Purchase
The New Faces of Christianity
Philip Jenkins
Believing the Bible in the Global South
Oxford University Press
September 2006
On Sale: September 4, 2006
272 pages
ISBN: 0195300653
EAN: 9780195300659
Hardcover
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction Religion
Named one of the top religion books of 2002 by USA Today,
Philip Jenkins' phenomenally successful The Next Christendom
permanently changed the way people think about the future of
Christianity. In that volume, Jenkins called the world's
attention to the little noticed fact that Christianity's
center of gravity was moving inexorably southward, to the
point that Africa may soon be home to the world's largest
Christian populations. Now, in this brilliant sequel,
Jenkins takes a much closer look at Christianity in the
global South, revealing what it is like, and what it means
for the future. The faith of the South, Jenkins finds, is first and foremost
a biblical faith. Indeed, in the global South, many
Christians identify powerfully with the world portrayed in
the New Testament--an agricultural world very much like
their own, marked by famine and plague, poverty and exile, until
very recently a society of peasants, farmers, and small
craftsmen. In the global South, as in the biblical world,
belief in spirits and witchcraft are commonplace, and in
many places--such as Nigeria, Indonesia, and
Sudan--Christians are persecuted just as early Christians
were. Thus the Bible
speaks to the global South with a vividness and authenticity
simply unavailable to most believers in the industrialized
North. More important, Jenkins shows that throughout the global
South, believers are reading the Bible with fresh eyes, and
coming away with new and sometimes startling
interpretations. Some of their conclusions are distinctly
fundamentalist, but Jenkins finds an intriguing paradox, for
they are also
finding ideas in the Bible that are socially liberating,
especially with respect to women's rights. Across Africa,
Asia, and Latin America, such Christians are social
activists in the forefront of a wide range of liberation
movements. It's hard to overstate how interesting, how eye-opening, how
frequently surprising (and sometimes disturbing) Jenkins'
findings are. Anyone interested in the implications of these
trends for the major denominations, for Muslim-Christian
conflict, and for global politics will find The New Faces
of Christianity provocative and incisive--and indispensable.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
| 
© 2003-2025 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy