remained in the north.
It was in the following twentieth century
that Christianity's geographic pilgrimage took the most pronounced,
dramatic, and decisive change in direction in all of its history .
Rapidly accelerating its turn to the south and then to the east,
by 1980 there were more Christians in the global south than the north
for the first time in 1000 years, and the center
of gravity was in Africa.
Some key facts summarize these changes: In 1910,
66 percent of all Christians in the world lived in Europe;
by 2010, only 26 lived there.
In 1910, only two percent of Christians lived in Africa; today,
nearly one out of four Christians in the world is an African.
Europe and North America, or the global north contained,
80 percent of all Christians in 1910; 40 percent a century later.
And Christianity's center of gravity by 2000 --
by 2010 had moved to a point near Timbuktu in Mali.
At the beginning of the last century only a few million Christians were
in Africa, less than 10 percent of its population.
That has grown to about 494 million adherence to Christianity,
or almost 50 percent of the continent's population
and over 70 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa.
By the year 2025, the overall Christian population
of Africa is projected to swell to 633 million people.
The trajectory of Christianity's pilgrimage seen
through its statistical center of gravity moved not only dramatically
to the south in the past century, but beginning in 1970,
it also began returning east.
This was caused by the rising number of Christians in Asia.
Christianity grew at twice the overall population growth
in Asia over the past century.
China alone is estimated to have 115 million Christians today,
and on any given Sunday it is thought
that there are more Christians attending worship services in China
than in the United States.
Surprises continue.
More recently, countries like Nepal
and Cambodia have witnessed rapid church growth.
And after being nearly exterminated by Pol Pot,
Christianity in Cambodia has grown by 7.2 percent in the last decade.
Mongolia, once virtually closed to Christianity,
now has blossoming and going churches.
In South Korea, Christianity has grown faster over the past century
at 6.1 percent than anywhere else in Asia.
From only about 500,000 Christians in 1910, the Korean church has grown
to more than 20 million or about 41 percent of the population.
While 50 percent of the population in Asia was Buddhist in 1910,
by 2010, that had dropped to 22 percent.
The Muslim community has grown the fastest in that continent
over the last century with about one billion adherence,
or about one out of every four Asians.
Yet in the last decade, Christianity has grown at a rate
of 2.4 percent faster than the growth of Muslims at 1.7 percent.
So the overall Christian population
in the Asian continent totals 350 million and is projected to grow
to 460 million by the year 2025.
Now for Latin America.
In 1910, 95 percent of the Latin American population was Christian
primarily through the presence of the Catholic church
that had accompanied Spanish and Portuguese colonial rule.
Only one percent of the Christian population was non-Catholic.
The last 50 years, however, has seen the rapid
and often astonishing growth of Pentecostalism in Latin America.
By 2010, Latin America was home to 550 million Christians
and 20 percent were
from non-Catholic expressions of the Christian faith.
These were growing at three times the rate of Catholic growth.
It has been reported, for instance,
that 40 new Pentecostal congregations are begun each week
in Rio de Janeiro.
By the year 2025, the Christian population
in Latin America will grow to 640 million
or roughly the same as Africa.
The current pathways of Christianity's pilgrimage,
while never possible to chart with total certainty,
nevertheless remain relatively clear: As Christianity continues
to grow in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, by the end of this century,
in 2100, Christians living in the global south
and east will number 2.8 billion and be
about three times more the 775 million Christians projected
to be found in the global north.
In many ways we're witnessing a return of Christianity
to the non-Western cultures of Asia
and Africa reflecting more the environments
which first gave rise to the church.
But now Christianity is embedded in hundreds of cultures and languages,
demonstrating an incredible diversity of peoples and places
that have welcomes its incarnational presence.
This map in 1910 shows by color nations
that have a majority Christian population.
That's in blue; Muslim is in red; and then Adamist and Hindu
and Buddhist are in brown and pink and darker pink.
That's the picture in 1910.
This is the picture in 2010.
You can see from that the directions of this shift.
The last 500 years of Christianity have also witnessed not only a
steady pilgrimage towards the south and then east,
but a staggering proliferation of divided institutional churches
that never could have been imagined
in the first 1500 years of Christian history.
Protestants call separately organized groups of churches
"denominations" -- excuse me --
meaning, specific associations of congregations
with distinct belief and governance.
This term makes no sense ecclesiologically to Orthodox
and Catholic traditions which conceive of the church
as one entity unified in doctrine in a structure of authority.
Yet from the reformation on Christians
in Europe began organizing themselves
into separate and distinct groups.
In the democratic cultural and religious soil of the United States,
such segmentation flourished and then was exported
by the modern missionary movement.
Thus Christianity began a process of rapid proliferation
into groups denominated from one another,
and that process has continued endlessly to the present day.
Trying to provide an objective description
of our present situation challenges one's ecclesiological imagination.
The Center for the Study of Global Christianity
at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary with help
from the Pew Foundation reported on obtaining information
on 41,000 denominations worldwide.
A separate website regularly updates these numbers
with a present estimate of 43,800 denominations in the world,
and its followed by a note which says
"Please pray for Christian unity."
[ Laughter ]
Thus the pilgrimage of Christianity measured since the time
when the Gutenberg Bible was printed has witnessed continuous
and endless fracturing of its organizational life,
and this has spread around the world.
The dramatic shift in world Christianity also has intensified
the division' intentions in the global church
and its ecumenical institutions.
While the massive growth in the Christian family has come
in the global south, financial resources
and material power remains concentrated in the global north
and west as seen in this graph.
This is a simple graph showing, on the one hand, income --
on the right side, income, and on the left side, population,
and the disparity is obvious.
Geographical divisions are creating serious threats to the sense
of unity and mutual belonging seen especially around issues of money,
power, international decision-making,
and intellectual theological capital.
During the last 100 years the dramatic geographical pilgrimage
of world Christianity was accompanied
by the unpredicted advent and eventual eruption
of the Pentecostal movement
as a powerful force drastically altering the landscape
of the global Christian community.
Barely existing a century ago, today,
one out of every four Christians in the world is Pentecostal
or Charismatic according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
Along with the story of the growth of the church in Africa,
it is hard to name a more critical and formative development
in the last century of Christian history.
It is estimated, for instance, that 80 percent of new conversions
in Asia are Pentecostal or Charismatic.
Almost one in four Pentecostals in the world lives in Asia,
and nearly one and three lives in Africa.
What northern liberal and Evangelical Christians often fail
to recognize is that Pentecostalism comes to the global south
without the history and baggage of colonialism.
Churches in the Pentecostal tradition and style,
with their emphasis on immediate spiritual experiences,
detached Christianity from its white missionary control
and empowered indigenous expressions of Christian faith
within many parts of the world.
The Atlas of Global Christianity,
the most comprehensive resource describing the changes
in world Christianity in the last 100 years, puts it this way:
Pentecostalism became the main contributor
to reshaping a Christianity from a predominantly Western
to a predominantly non-Western phenomena in the twentieth century.
The growth in Pentecostal, Charismatic, and renewal moments
of Christianity has come at nearly five times the rate
of overall growth of global Christianity,
dramatically changing its composition
and its theological diversity.
Brazil today not only has the largest number of Catholics
of any country, but also the largest number of Pentecostals.
Meanwhile, in Asia it is estimated
that there are 873,000 Chinese Charismatic congregations.
These dramatically growing Pentecostal independent evangelical
and indigenous churches function largely in a separate world
from those comprising the organized ecumenical movement,
which is mostly the Orthodox and the historic protestant churches.
The theological gulf between these two worlds has widened
as Christianity's center of gravity has continued its journey toward the
global south.
This divide involves not only doctrinal issues
but also deep differences reflected in the fervent style spirituality,
the less structured and more elastic forms of church polity,
along with the convictional witness and focus on church growth found
in these freshly emerging forms of Christianity.
In my judgment, the gulf between these two worlds, between the world
of established orthodox and mainline in the north
and the growing churches in the south,
now constitutes the most pressing challenge to the unity of the church
in the twenty-first century.
Here's the dilemma: The World Council of Churches has faithfully
and courageously carried out the vocation
of Christian unity for the past 65 years.
That it is comprised of only 349 denominations or member churches
in the face of over 40,000 denominations now present.
Yet new approaches are emerging,
the most promising is called the Global Christian Forum.
Begun as a proposal arising out of the World Council's Assembly
in Harare in 1998, the Global Christian Forum has become a fresh
and credible movement that offers the hope
of transcending these divisions.
It's been successfully engaging leaders
of all the major Christian traditions -- Catholic, Pentecostal,
Evangelical, Orthodox, and historic Protestant --
in a new circle of global fellowship.
Its first major gathering was held in Limuru, Kenya in 2007.
Observers called it "a watershed in modern Christian history."
A second such gathering took place last year in Manado, Indonesia.
Now, the challenges posed by the change in patterns
of world Christianity however are not only encountered globally.
Increasingly, these are being experienced locally.
Migration is transforming the religious life
of Europe and North America.
This has always been so.
Of course.
Religious migrants have shaped the history
of Christianity in the United States.
But attention needs to be focused on how that reality is continuing today
in ways often not fully understood or appreciated.
Commonly, we view is immigration as introducing large numbers
of non-Christian religions into U.S. society.
Important scholars like Harvard's Diana Eck have documented the
fascinating increase in religious pluralism in the United States,
particularly in her classic work "A New Religious America."
Yet the popular assumptions about the impact of immigration
on non-Christian religious practice
in the U.S. often disregard more fundament realities.
In fact, immigration to the U.S. is having its most dramatic religious
effects on the Christian population of the country.
That's because, first of all, an estimated 60 percent
of all present immigrants arriving in the United States are Christian.
Moreover, they come with practices, traditions, and expressions
of their faith that have been shaped in a non-Western context.
As the introduction to a new major study on religion
in these new immigrant states, even though significant numbers
of new immigrants are Christian,
they are expressing their Christianity in languages, customs,
and independent churches that are barely recognizable
and often controversial for European ancestry Catholics and Protestants.
But these new Christian immigrants will have a dramatic effect
on America's religious --
future religious life in ways
that we're already beginning to experience.
Consider this: According the 1990 sentence --
Census, 19.7 million people in the U.S. were born in another country.
By 2010, there were 43 million foreign-born residents
in the United States, and of these, 74 percent were Christian,
5 percent were Muslim, 4 percent Buddhist, 3 percent Hindu.
While these proportions will shift somewhat in the future,
the overwhelming reality is that immigration
to the United States is having its major effects
on the Christian population in this country.
Not surprisingly, the highest number of immigrants coming
to the United States are from Mexico, totaling 12.9 million;
95 percent of these are Christian.
The Philippines provides the second largest number totaling 1.8 million,
nearly all of whom are Christian;
and then out of the 1.1 million immigrants from El Salvador
in the U.S., a million worship in Christian churches along
with seventy-four hundred thousand from the Dominican Republic,
700,000 from Guatemala, and 860,000 from Cuba.
Worldwide there are an estimated 214 million people who are migrants;
meaning, they are living in a country different
from where they were born.
Nearly half of these migrants are Christians, about 105 million,
far more than the proportion of Christians in the world,
which is about 33 percent.
The reasons for this are complex, but yet it's a clear fact.
And for these Christians who are on the move,
often the United States is their chief destination.
Presently, 32 million or 13 percent of the Christian community
in the U.S. is comprised of migrants, those who were born
in another country, and that percentage will continue to rise.
Not only do these numbers --
not only do the numbers of these Christian migrants
to the United States tell this story, it's also the intensity
of their belief and religious practice.
Jehu Hanciles, a native of Sierra Leone, who now is chair
of World Christianity at the Candler School of Theology in Atlanta,
has done pioneering studies of non-Western Christianity.
He observes this, "Certainly, the vigorous growth immigrant churches
and congregations in metropolitan centers throughout the country
over the last three to four decades suggests
that they represent the most dynamic and thriving centers
of Christian faith in America."
Hanciles observes that, quote,
every Christian migrant is a potential missionary, unquote.
And indeed, many African Christian, drawn to the U.S. for a variety
of reasons, come with a missionary mindset reflective
of the congregations that have nurtured their faith.
While immigrants from Africa to the U.S. comprise a modest share
of the country's foreign-born population, only about 3.9 percent,
the growth of this community is striking.
In 1960, 35,355 African-born residents were living
in the United States.
50 years later that number has increased forty-fold to 1.5 million,
and many bring non-Western expressions of Christianity
which has been nurtured in the soil of Africa.
A decade ago I struck up a conversation with Rufus Ositelu
who is primate of the Church of -- the Church of the Lord Aladura.
This was during a meeting of the WCC Central committee.
I knew almost nothing about his church.
He shared with me that he had been working as a computer expert
in Germany but had been called to the position of primate
of his church which was headquartered Nigeria.
As we talked together on a pleasant day in Geneva at the beginning
of September, Rufus told me he had just recently come
from a special time of retreat with prayer and fasting held each year.
The primate explained that the leadership
of the church gathers together and no major decisions are made
without this special period of prayer and fasting.
Further, he said that at the end of that period, the wider members
of the church are invited to come and share
in this experience of retreat and prayer.
Anxious to learn more, I asked Primate Ositelu how many people
from the church at large joined at the conclusion of this retreat.
He replayed, "About one million."
Suddenly, I realized I was talking with the leader
of a church whose scope and ministry was beyond anything I had imagined.
Founded in 1930 by 28-year-old Joshua Ositelu
who had severed his ties from colonial Anglicanism,
the church has grown to 3.6 million members,
congregations flourish not only throughout Nigeria
but in other neighboring African countries such as Liberia as well
as Great Britain, Germany, and the United States.
The Church of the Lord Aladura is just one example of thousands
of such churches belonging to the Organization
of African Instituted Churches.
This organization represents about 60 million Christians
in denominations and congregations throughout the continent
and in the African diaspora.
Totally independent from the church structures of Western mission,
the African Instituted Churches forged indigenous expressions
of Christian faith often in opposition to the harsh
and controlling forces of colonial rule.
Increasingly, African instituted churches are finding homes
within the United States through the migration of Christians from Africa.
Now, in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson stood at the Statue
of Liberty and signed the Immigration and Naturalization Act.
It was called Hart-Cellar Act,
a major reform in U.S. immigration law.
At the signing ceremony, however, he said,
"This bill that we sign today is not a revolutionary bill.
It does not affect the lives of millions."
The President could not have been more mistaken.
The new law eliminated race and national origin as a basis
for immigration, and partly this happened because it was right
in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, and it intended
to put all nations on an equal footing.
It also placed a priority on the reuniting of families as well
as admitting those with needed skills.
But no one, it's fair to say, envisioned the consequences.
For instance, Robert Kennedy, testifying as Attorney General
to a House subcommittee, gave this assurance
about the possible immigration from Asia under the proposed law,
"I would say for the Asian Pacific triangle,
immigration would be approximately 5,000, Mr. Chairman,
after which immigration from that source would virtually disappear.
5,000 immigrants would come the first year,
but we do not expect there would be any great influx after that."
In fact, the 1965 act was a watershed in Asian immigration,
as well as opening up the flow of non-white immigrants
from Latin America, Africa, and the Caribbean.
The provision for uniting families had a particularly strong effect
on Asian immigration.
In 1965, the Asian-American population in the U.S. was
about one half of one percent.
By 2002, 7.3 million Asians had arrived in the U.S.,
significantly exceeding Robert Kennedy's estimate.
According to the 2010 Census,
now 7.3 million Asian-Americans are residents of the United States,
and in the last decade the Asian-American population grew
by 46 percent faster than any other racial group.
The Census Bureau estimates that this group will grow
to 40 million by the year 2050.
The Christian community
in the United States has been notably effected
by this influx of Asian immigrants.
Sociologists estimate that about four percent
of all Asian-Americans are Christian.
And the interesting thing is that this is higher percentage
than that represented in their home countries.
For instance, the Korean-American community totaling some 1.7 million
is about 80 percent Christian compared to about 30 to 40 percent
of the population of Korea.
Further, at least 13 percent of those studying
for the Catholic priesthood in the U.S. are Asian,
many of them are Vietnamese.
An impact is also seen from students abroad studying in the U.S. In 2011,
723,000 international students were studying here,
60 percent of which were from Asia.
Among that group, 155,000 were from China.
Frequently, these visiting students are welcomed
by Chinese-American churches and Chinese
and Asian Christian fellowship groups on campuses.
Such hospitality often leads to conversion
as one joins this community of faith gathering
with fellow sojourners in a new land.
So Asian-American Christians with their high levels of education
and deeply-rooted spirituality, will have a growing impact
on Christianity in the U.S. Hispanics, either foreign born
or by ancestry, now total 50 million people
in the U.S. Almost 33 million are from Mexico.
The influx of Mexican immigrants to the United States
over the past four decades has been unprecedented in our history
for a movement of people from any single country.
While present practices and economic circumstances now have virtually
halted net immigration from Mexico, and that's important to note
if you aren't already aware, the birth rate
of the overall Latino population in the U.S. will result
in substantial growth from this present 50 million residents.
About 70 percent of Hispanic population in the U.S. is Catholic.
This means that about 35 percent of all U.S. Catholics are now Hispanic,
and they have accounted for 71 percent of the growth
of U.S. Catholics since 1960.
That figure will continue to rise.
In Los Angeles, for example,
70 percent of Catholics are estimated to be Hispanic.
It's critical to realize
that Hispanic Catholics bring their own contextualized practices
of their faith.
Not only is that reflected in the images of the Virgin
of Guadeloupe throughout Mexican neighborhoods in U.S. cities,
their forums of Catholic piety reflect the enculturation
of Christianity in Latin-America.
Moreover, it is estimated that 54 percent
of the Latino Catholics identify themselves as Charismatic,
and thus incorporate practices of spiritual healing,
speaking in tongues, and gifts of the Holy Spirit common
in non-Catholic Pentecostal settings.
About 23 percent of Latinos, however, are Protestant,
accounting for a sizable 9.5 million Christians in the U.S. In fact,
there are more Latino Protestants in the U.S.
than there are Episcopalians.
The great majority of these are Pentecostal
or Evangelical, about 85 percent.
Many can be found in the thousands of storefront churches and chapels
that dot Hispanic neighborhoods in large urban areas.
So the Protestant world as well is experiencing the rising influence
of Latinos with their frequent combination of Evangelical theology,
Pentecostal al style, and social justice commitments.
As the Hispanic community, Catholic and Protestant, is projected to grow
to 106 million by the year 2050, their presence will become one
of the defining features of American Christianity.
Global trends will ensure that migration,
particularly from the south to the north as well as from the east
to the west, will be a growing part of the world's future.
Further, the majority of those
on the move will continue to be Christian.
And if, in fact, every Christian migrant is a potential missionary,
we are witnessing a major non-Western missionary movement
in the world.
Think of it this way: As the West becomes post-Christian non-Western
Christianity is coming to the West.
This reality is particularly present in certain cities
in metropolitan areas -- states in metropolitan areas.
Three-quarters of all immigrants are in these six states: California,
Texas, New York, Florida, New Jersey, and Illinois.
Further, major cities become magnets for immigrants, in fact, Los Angeles
and New York together are home to a full one-third all
of foreign-born residents in the United States.
Immigrants find their new homes both
within major cities but also in suburbs.
Chicago, for instance, where I grew up, has 590,000 immigrants
in its city limits but 984,000 foreign-born residents live
in Chicago's suburbs.
The last decade has also witnessed the rapid growth of immigrants
in several other cities through the middle of the country; for instance,
Charlotte, Raleigh, Nashville, and Indianapolis all had more
than 100,000 foreign-born residents by 2010, and cities with some
of the fastest growth rates of immigrants
in the past decade include Baltimore,
Orlando, Las Vegas, and Atlanta.
And recall, that about two-thirds of these immigrants are Christians,
and thus establishing mono-ethnic congregations
or joining multiracial churches finding ways to nurture
and deepen their faith in a new land.
Congregation of these immigrants --
congregations of these immigrants are generally not
on our ecclesiological radar.
Yet such congregations are growing.
Mark Gornik in his book "Word Made Global," estimates
that New York City is host
to at least 150 various African-immigrant congregations,
and hundreds more of immigrant congregations thrive
within the radius of that world city.
[ Pause ]
Got behind a little bit.
But the picture continues.
Minneapolis, St. Paul, for instance, long known for its Scandinavian
and German heritage, has seen an influx of immigrants
from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
A decade ago, Frieder Ludwig, then a faculty member at Luther Seminary,
discovered 67 congregations of Asian immigrants and 73
of African immigrants within the Twin Cities,
and that was ten years ago.
Moreover, the faith of Christian immigrants,
and that of other religious immigrants as well,
usually become stronger and more intense
through their experience of immigration.
Steven Warner, a discerning sociologists
who has probed deeply the religious significance of immigrants
and their congregations, puts it this way,
"Immigrants do not merely cling
to what they had before they left their home countries.
As religion becomes less taken for granted under the pluralistic
and more secular conditions prevailing in the United States,
adherents become more conscious of their tradition
and often more determined about its transmission.
Religion identities nominally assigned
at birth become objects of active passion."
Now that Christianity is centered in the global south
and non-Western expressions of faith accompany faithful Christian
immigrants to the global north,
a fresh theological encounter becomes possible and is crucial.
What we are experiencing locally, if we are attentive
to newly arrived Christian immigrants,
reflects how the realities of world Christianity are reformulating
theological assumptions and understandings.
Andrew Walls, a pioneer in portraying the dynamics
of world Christianity, puts it this way, "The most striking feature
of Christianity at the beginning of the third millennium is
that it is predominantly a non-Western religion.
What we have -- what we have long been used to is a Christian theology
that was shaped by the interaction of Christian faith
with Greek philosophy and Roman law.
These forums have become so familiar and established that we have come
to think of them as the normal
and characteristic forms of Christianity.
In the coming century, we can expect an accelerated process
of new development arising from Christian interaction
with the ancient cultures of Africa and Asia, an interaction now
in progress but with much further to go."
The heart of this theological encounter, in my view,
centers in the clash of world views shaped by Western
and non-Western cultures which then influences the way
in which the Bible is read and faith is understood.
Consider, for example,
how an African world view shapes one's understanding.
The noted African author John Mbiti, author of "African Religions
and Philosophy," explains that "In the traditional African perspective,
the distinction between the spiritual world
and the material world which we assume
in the west simply doesn't apply."
Harvey Kwiyani explains further, "The religious world
of the African is spiritually vibrant.
As such, for the African the spiritual realm is real,
so real that life is not imaginable without it.
Africans usually say that the spiritual realm is just as real
as the physical realm, it is only invisible, and even though the two
of them are distinguished, they cannot be separated.
They are interconnected and they work together."
Such a world view embedded
in various non-Western cultures collides
with the world views entrenched in Western culture.
Shaped by the enlightenment and the modern era,
what we commonly call a secular framework for shaping culture
and society is taken for granted.
Simply put, such a view seeks to understand and structure social,
political, economic, and cultural life without reference
to religious or spiritual realities.
Religion is then confined to the private personal sphere.
Optional space for religious practice is certainly guaranteed,
but also circumscribed both intellectually and practically.
Now, of course, a thousand qualifications are in order.
But the operating world view which frames contemporary societies
in the West is shaped by secular assumptions
that reinforce a practical materialism
and a functional individualism.
By contrast, non-Western Christianity brings a world view
in understanding of life which challenges various assumptions
of modern life in the West and collides with many
of these theological views and practices.
Noted author and theologian [inaudible] describes the
development of non-Western Christianity in this way,
"Christianity has blossomed
in societies outside the Western Hemisphere
and has become more powerful and nuance in the process.
The anti-structural character of the non-Western phase
of world Christianity plays itself out in characteristics
such as Charismatic renewal, grassroots revival,
massive exorcism, vibrant house churches, robust indigenation --
indigenization efforts and Effective lay leaderships.
Churches from the Third World are vigorously defining Christianity
on their own terms.
The new day that dawns will permanently alter the place
and nature of Christianity in a twenty-first century.
Let me leave you with a picture of what these emerging streams
in world Christianity look like in Ghana,
where I visited just two weeks ago.
A new highway Accra to Akropong stretches out toward the mountains;
at a tollbooth, a huge billboard is suspended over the highway
with the picture of Nana Akufo-Addo, the presidential candidate
of the main opposition party in an election a week away.
These words are featured prominently next to his picture.
Quote, The battle is the Lord's.
I Samuel 17:47."
The election was last week.
He received 47.7 percent of the vote in Ghana, narrowly being beaten
by the incumbent president.
Enterprise is everywhere.
Small shops, many almost like shacks, sell goods and services,
and major intersections often host a marketplace.
Among the many shops and advertisements some stand out,
like the Jesus is Lord Business Center and Internet Cafe.
We passed the Give Thanks to God Tailoring Shop and the Sow
and Tears, Reap and Joy Welding and Pipefitting Establishment.
One of the small stands offering bottled water, soft drinks,
and fruit was By His Grace Refreshments.
A sign reads "Shower of Blessings Painter" with a phone number.
Automotive needs can be met at God is King Motors and Car Dealers.
Winding our way up the hill toward Akropong we passed the Let There Be
Light Electric Shop, and the Riches of Glory Guest House,
as well as the Jesus is Lord fabric Shop.
And then here in Akropong is the Princess Choice Beauty Palace
with the words over the door, "I'm not alone.
Jesus is with me."
The lines between the secular and sacred and the material
and spiritual are drawn very differently here
than in our culture.
And it's the same throughout much of Sub-Saharan Africa
which is now 70 percent Christian.
The signs of a non-Christian world view reveal themselves
in simple but illuminating ways.
At the Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology,
I asked Professor Andrew Walls, who's now 80, about the conflict
in world views between Christians in the West
and non-Western Christianity.
"The enlightenment had a firm boundary between the empirical
and the spiritual world," Wall said.
"Western Christianity even tried to police that boundary.
But non-Western Christianity doesn't see
that boundary in the say same way."
So Walls believes that this is a time of theological renaissance
in order to figure all this out and to do so together.
Some of those who I think will be part
of this theological renaissance were the 47 African students
who received postgraduate degrees
from the Akrofi-Christaller Institute
at its commencement ceremony.
And while there, Dr. Emmanuel Evans-Anfom, now 93 and one
of Ghana's most noted educational leaders,
received an honorary degree, and in response he said --
he spoke of, quote, the need to break the myth
that Christianity was a European religion imported into Ghana.
At the front of the sanctuary of the Akropong Presbyterian Church
where the ceremony was held,
a sign hangs on the left-hand wall listing the ten achievable goals
of this congregation in the next five years.
Those goals include: To equip every member to win souls for Christ
and to disciple them effectively; to snatch as many
as the devil has bound; to equip members
to live victorious Christian lives.
It's not quite the language of First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh.
But then these following goals are included in the list:
To empower children, youth, and women to fight for their rights;
to care for the needy and the poor; to collaborate with government
and donor agencies in the fight
against poverty, ignorance, and disease.
This combination of language with highly spiritualized terms sounding
like spiritual warfare and then clear injunction
as to seek social justice
and empower the marginalize sounds dissonant and even jarring
to the ears of many in the West.
But in countless African countries,
this seems to flow together naturally.
A week ago Saturday I was part
of a small delegation visiting the Word Miracle Church International
in Accra.
This is a representative of a new group
of mega churches in Africa and beyond.
In 1994, its founder Bishop Agyinasare moved to Accra
to center his ministry there in the nation's capital.
About 70 people were in worship.
Eighteen years later, 7000 worship at the main center in Accra.
Two services each Sunday are in English and one in Twi,
a local language; two more are in French; and a youth church
and a teen church worship separately.
The large worshipping groups meet in the Perez Dome,
still under construction, but it's regarded
as the largest auditorium in Ghana.
The church's ministry extends through many branches,
more than 150 throughout Ghana, so we asked what accounted
for this remarkable growth and outreach.
The response, "Tangible miracles."
The Word is preached and healings with signs and wonders take place.
Bishop Asare has a worldwide ministry having preached
in 52 countries.
He was holding services in the Philippines when we visited.
He's written 25 books and you can follow him on Twitter,
join his Facebook page, read his blog,
and see the church's ministry on YouTube.
His television broadcasts reach throughout Africa and also
to the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
Most likely, he's one of the more interesting personalities
in today's global church that you've never heard of.
The Word Miracle International Church is entirely self-sustaining,
not relying on outside funding.
The church's branches have moved beyond Ghana
into other African countries, and they've also extended to Germany
and Italy as its members include migrants on the move.
Moreover we were told about a member converted to the ministry
of the church who led its youth ministry for several years.
Then, more recently, he was sent as a missionary to Maryland.
We are beyond any doubt at one
of those hinge points in Christian history.
When the Gutenberg Bible was printed,
its eventual consequences were unimaginable.
Now an equally profound movement is occurring as the rising centers
of Christian vitality have become detached geographically
and culturally from the places in the north and the west,
which for so long have been Christianity's dominant
comfortable home.
We can project the demographic features of this future.
Those alone are stunning.
But it's far more difficult but more decisive to ascertain the spiritual,
theological, and Ecclesiological features of this future.
That discernment can only happen by walking together
on a common pilgrimage, and so the pilgrimage
of world Christianity will proceed
as a post-Christian West encounters a non-Western church.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
Thank you, very much.
We have some time for questions, which I'd be delighted
to answer, to have our dialogue.
Carolyn will kind of call the time,
but maybe for about 10/15 minutes I'd love to hear,
and Jason has the microphone.
So please.
>> Wes, that was such a rich lecture and exquisitely signed.
Three quick questions.
You can attend to any of them that are interesting to you.
To what extent is Christianity
across the globe an aspirational religion that you found?
Converts trading up, as it were,
which is often the skepticism of the individual.
Second is, how does one define a Christian given cultural
versus [inaudible]?
So is a Christian one who's born into a culture,
holds a personal belief, or just self defines?
And then the third is, is the theological immediacy
of Pentecostalism mimicking or fed by animistic religion historically,
thus has not, you know,
animism evangelized Christianity perhaps ironically?
>> Yeah. Those are excellent and also complex questions.
The -- on the first one, are we seeing basically aspirational,
and you're thinking of the prosperity gospel and so forth.
You see several things, but the most important study was one done
by Donald Miller and Theodore Yamamori at the University
of Southern California who wanted to look at congregations in the world,
especially the Third World, the global south,
that were having a positive social impact.
And by a survey, they found 400 of them.
They proceeded then to visit 200 over a period of three to four years
and conducted scores of interviews.
They discovered that 85 percent
of these congregations were Pentecostal, and they were engaged
in what they called a "progressive Pentecostal" --
"progressive Pentecostalism," because they were
in solidarity with the marginalized.
Many of you have heard it said that liberation theology was a theology
of the poor -- I mean, about the poor,
but Pentecostalism has become the church of the poor.
And that kind of engagement leads to social outreach.
Now, for some, it's aspirational because they're very, very poor.
But I think you've got a variety of things happening
with Pentecostalism, and to simply say it's all otherworldly,
doesn't affect reality, is really a misjudgment, and it's --
it's their book, "Global Pentecostalism,"
which is the best single study on the subject.
The second about defining,
most sociologists I've discovered while being here at the Kluge Center
and reading a bunch of this stuff, they really go
by self-definition, you know.
I mean, who's a Christian?
That's a huge question.
And the big question behind the question is,
who determines who's a Christian?
And so -- so the answer is, those who self-define themselves
as Christian are regarded as Christians.
So all the statistics I've read when I've said Christian, it means those
who call themselves that way.
The third one, immediacy of Pentecostalism and animism;
as one who's really just beginning to learn about a lot of this,
especially in the African culture which is what intrigues me the most,
there are several intersections.
The basic understanding of spirituality,
which is beneath any religious conviction I already referred to,
and it permeates life; likewise, the whole understanding of community.
Now, there are certainly some animistic practices
that have a resonance with forms of Pentecostal expression,
and that's part of what African theologians now are trying
to figure out, because -- because always we're in this dance
between what is the faith and what is culture,
and so much of the faith exported to Africa was exported
with Western garments that have to be torn off
and then rediscovered within its context.
So those would be answers to those questions.
>> Thank you very future for a fascinating, fascinating lecture.
I always think a good lecture is one that raises questions in our mind.
I wanted to ask you also, the relationship between --
you began with the Gutenberg Bible and the spread of literacy.
Are we seeing the same thing with the Pentecostals?
In other words, is the relationship to literacy or illiteracy?
In other words, is it easier to be --
to worship with or without the book?
Is there a book that guides that guides -- that guides the believers,
or is it more an expressions of Christianity rather
than the thinking out of Christianity
through literacy the way it was done at the beginning
with the Gutenberg Bible and the spread of literacy?
>> Yeah. Yeah.
Again, there -- there are people who could answer that so much better
than me including like [inaudible] who is one of the experts
and who was here at the -- also as a fellow at the Kluge Center
and whom I've spent very fruitful times learning from.
But in general, I'd say two things:
You're right that Pentecostalism puts a greater expression
on experience rather than on simply the written word.
And that's one of the differences.
If you -- if you talk to -- people say what's the difference
between Evangelical and a Pentecostal?
If you talk to an Evangelical,
the Evangelical will say, "What do you believe?"
If you talk to a Pentecostal, a Pentecostal will say,
"What is your experience?"
And there's difference.
Now, at the same time, the Bible and the way it has been translated,
and as you would know from others who have really studied this,
that the translation of the Bible has had an incredible Effect
on the literacy and development of language and culture
as a side Effect that becomes one of its unintended consequences.
And with Pentecostals, they still take the Bible very seriously,
but they appropriate it in much more direct and experiential ways rather
than in dogmatic and systematic ways.
That would at least be my impression.
>> Good afternoon.
Can you hear me?
This was an excellent lecture.
Thank you very much.
I have a question about indigenous African Christianity,
such as that found in the Horn of Africa and [inaudible] Ethiopia
where the majority -- a majority are orthodox Christians,
and sort of the parallels or the differences
between indigenous Christianity and that which came as a result
of colonization and other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa?
>> Yeah. And I didn't mention --
there are two great Christian traditions in Africa
that I didn't touch upon because I was focusing on Sub-Saharan.
But the first is the orthodox tradition in the Ethiopian church,
and the second is the Coptic church in Egypt, and in both cases,
they're very ancient expressions
and they have a deep connection to the culture.
They -- it's interesting that when the African-Instituted Churches
Organization was founded, one
of its first members was the Coptic orthodox church.
We -- you know, we were founded indigenously and had nothing to do
with imported colonialism, and they still function within that group.
But there are vast differences in their style, as you would imagine.
But those -- but you've drawn attention to very important parts
of religious life in Africa that I didn't touch on.
I think the people -- the people
with the mics are calling on the people.
>> Do you believe that the Episcopal Anglican church is fighting
your presentation?
In other words, they have a major group of Anglican people
from Africa, and they are just not listening to them,
and thus there's a breakup of the Episcopal church in this country
and they're having a real difficulty.
Is this part of what you're talking about?
>> Why, yes, it is.
And I didn't talk about that but in the book
that I finished, I am addressing that.
I'll say very briefly that the issue
around same-sex relationships is not an issues that is
at the priority agenda of the global south.
It's an issue of the global north, and we're fighting about it
in some very difficult ways.
We are importing that into the global south.
When you talk to those who are in churches in the global south,
number one, first of all, all of them --
most of them are very conservative on this issue.
There's no question.
You have a few exceptions like Desmond Tutu
and some other prominent bishops.
Most of them are very conservative.
But at the same time, you sit and talk to them,
they'll say, "This is not our issue."
It's being injected there in the same way
that we've constantly injected our agenda and our thought patterns
into their religious life.
And the worst example's in Uganda.
What's happening in Uganda was precipitated
by North American Evangelicals.
So while on the one hand I'd say that there's no question
that churches in the global south are very conservative
on those issues, but at the same time, it's not the issue
that they put at the top of their agenda.
They've got many more directly pressing issues to deal with,
and we make a great mistake and we try to triangulate them
and get them involved in our own debates.
Excuse me, but that's -- one more.
Get joy here, or -- okay.
>> [Inaudible] tell us about how immigrants hold
onto the traditions they bring here.
What do we know about the religious orientations
of second and third generation?
>> Yeah. That's a huge and fascinating question.
I'll -- again, I'll just indicate some of what I've learned
in my reading and study during the time that I've been here,
and also some of my experience as general secretary of our church,
because we had that same phenomenon within, say, our Asian and Latino.
The -- the wrong answer is that your first generation comes
and they don't assimilate well, they have kids,
the kids learn the language, the kids learn the culture,
and after one to two generations they become fully Americanized.
That may have been the way it happened
with immigration 100 years ago.
It's less the way it's happening now.
You find now much more attempts of those who are
of the second generation to cling to those parts of their culture
which they value and give them an identity, particularly religiously,
while appropriating other parts of the culture
which they find themselves.
And I think especially for congregations
that become multicultural, this becomes a really important issue,
because the point is not -- is not to homogenize people into one,
you know, globalized culture that's defined by Starbucks.
The point is to allow the distinctiveness of cultures to grow
and to relate together in ways that then create a new reality.
And that's a very, very important issue for immigrant churches today.
>> Please thank our speaker again and join us for a reception.
[ Applause ]
>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.