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There's bad news for secularists, agnostics, and atheists who lust for ? and have for ages predicted ? an end to all religion. Ever since the 19th and throughout the 20th century there were thinkers who prophesied that humanity was about to enter a golden age without a trace of gods or any need to worship.
Scientific rationality would eventually do away with all "superstitions" and need for "heavenly crutches." Former spiritual aspirations would find total fulfillment in this- worldly concerns.
They couldn't have been more wrong.
But, the news is not good either for those yearning to see the radical renewal or replacement of the rigidly oppressive, ultra-conservative religions of the past with a more open, intellectually-based, contemporary grasp of ancient truths. Christians looking for "an answering theology" to prevail instead of shallow, literalistic supernaturalism have grounds for disappointment, too. The truth, the bitterest pill, for both groups to swallow, for opposite reasons, is that fundamentalist-type religion, both in Islamic and in Christian dress, has never been stronger (outside the developed world) and is growing virulently in the most populous regions.
For example, a Pentecostal-style Christianity, which preaches a personal Jesus, tight orthodoxy, an emotional, blind faith, and obedience to authority ? together with belief in an interventionary God who works selective miracles on order and casts out demons ? is seducing the southern half of the planet, especially South America, and parts of Africa.
Since this is matched often by the growth of conservative Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism, the southern hemisphere is where the new centre of Christianity is now found. Similarly, Islam is spreading fast on many fronts. In places, the competition grows fierce.
In a book, The Next Christendom, and in an article in The Atlantic Magazine, "The Next Christianity," Philip Jenkins, a conservative scholar at Penn State University, claims there is a "huge story" here that many miss. Critics dispute some of his figures and conclusions, citing conservative bias, but much of what he says seems true.
Recently, I read an interview in The Atlantic Online (http://www.theatlantic.com/ unbound/interviews/int2002-09-12.htm) and commend it to those worrying about wider conflicts arising from a clash between Islam and Christianity in the overall struggle for hearts and minds.
Many potential collisions are where the Christian/Muslim interface lies along "fault lines" rich in oil and other coveted resources ? as in Nigeria, or in the southern Philippines. In places, the Philippines and Pakistan, for example, there has already been violence and, depending upon the interests of the rich countries, particularly the overwhelmingly Christian U.S., there's plenty of tinder for major religiously sparked conflagrations.
Jenkins argues that the calls, say, of U.S. Catholics for renewal, for ordaining women, more local autonomy, and married priests, don't really matter to the overall future of the Catholic Church worldwide. American Catholics make up only six per cent of the global church, and since a growing proportion of them are Latino or Asian ? seldom part of reform movements ? the push for change is negligible, he says.
A similar phenomenon is true of global Anglicanism. When the Anglican primates met in England this week to discuss the deep schism opening over the choice of a gay bishop by the U.S. Episcopal Church and the blessing of clerical gay unions in British Columbia, they were keenly aware that the real future of their denomination is not in North America and certainly not in Britain. The Anglican majority lies in Africa and any Anglican future will be seriously endangered if churches there decide to break away from their "erring" sisters of the north.
Jenkins sees China, with 20 per cent of Earth's population, as well as India with over a billion, as fields ripe for Islamic/Christian missionary competition. He predicts Christianity will continue to make the greatest gains until the end of this century because it is growing most quickly in the centres of greatest population. The crucial question is whether these spreading faiths will gradually liberalize as educational levels improve. I sincerely hope and believe they will. Right now, the most growth is in the most illiterate parts of the global village, but these millions will not remain uneducated and impoverished forever. Jenkins has doubts on this and that gives cause for worry. Some have called his predictions apocalyptic for this reason.
Parts of his analysis are wrong, however. For example, the push for married priests in Catholicism is not, as he claims, a purely European/North American obsession.
In Africa (as among Canada's aboriginals or in Latin America) celibacy is seen as wholly unnatural.
Journalists covering world synods of bishops in Rome know that African prelates often bring along their unofficial "wives" or concubines with them. Gay unions among priests exist throughout the Catholic Church worldwide. The hierarchy pretends otherwise.
In any case, one thing remains certain. Religion is here to stay.
(Theologian and author Tom Harpur's
books focus on spiritual growth. He can be reached at thestar@bmts.com.)
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