Philip Jenkins, author of The Next Christendom: the Coming of Global Christianity (2007), among others, argues that when American or European church leaders and scholars meet with their counterparts from Asia, Africa, or Latin America, the agenda is crafted by the participants from the global North. As a result, the “new Christendom” emerging in the global South is marginalized and consequently many of the present realities of Christianity in these locations and the impact of their projected future courses are ignored. The growing religious impulses found in Asia, Africa, and Latin America demand attention now if Northern Christian denominations are to avoid a number of misunderstandings. It would be easy to project either our own liberal or conservative political agendas on them, or mistakenly assume that worship practices and doctrine will be common even though the contexts in which we find them vary across three continents. The ability to anticipate geopolitical impulses and upheavals calls on our political leaders and diplomats to play close attention to religious frontiers throughout the world, certainly as closely as they monitor secular and political boundaries.

With such concerns in mind then, how would you describe the face of the average Christian? White, middle age, financially prosperous, possessing liberal political views endorsing liberation theology or maybe a Bush Republican, with some personal opinions about religion that do not agree with the catholic teaching of the Christian Church? Jenkins argues for a different face of the typical Christian today: Asian, African or Hispanic, young, poor, socially conservative, and relying on the Bible as the source of Christian faith and life.

Jenkins asked just that question of theologians and leaders gathered at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana on June 2-4. For the first time, religion professors from all of the Missouri Synod’s Concordia University System of colleges and seminaries, joined their counterparts in the International Lutheran Council (ILC) seminaries.[1]

Concurrent conferences were held by the heads of the member church bodies, the professors of the ILC conference, and the meeting of the Missouri Synod Professors. For the first time, however, additional common sessions enabled participants to share views based on presentations made to all three fo the gathered groups. This essay provides a summarized report on three presenters from that conference: Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History and Religious Studies at Pennsylvania State University; Dr. Erni Seibert, Concordia Seminary, San Paulo, Brazil, and Dr. Leopoldo Sanchez, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis.

DEMOGRAPHIC CHALLENGES

Dr. Jenkins’ address to the assembled professors and church leaders, “Global Shifts in World Christianity,” offered insights gained from his extensive statistical research. In 1900 the world had 1.3 billion people; about one third were Christian (82% in Europe and North America). Today the world remains one third Christian (38% in Europe and North America.) With current trends by 2050 world Christians will remain one third of the world population but only 28% will be found in Europe. and North America.

Outside of Europe, Christianity is the fastest growing religion. In Africa, for example:

· 1900: population of 120 million; there were three Europeans for every African; 10 million of these Africans were Christians.

· 2000: 260 million African Christians make up 46% of the continent’s population

· 2050: the population of the continent will be 2 billion; it will present a ratio of 3 Africans for every 1 European; 1 billion of these Africans will be Christians and comprise 1/3 of all Christians in the world.

The population of East Africa (Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda was 7 million in 1900. By 2050 it is expected that there will be 250 million people living in these three countries. In neighboring Ethiopia there were 12 million people in 1900. Today that figure has grown to 88 million. Of special interest to Lutherans is the growth of Lutheranism by a rate of 15% each year since 1950 when there were only about 10,000 Lutherans in Ethiopia.

In the United States, 100 million Latinos are expected to live in America by 2050. As a result of the immigration of this largely Christian population, the U.S. will have the most Christians in the world followed by other nations including Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, Congo, Ethiopia, China, and the Philippines.

Europe is expected to continue its present trend to be the least Christian part of the world by 2050, but there will be many immigrants who will make up a Christian population there. In a number of Western European countries we find a declining population among traditional Europeans.[2] Labor need will likely continue to be met by immigrants from Africa to fill jobs for which there will not be enough local Europeans. These immigrants will in many cases be Christian.

How will Lutherans fare in these shifts? The world’s approximately 75 million Lutherans locate 20% of their membership in Africa, by 2050, it is expected that 40% of the world’s Lutherans will be found there. In addition, unlike many of their Northern counterparts, they will be active in their commitment to the church.

Jenkins concludes that Christianity will continue to experience numerical growth as urbanization in the emerging world supports an unprecedented population growth in the Southern Hemisphere. This change has already begun, and those churches in the North who wish to engage these young churches could do so now by helping with their physical needs since many live in nations whose social services are inadequate to the need of their growing populations.

CONTEXT AND THEOLOGY

Jenkins pointed out that it would be a mistake to assume uniformity in belief and practice among all these church bodies in the Southern hemisphere. They exist and grow within the vastly different contexts of the three continents. Church membership figures are often not reliable because figures are not a priority in these churches; but, when used to describe Christian commitment in the Northern half of the globe, they mislead because in many places people are only nominally Christian, and though baptized, they do not attend worhip services even on Christmas and Easter, particularly in countries with a strong state-church tradition like Sweden, Finland, England, and Germany.

But there are some elements, Jenkins agrues, that these Southerner Christians do seem to share. One of the most significant is that they are poor. They look to their God to provided them with health and the means to sustain this body and life. They tend to live in the cities made vast by recent urbanization: Sao Paulo, Brazil, with its population of 18 million and where 2-3 million people participate in the annual March for Jesus; Santiago, Chile, with its 6 million inhabitants; Lagos, Nigeria, where 20 million people live in the metropolitan area, with a density of 20,000 people per square kilometer and where the Redeemed Church of God conducted a revival where 1.6 million attended on one night.

These people live in dire poverty and the new churches are succeeding because they “fulfill emerging social needs.” The growth of Christianity can be described as following two major traditions: Roman Catholic and pentecostal or charismatic. Even these terms, familiar to those living in the North can be misleading because the in global South context these terms find their own meaning. Roman Catholics in the region tend to be pentecostal. The pentecostals are not against a structured worship but wish to experience God more directly. So it could be a serious mistake in judgment for Amercian religous leaders to believe that immigrants from the South would conform to our understanding of these terms and the practices that accompany the use of those terms in the global North.

The Old Testament is a familiar world to these emerging churches. They live in a world where poverty remains a daily challenge, but also one where spiritual warfare is an ever-present concern. Exorcism and healing rites are commonly practiced. Miracles are expected to occur, especially with regard to healing.

LUTHERAN IDENTITY

Following Dr. Jenkins’ presentation, the plenary session considered Lutheran identity among these changing world demographic. Dr. Erni W. Seibert, Academic Dean and Theological Professor in Systematical and Practical Theology, Concordia Seminary, San Paulo, Brazil, and Assistant Editor and Head of Communication and Projects, Brazilian Bible Society presentated on “Confessional Lutheran Identity in A World of Changing Religious Demographics.” He located these in history, leadership, the Scriptures, and the Lutheran Confessions, all common elements generally recognized by various Lutheran groups.

Further he explored the nature of the identity of the early church with a discussion of four authoritative references appearing in historical sequence: The Apostolic Tradition, the Biblical Canon, Episcopal authority, and the ecumenical Creeds. He asserted that episocopal authority is the least important of these in mission and evanglism endeavors; rather the Bible and the Creeds assume the primary position over authority associated with the rulers of the group. Seibert stressed how these four references help us to make distinctions about organization and beliefs of the emerging, indigenous churches in the South. Continuing with the essential aspects of Lutheran identity, he discussed how we find the Apostolic Tradition, the Bible, and the Creeds identified as “Lutheran” reference systems in the first four articles of the Augsburg Confession, but with no concessions to the Episcopal authority since they had drifted away from the others. Article XXI asserts that there is not difference between “catholic” and Lutheran identities.

This brings up the question, according to Seibert, whether in the interim since the 16^th century, new aspects of Lutheran reference have emerged to give us an identity based upon ecclesiastical organization, ethnic culture, or liturgical and worship standards. Does the Lutheran faith still retain its essential aspects of identity as found in its Confessions, or has something else intruded? To consider this possibility, he explored Lutheran leadership and its doctrinal formulas materializing over the centuries within the worldwide Lutheran communion.

Relying heavily on three types of leadership models identified by Max Weber, which Weber himself drew from the history of the church, Seibert examined the models of in light of Lutheran direction. Weber’s three types were:

· The bureaucratic leader receives office by designation and is the full time occupation of the one holding it; technical competence is expected as the office fits into a hierarchy of other such offices.

· The traditional leader “appears in Christianity when the authority figure is an elder. This type of leadership…appears in the New Testament. He is the leader because he knows the tradition. However, this leader has never been the most important one in the Christian Church.”

· The charismatic leader who possesses a certain quality of individual personality considered extraordinary. Luther possessed this attribute.

Seibert maintained that in order to preserve a Christian church structure during the Reformation, the Lutherans quickly embraced the bureaucratic style of leadership to maintain the status quo and thus lost the momentum gained by the more charismatic leadership of Luther and others like him. Thus he asks, “Has the appeal of the Lutheran Confessions been more focused on the perpetuation of the teaching, and less on engaging in a dialog with the historical reality around it?” In many cases he concludes the answer is “yes.” Consequently, Lutheran dialog with churches in developing countries cannot depend upon Lutheran references since they are largely unknown to those indigenous churches there. Engagement rather must rest heavily on the Bible, God’s “charisma” of Word and Sacraments; new churches and movements show they represent a renewal of Bible reading and study.

His address concluded with a reflection that world Lutherans are not well positioned at the moment for present engagement, and suggested:

· More emphasis on the study of God’s Word as a reference for theological education.

· This theological reference must be more mission oriented

· Make the leadership more flexible within ecclesiastical bodies in order to direct energies toward mission.

· Theological education with emphasis on knowledge, attitudes, and skills with the emphasis on the last two helping in the mission endeavor.

· Develop a more balanced dialog in search for the commonalities and differences in the identity rather than an identity established by what makes Lutherans “different.” Our emphasis must be on Sola Gratia, Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide as the Lutheran “charisma and identity.”

The Global North: Babylon or Galilee?

Dr. Leopoldo A. Sanchez of Concordia Seminary (St. Louis) Hispanic Institute based his presentation on Jenkins’ research and also the work of John L. Allen, Jr (The Future Church: How Ten Trends are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church, 2009). He asked, “What should confessional Lutheran identity look like in an increasingly southern Christian world?” His presentation proceeded in three stages:

· A realistic assessment of the picture of the religious landscape in America in the foreseeable future to help Lutheran Christians to engage those from the global South critically and creatively in the service of the Gospel.

· An examination of Southern Christianity to assess methods by which confessional Lutherans might engage them critically and creatively.

· Iinstitutional changes in the North American Church to assist in engaging Christians from the global South, believers who will be coming to this country to live.

In his paper, he denied the assumption held by some that rapid growth of Islam  will lead to it overtaking Christianity in the global North. Rather, according to current trend, Christian growth will far exceed Muslim increase by immigrants from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This demographic shift will also take place in Europe where strong Muslim communities are already established. In addition, these Christians arriving from the South will be more “entrepreneurial” about their faith, that is, they will neither privatize their religion nor keep it out of the public square. Because of the anticipated growth of the church Christianity will by remain far be the largest world religion. In fact, it is expected that these churches will reinvigorate Christianity in the United States. The Church’s long decline into secularism, privatization, and falling attendance will not be the norm in North America. But how can confessional Lutherans engage and incorporate the increasingly southern nature of U.S. Christianity?

The answer lies first in assessing the nature of southern Christianity in its various contexts. He describes a visit to Havana and his visit with the Lutheran bishop there. The bishop defined his church this way: “Here in Cuba we are conservative, charismatic and communist, confessional Lutherans.” This startling combination of labels, hardly associated with Lutheran Christianity, became meaningful to Dr. Sanchez during the visit. Confessional meant subscription to the Book of Concord as a true exposition of the Scriptures. This feature finds general agreement with the conservative and orthodox nature of southern Christianity. The bishop was clear about this, “To work with us, you have to subscribe to the Confessions.” By “conservative,” he meant that the Bible was the sole norm for Christian faith and life. More specifically, however, it also meant that Scripture served as the reliable basis for a conservative view of sexuality against practices such as abortion, gay marriage, and the ordination of homosexual pastors. By “charismatic,” he did not mean Pentecostal as that term might occur to Amercians, but rather a Cuban liturgy with the elements common to a traditional Western Lutheran divine service, but also with a distinctly and strongly inculturated Cuban Mass with “Afro-Cuban musical tone, arrangement, and rhythm.” As for “communist,” the bishop did not embrace a pro-Castro agenda, but the term served to show due respect to government office, but he was also at times critical of the office holder. “Interestingly, the label referred more to a sort of realistic view of the world, one where governments are often promoters of evil and where opposition to the Gospel is common and thus should be expected.” Concerns of poverty were directed at the Communist government that did not serve its own people as well as the capitalist U.S. for its embargo that harmed poor Cuban families. In the case of many Southern Christians, here typified by the Cubans,

We are talking about a Christianity that, at least by U.S. standards, can be seen as morally conservative or traditional on issues such as the ordination of gay pastors, yet also as politically liberal in its overall skepticism about the goodness of market capitalism and globalization and wariness of U.S. economic power and military influence in the world.

Immigrants to the U.S. might find a “disaspora theology” meaningful as they experience a new home in a land where they do not fully belong, but in a situation where God has not forgotten them and there is the possibility of justice in political and social institutions. “Christians of the global South are also politically curious and engaged, seeing biblical themes such as poverty, exile, oppression at the hands of rulers, and God’s love for the aliens or sojourners in our mist as descriptive in many cases of their own situation.” He cited research from the Pew Hispanic Center: “Two thirds of Hispanics say that their religious beliefs are an important influence on their political thinking. More than half say churches and other houses of worship should address the social and political questions of the day.” Sanchez advocates the term “Galilean location” – a term he attributes to Notre Dame professor Virgilio Elizondo – to describe for situation of immigrants in North America. Such Galilean location refers to theology that addresses the situation peoples who live in the borderlands of or margins of society. Which means, at least to a significant degree, that we are going to be doing missions in Galilee for some time yet, in the borderlands, among people who are poor, exiles, immigrants, refugees, or more broadly, economically, socially, and even eccleisally marginalized.

Sanchez addressed the charismatic nature of the Hispanic Christians by asking questions that northern Lutherans will face as immigration increases over time:

What is the direct, personal experience of God people in the global South have found so captivating? Is it merely a reference to the power and joy of the Gospel? Is it a reference to the solemnity and joy that inculturated worship can offer? How do we engage new Christians who speak of healings, exorcisms, visions, prophecies, and gifts of the Spirit as common things to expect in a world that is not conceived in secularized terms?

Institutionally, Sanchez then proposed four initiatives that northern Lutheran churches should take to engage the growing global South already at our doorsteps:

· “We must be prepared to provide pastoral and mercy care for our aging Anglo Lutheran elders.” Our aging population will contain those with no living relatives, creating a generation of “isolated elders” in Western societies.

· “We must be prepared to become a young church body, and at least a bilingual, bicultural one. The new Christians from the South have much higher birth rates than the current U.S. population apart from the Hispanic population residing here…. Networks between educational institutions and non-Anglo ethnic churches and communities.” The Missouri Synod, for example, has the largest parochial school system in the nation except for the Roman Catholic Church.

· “We must be prepared to be a confessional Lutheran church that is at home in the borderlands, or in Galilee. That is to say, it must be a church that is not detached from the world of the poor or marginalized or from the world of the religious from the global South. Ministry will have to take place among those lacking financial resources, and church workers will have to discover the joy of working among the believing poor.

· We must be prepared to become a global or catholic confessional Lutheran church. American Lutherans have the opportunity to insure that Lutherans in the global South have opportunities for “writing theology, presenting essays, and giving responses, etc., which in turn should help inform scholars and administrators in the U.S. with much needed perspectives on Christianity and confessional Lutheranism.

Clearly if current trends continue, American Christians will find numerous challenges coupled with major mission opportunities in their own communities. How can we assimilate and bring the Gospel of Christ to these new arrivals? The proclamation and the community of believers cannot be separated into a privatized, individualized faith. The Gospel is found in the community; it is there that Christ gathers them around the proclamation of his word and the sacraments. The Christians in the global South, we have seen, have a high regard for the community, family, and social cohesion and little use for the private faith so typical of religious expression in our nation.

THE CATECHUMENATE

One possible solution not addressed in the conference would be the use of the ancient catechumenate, a practice best implemented by the Roman Catholic Church in their modern Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA). This process of evangelism, modeled on the methods used by the early Church, has proven its worth by the astonishing number of initiates brought into active church membership. The RCIA is a communal process and involves a number of stages marked by liturgical rites to aid and assist the potential convert toward confirmation, baptism, and Eucharist, usually at the Easter Vigil. The process normally takes several months, ideally it takes a liturgical year of Scriptural and catechism studies. Initiates receive a sponsor from the congregation to assist them.  The cathecumenate has worked well to evangelize  Amercians Catholics, and it has worked well in the global South. Philip Jenkins notes in The Next Christendom:

Practical necessity has forced some newer churches to revive ancient customs long dormant in the older Christendom. One striking example is the catechumenate, the probationary stage which new Christians were required to pass before earning full membership in the church…In many African or Asian societies, new Christians can reasonably be assumed to have come from a pagan background or else from entirely different religions, so they require intense training and preparation as catechumens

In some Congolese dioceses, the transition from catechumen to baptized Christian has taken on many of the features of traditional initiation rites. Candidates spend time away from their communities, learning both religious knowledge and new worldly skills, and the Easter baptism cermonies may involve an exchange of masks, signifying the shedding of old pagan identities…In twenty-first century Africa, as in second century Rome, baptism is an awe-inspiring symbol of the believer’s separation from a failing pagan world, and act of divine rescue. (p. 155)

The effectiveness of the model can be seen in the Roman Church’s gains remarkable gains in recent decades.  The National Council of Catholic Bishops report growth of 1.49 per cent of a membership of 68 million. While this figure pales beside the growth rates in Southern churches, nevertheless, many other church bodies in America would no doubt like to practice methods facilitating such growth in a year. A recognition of the Gospel call, a personal sponsor in the congregation, a liturgical rite to accept the initiate into the catechumenate, a fruitful period of study of Scripture and doctrine

Yet, the recently published Lutheran Service Book, for example, has no material to support the catechumenate. The liturgical rites of induction could have been made available to all congregations, and their use might have begun to position our church for receiving Christians in search of an orthodox, Biblical church. Clearly we need to orient ourselves to the new possibilities and the new responsibilities faced by Lutheran Churches in North America.

CHRISTIANITY: ONCE AGAIN A CULTURAL REFERENCE

Dr. Jenkins identified the growth of Southern churches since 1900 as one of the most significant and successful social movements of the last century. The current cultural situation which serves as a context for church planning, neglects the present reality of the church and its future. As Jenkins reports, “The imagined future looks a lot like the American present, only with Western liberalism ever more in the ascendant. (p. 5)”

On the other hand, what should be done for a future characterized by:

· The world’s preponderant religion, the vast majority of whose adherents are desperately poor by Western standards.

· An emerging majority of Christians, who although among the poorest people on earth, have little use for the Marxist dialectic calling for liberal, activist, or revolutionary solutions to their troubles.

· A vast majority of the Christian church whose members embrace mysticism, Puritanism, orthodoxy, deep personal faith embracing community norms, and all based on clear scriptural authority.

· A growing political movement of immigrants who will bring their faith to the ballot box to affect social issues and characterized by opposition to abortion, same sex marriage, and ordination of practicing homosexuals.

· A charismatic church that often blends rituals of traditional liturgy with more expressive and direct participation.

· Missionaries from global South churches evangelizing Europe and North America.

· Possible conflict drawn along religious boundaries rather than national frontiers as Muslim and growing Christian populations experience increasing tensions.

· A general rejection of liberal theology associated with the Mainline Churches.

· Increasing support from Southern church leaders for conservative dissidents in the global North.

We should be familiar with what is happening in our world today. It reflects what took place in Western Europe as the Roman Empire decayed and Christianity enjoyed extensive growth and renewal. In Asia, Africa, and Latin America, people find the religion of their former rulers attractive and embrace it in the midst of social, political, and economic disorder. The phenomena examined here, reflects the growth of the Gospel among the nations. It is far from certain that our rightful place among our fellow believers is mandated though our form and methods. The Conference of the ILC held at Ft. Wayne may be an important step for Lutherans to find these solutions.