Time's No. 3?
There is more than a whiff of myopic Americanism in Time magazine's suggestion that the third most influential world changing idea is Neo-Calvinism. Yes, American Christianity is important and neo-Calvinism is an interesting post-evangelical phenomenon. However, Time, not unlike the New York Times, seems to have gotten a bit swept away with "Who Would Jesus Smack Down?" In the reductive terms of these articles, Neo-Calvinism is third grade theology: "My God has already decided the fate of the world and we win, you lose." It offers a view of the world akin to the cosmology of TV shows like Lost where fate decides the end and time self-corrects itself.
I am well aware of the influence of this return to the fatalism and certitude of Calvininist dictums, and do not mean to suggest that they are unimportant. Neither do I want to suggest that these articles do an adequate job of presenting the nuanced and multifarious ways that the predestination pie has been sliced up over the past five centuries. However, I do have to punctuate Time's proclamation that Neo-Calvinism is the third most important world changing idea with a question mark or two. The article suggests that because the David Crowder Band is top in Christian album sales on iTunes, this now serves as solid sociological data for World Christianity today. If Time had taken the time to look through the census data however, a different idea would most likely have emerged: Pentecostalism.
Peter Berger, a prominent sociologist of post-secularism gave a paper for the Pew Forum on "Religion in a Globalizing World." Here he argued:
In Los Angeles, the Templeton Foundation ran a very successful conference on global pentecostalism, which was fascinating, and it was to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Azusa Street Mission, which was the origin of modern pentecostalism. There were very good papers, and we saw a little movie about the Azusa Street Mission, which was a pathetic little affair where this charismatic black preacher came out of Texas and started preaching. Estimates of the number of followers vary, I guess Pew has the latest. But in terms of worldwide pentecostalism, the estimates range within 250 million and 450 million adherents, which must be the fastest growth of any religious movement in history. It's an unbelievable phenomenon.
This is a really important challenge to Time's suggestion and one which I wish more people would pay attention to. It is a key ingredient in a larger global shift to the southern hemisphere in Christianity and is probably one of the most important factors in the kinds of divisions we are seeing in the Anglican church at the moment (I would suggest that this is just the first of many such socio-political battles which will arise between religious traditions in the northern and southern hemispheres). Furthermore, this emphasis is not a matter of denominational pandering. The folks doing the research are not Pentecostals and have no other interest but to understand what the movement is about and why it is growing so rapidly. In many cases, because Pentecostal social and political values are often out of step with those held within liberal democracies (e.g. gay and abortion rights).
Pentecostal and Charismatic Research InitiativeMore importantly however, major research funding bodies are directing money to this issue. For instance, the Templeton Foundation funded Pew's sensus in 2006 as mentioned by Berger above, but as well, they are now funding research centers like the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California. They are offering $3.5 million in grants to scholars working in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the former Soviet Union in one of the largest world collaborations to study Pentecostalism's growth and influence today. Donald Miller, the Executive Director of the CRCC was interviewed for Pew a few years ago on a similar theme which gives some idea of the kinds of issues which will be addressed on a larger scaled in this project.
Lastly, I just want to cite some of the statistical facts Pew posted about the growth of Christianity in the world today. Here, it is projected that by 2050 1.5 billion of the world's 3.1 billion Christians will live in Africa and South America with a further 600 million in Asia. In short, Christianity is shifting to the south of the equator where Pentecostalism has experienced the largest growth.
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