The Inevitability of World Revival
I want to make a case for world revival apart from prophetic scriptures. It rests in part on fascinating recent statistics coming out of China as well other parts of the world and part on the now inevitable and visible collapse of belief systems worldwide...which will leave evangelical Christianity as the dominant world belief system.
The world media are starting to recognize that Charismatic-evangelical Christianity is now a force in the world and the new “mainline” Protestant faith…all other churches are declining in numbers and influence.
The Economist magazine is the publication read by most of the world leaders in politics and business. The reason is that The Economist has an outstanding Intelligence Unit that is well known for data collection and trend analysis. Interestingly they have regularly reported on the world wide growth of Pentecostalism. World leaders and business leaders take note.
Here is a headline from their 23 January 2016 print edition:
Global Pentecostalism: Ecstasy and exodus
By 2025 Pentecostals will number 800 million.
A quote from the article:
Todd Johnson of America’s Centre for the Study of Global Christianity reckons that as of 2010, these charismatic worshippers amounted to a quarter of the world’s 2.3 billion Christians; by 2025 he expects their number to reach 800m. It is often noted by religion-watchers that Christianity globally is becoming more southern and exuberant. But the success of Pentecostalism and its imitators also highlights a more subtle point: the need for a kind of religion that is flexible enough to suit people in transit, whether between the southern hemisphere and the northern, between the countryside and the city, or between poverty and wealth. Whatever their style, Pentecostal pastors are culturally closer to their flock than are the learned clerics of the Catholic or Lutheran churches; and they are numerous. A study in 2007 found that in Brazil Pentecostal churches had 18 times more clerics per believer than the majority Catholics. As Mr Miller points out, older churches move slowly because they are lumbered with hierarchies and rules; the Pentecostal world is one of quick start-ups, low barriers to entry and instant reaction to change.
The trends are clear. The future of world Christianity is Charismatic Christianity and the future one world religion is Charismatic Christianity. I know your preacher is telling you the future one world religion is the Antichrist and the False Prophet. That is outdated false prophecy.
Actually the Economist is underestimating the future revival. I read a quote this last week from the Iranian interior minister admitting that if they legalized Christianity there would be at least one million Iranian Christians. There is explosive growth of Charismatic Christianity among Muslim nations...secret and in house meetings.
Bibles are being downloaded by the millions from the internet, YouTube has billions of views and that includes testimonies of healings, angels, salvation, visits to heaven, miracles, teachings. The knowledge of the Lord is filling the earth. Politics as a mechanism of national salvation is losing everywhere as people realize there is no political revolution that is going to change anything. Ask the Arab Spring visionaries. Ask the colour revolutions in Eastern Europe. Ask the Communist revolutionaries.
In South America: Half the Population of Brazil to be Evangelical by 2020
Researchers at international missions organization SEPAL (Servidos aos Pastores e Lideres) used data from Brazil’s Census 2000 survey and from a March 2007 study conducted by Datafolha, a major domestic information firm. Their conclusion from the growth rates of the charismatic evangelical movement indicated that there were already 57.4 million evangelicals in the country in 2011 (a third of the population) and by 2020 they expect evangelicals to make up 52% of Brazil’s population or about 109.3 million. Most of these evangelicals are charismatic or Pentecostal believers.
In Latin America…
The same trend evident all across Latin America…Guatemala’s population is already 60% Pentecostal and charismatic. Says the Economist magazine: “In Guatemala Pentecostalism is sweeping all before it. The Catholic cathedral still dominates the main square in Guatemala City but…Pentecostal gatherings are ubiquitous in the city…in respectable hotels, in disused shops, in huge modern stadiums…and a huge new church in town seating 12,000 people.”
In Africa…
In Kenya charismatic preachers in thousands of churches across the country have a third of the country in their meetings every Sunday. According to the World Christian Encyclopedia about 17m Africans described themselves as “born-again” Christians in 1970. Today the figure has soared to over 400 million or more than a third of Africa’s population. And these African Christians are following a strong evangelical tradition regardless of their denomination. The Anglican church in Africa has rejected the liberalism of their mother church in England. They believe in the inerrancy of the Bible as the Word of God and reject ordination of homosexual priests. Even their mode of worship is no longer traditional Anglican but is infused with the praise and worship music of the charismatic churches. The same is true for the Catholics in Africa.
Alec Ryrie professor of History of Christianity at Britain’s Durham University in his book “Protestants” (released in 2017) in his last chapter of the book “Pentecostalism: An Old Flame” he advances the idea that Pentecostalism is now the mainstream global faith. On page 445 I quote:
“In 2010 it was estimated that there were over 177 million Pentecostals in Africa….The 2010 study estimated that 47% of South Africans, 48% of Zimbabweans, and 36% of Ghanaians were Pentecostals. In Nigeria the proportion was slightly lower at 30% but that still comes to more than 48 million people.”
In Soweto the sprawling township outside Johannesburg there are more than 900 churches.
China…
I read a fascinating article in a magazine called This Week which is a sort of interesting analysis every week of world trends. The article that caught my attention was entitled "Can Christianity Save China?".
The author not being a Christian had a very interesting analysis on why he thought that yes Christianity is in fact in the process of saving China. And by "saving" he obviously did not mean it in the sense we use it as in "saving souls" but in saving a nation from chaotic collapse.
Which naturally made me think of many other places in the world that Christianity is also going to be the "saviour" of collapsing social, political and economic orders and therefore hence my argument: Regardless of your view of the "end times", there is world revival coming and we as a Church better get ourselves prepared for the responsibility of discipling nations into the Kingdom of God.
The author of the article presents the results of a recent study done by Prof. Fenggyang Yang the director of the Center of Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University. The study done there of the phenomenal growth of Christianity in China (and that is predominantly Protestant growth he says for which you can also take to read charismatic evangelical Christianity) makes the following surprising prediction: At the current growth rates it is expected that by 2025 the Christian population of China will be somewhere between 250-300 million people!
And let me emphasize this: These are not nominal Sunday Christians. These are people who are making a stand for Christ in the face of ongoing persecution and suppression by the Chinese authorities of the Christian faith.
The author states:
"Surprised? That makes sense. The Chinese Communist Party has done all it can to downplay this phenomenon and keep a tight media lid on it. Meanwhile, Western media outlets are so taken with the idea that religion is an irrelevant (and declining) facet of modern life that they don't pay attention to its growth in most places outside calcified Western Europe".
Asia…
Apart from the rapid growth in China, other nations like Korea and Singapore are also experiencing large evangelical charismatic movements in the population. In Korea a third of the population are estimated to be evangelical Christians and most of those are charismatics. In the capital city of Seoul, 5 of the worlds largest 10 churches are based here. The largest is Yoido Full Gospel Church opposite the nation’s national assembly. It has 830,000 members with 1 in 20 of Seoul’s inhabitants attending one of the many services on a Sunday. Today Korea is a mission sending nation with over 15,000 Korean missionaries going out to the world preaching the gospel.
Why would the Lord want to take us out of the world especially now that we are winning the lost at ever increasing revivals? What are we going to do now that the multitudes are coming to salvation?
I want to make a case for world revival apart from prophetic scriptures. It rests in part on fascinating recent statistics coming out of China as well other parts of the world and part on the now inevitable and visible collapse of belief systems worldwide...which will leave evangelical Christianity as the dominant world belief system.
The world media are starting to recognize that Charismatic-evangelical Christianity is now a force in the world and the new “mainline” Protestant faith…all other churches are declining in numbers and influence.
The Economist magazine is the publication read by most of the world leaders in politics and business. The reason is that The Economist has an outstanding Intelligence Unit that is well known for data collection and trend analysis. Interestingly they have regularly reported on the world wide growth of Pentecostalism. World leaders and business leaders take note.
Here is a headline from their 23 January 2016 print edition:
Global Pentecostalism: Ecstasy and exodus
By 2025 Pentecostals will number 800 million.
A quote from the article:
Todd Johnson of America’s Centre for the Study of Global Christianity reckons that as of 2010, these charismatic worshippers amounted to a quarter of the world’s 2.3 billion Christians; by 2025 he expects their number to reach 800m. It is often noted by religion-watchers that Christianity globally is becoming more southern and exuberant. But the success of Pentecostalism and its imitators also highlights a more subtle point: the need for a kind of religion that is flexible enough to suit people in transit, whether between the southern hemisphere and the northern, between the countryside and the city, or between poverty and wealth. Whatever their style, Pentecostal pastors are culturally closer to their flock than are the learned clerics of the Catholic or Lutheran churches; and they are numerous. A study in 2007 found that in Brazil Pentecostal churches had 18 times more clerics per believer than the majority Catholics. As Mr Miller points out, older churches move slowly because they are lumbered with hierarchies and rules; the Pentecostal world is one of quick start-ups, low barriers to entry and instant reaction to change.
The trends are clear. The future of world Christianity is Charismatic Christianity and the future one world religion is Charismatic Christianity. I know your preacher is telling you the future one world religion is the Antichrist and the False Prophet. That is outdated false prophecy.
Actually the Economist is underestimating the future revival. I read a quote this last week from the Iranian interior minister admitting that if they legalized Christianity there would be at least one million Iranian Christians. There is explosive growth of Charismatic Christianity among Muslim nations...secret and in house meetings.
Bibles are being downloaded by the millions from the internet, YouTube has billions of views and that includes testimonies of healings, angels, salvation, visits to heaven, miracles, teachings. The knowledge of the Lord is filling the earth. Politics as a mechanism of national salvation is losing everywhere as people realize there is no political revolution that is going to change anything. Ask the Arab Spring visionaries. Ask the colour revolutions in Eastern Europe. Ask the Communist revolutionaries.
In South America: Half the Population of Brazil to be Evangelical by 2020
Researchers at international missions organization SEPAL (Servidos aos Pastores e Lideres) used data from Brazil’s Census 2000 survey and from a March 2007 study conducted by Datafolha, a major domestic information firm. Their conclusion from the growth rates of the charismatic evangelical movement indicated that there were already 57.4 million evangelicals in the country in 2011 (a third of the population) and by 2020 they expect evangelicals to make up 52% of Brazil’s population or about 109.3 million. Most of these evangelicals are charismatic or Pentecostal believers.
In Latin America…
The same trend evident all across Latin America…Guatemala’s population is already 60% Pentecostal and charismatic. Says the Economist magazine: “In Guatemala Pentecostalism is sweeping all before it. The Catholic cathedral still dominates the main square in Guatemala City but…Pentecostal gatherings are ubiquitous in the city…in respectable hotels, in disused shops, in huge modern stadiums…and a huge new church in town seating 12,000 people.”
In Africa…
In Kenya charismatic preachers in thousands of churches across the country have a third of the country in their meetings every Sunday. According to the World Christian Encyclopedia about 17m Africans described themselves as “born-again” Christians in 1970. Today the figure has soared to over 400 million or more than a third of Africa’s population. And these African Christians are following a strong evangelical tradition regardless of their denomination. The Anglican church in Africa has rejected the liberalism of their mother church in England. They believe in the inerrancy of the Bible as the Word of God and reject ordination of homosexual priests. Even their mode of worship is no longer traditional Anglican but is infused with the praise and worship music of the charismatic churches. The same is true for the Catholics in Africa.
Alec Ryrie professor of History of Christianity at Britain’s Durham University in his book “Protestants” (released in 2017) in his last chapter of the book “Pentecostalism: An Old Flame” he advances the idea that Pentecostalism is now the mainstream global faith. On page 445 I quote:
“In 2010 it was estimated that there were over 177 million Pentecostals in Africa….The 2010 study estimated that 47% of South Africans, 48% of Zimbabweans, and 36% of Ghanaians were Pentecostals. In Nigeria the proportion was slightly lower at 30% but that still comes to more than 48 million people.”
In Soweto the sprawling township outside Johannesburg there are more than 900 churches.
China…
I read a fascinating article in a magazine called This Week which is a sort of interesting analysis every week of world trends. The article that caught my attention was entitled "Can Christianity Save China?".
The author not being a Christian had a very interesting analysis on why he thought that yes Christianity is in fact in the process of saving China. And by "saving" he obviously did not mean it in the sense we use it as in "saving souls" but in saving a nation from chaotic collapse.
Which naturally made me think of many other places in the world that Christianity is also going to be the "saviour" of collapsing social, political and economic orders and therefore hence my argument: Regardless of your view of the "end times", there is world revival coming and we as a Church better get ourselves prepared for the responsibility of discipling nations into the Kingdom of God.
The author of the article presents the results of a recent study done by Prof. Fenggyang Yang the director of the Center of Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University. The study done there of the phenomenal growth of Christianity in China (and that is predominantly Protestant growth he says for which you can also take to read charismatic evangelical Christianity) makes the following surprising prediction: At the current growth rates it is expected that by 2025 the Christian population of China will be somewhere between 250-300 million people!
And let me emphasize this: These are not nominal Sunday Christians. These are people who are making a stand for Christ in the face of ongoing persecution and suppression by the Chinese authorities of the Christian faith.
The author states:
"Surprised? That makes sense. The Chinese Communist Party has done all it can to downplay this phenomenon and keep a tight media lid on it. Meanwhile, Western media outlets are so taken with the idea that religion is an irrelevant (and declining) facet of modern life that they don't pay attention to its growth in most places outside calcified Western Europe".
Asia…
Apart from the rapid growth in China, other nations like Korea and Singapore are also experiencing large evangelical charismatic movements in the population. In Korea a third of the population are estimated to be evangelical Christians and most of those are charismatics. In the capital city of Seoul, 5 of the worlds largest 10 churches are based here. The largest is Yoido Full Gospel Church opposite the nation’s national assembly. It has 830,000 members with 1 in 20 of Seoul’s inhabitants attending one of the many services on a Sunday. Today Korea is a mission sending nation with over 15,000 Korean missionaries going out to the world preaching the gospel.
Why would the Lord want to take us out of the world especially now that we are winning the lost at ever increasing revivals? What are we going to do now that the multitudes are coming to salvation?