Lenses
At a recent Pew Forum conference, Philip Jenkins
spoke about the growing increase in influence
of Christianity in the Southern Hemisphere on Christianity in the North. There
is much to digest in his comments, but a friend pointed out one particular
portion about birthrates and the Orthodox Church. Jenkins surmises that the day
will come when Anglicanism will be bigger than Orthodoxy, due to the fact that
birthrates in historically Orthodox countries are extremely
low.Any Orthodox Christian will
explain their view that the Orthodox Church is
the
Church that Christ founded. As such, there is the necessary corollary that said
Church cannot fail. Membership may decline, people will fall away, but it will
not fail. Dr. Jenkins appears to think that it will. This is fine, as he isn't
Orthodox, so he's not contradicting himself in holding that view. What I do
find interesting is that he doesn't seem to be asserting that Orthodoxy will
fail because the message they are delivering is wrong, but rather because they
aren't having enough babies. It seems, then, that the key to the spread of
Orthodoxy would be to have evangelists and missionaries sneak into Orthodox
houses, and destroy birth control.At
the same time, Dr. Jenkins explains the spread of Christianity in Africa because
the Old Testament is more relevant to their experiences. We'll ignore the
implication that Orthodoxy doesn't teach Scripture for a moment as a lack of
understanding on his part. What's more troubling is the assertion that
Christianity is growing in Africa because the message is more relevant to
them.
"But there's a more basic thing: if
you're in a new church in Africa or Asia, the Bible speaks to you as a more
immediately relevant, more direct text, than it does for many Global North
people for whom the Bible is basically part of the wallpaper. "
I'm trying to figure out where he's going with
all of this. Perhaps I'm being too critical, and I don't know much about Dr.
Jenkins views of things, but he seems to look at the spread of the Kingdom in
extremely secular terms. In order to spread your version of Christianity, have
lots of babies and keep the Gospel relevant to the culture in which you are
working. If he's not saying the latter, in particular, then what is his point?
I think that Scripture - all of it - resonates with us today as much as it does
with poor, agrarian Africans. The degree to which it doesn't resonate reflects
more on our spiritual hard heartedness than it does on flaws in Scripture. That
is, after all, what he is implying. That Scripture doesn't hold much meaning
for us in the North.
Okay, to be
really honest, he's mostly referring to the Old Testament, not the New.
However, this doesn't necessarily change much. It seems that the only hope for
Christianity in Europe and the U.S. is for us to revert to a bygone agrarian
era. Otherwise, Scripture won't mean much to us and we'll leave it
behind.
On the other hand, maybe Dr.
Jenkins is mistaken about Orthodoxy. Maybe the very hope for the spread of the
Gospel in the North is that the Orthodox Church provides for an interpretation
of Scripture that makes it relevant for people of all times and places. Surely
the Church has spread in both the poor parts of Africa to the greatest empires
the world has known. However, the Orthodox Church doesn't look at the Old
Testament through the lens of our daily experience, but through the lens of the
Gospel itself. We see the fallen nature of man spoken of again and again. We
see the theme of God's love and plan of redemption again and again. Finally, we
see hint and shadow all throughout, of the coming of the Messiah, his death, and
his glorious resurrection. That method is relevant regardless of whether we're
wealthy and living in California, or poor and living in
Nigeria.
I'm not saying that people
from agrarian societies can't grasp certain elements of Scripture better because
of their background. I just doubt that this is crucial to the spread of the
Gospel.
Posted: Tuesday - May 29, 2007 at 06:56 PM
