Pastor Glenn McDonald: A Whole New World

The best trivia questions are ones in which you don’t see the answer coming.

For instance, which states lie at the farthermost points of the compass – north, south, east, and west?

North is easy. That would be Alaska. South might require a quick glance at the globe. It’s not Texas or Florida, but Hawaii. For the westernmost state, the answer is not California or Oregon, but Alaska once again, and by a long shot. The Aleutian Islands stretch far across the Pacific.

That leaves the easternmost state in the union. Maine seems like a slam dunk. But the correct answer, yet again, is Alaska, since the Aleutians actually cross the International Date Line.

Who would have thought that a single state represents America’s farthest extent in three different directions?

Here’s a bit of church history trivia: What’s the fastest-growing subgroup in all of Christianity?

You might not see the answer coming. It’s Pentecostalism, and by a mile. In the year 1900 there were only a few hundred people on the planet who subscribed to the teaching that every follower of Jesus needs a “second blessing” after conversion – the baptism of the Holy Spirit, usually accompanied by speaking in tongues.

According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, there are currently 279 million Pentecostals scattered around the world. In addition, there are some 305 million charismatics – Christian believers who belong to non-Pentecostal churches (such as Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants of every stripe) but who share many of the same convictions about the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Analysts at the Pew Forum have calculated that 27% of the world’s Christians fall into this combined Spirit-focused category – a number which also represents 8% of the world’s total population.

The most remarkable aspect of this reality is how quickly it happened.

The origins of Pentecostalism are usually traced to what the Los Angeles Times described as a major eruption of “strange utterances” in a “tumbledown shack” on LA’s Azusa Street over a period of three days in April 1906.

A black Baptist holiness pastor named William J. Seymour had recently been invited to help lead a Nazarene congregation in the city. Seymour taught that Christians needed to actively seek a dynamic encounter with the Spirit. The irony is that his new church concluded it wanted nothing to do with what they perceived as spiritual chaos.

Seymour therefore invited interested individuals to gather at the humble building on Azusa Street. As word spread about the outbreak of “glossolalia,” it became Ground Zero for visitors from around the world. 

Pentecostalism has always had an anti-denominational strain, and its early leaders quarreled vigorously about the best way to go forward. The Assemblies of God, the largest Pentecostal body, was actually launched as an attempt to bring some cohesion to the surging movement. 

The modern charismatic renewal, meanwhile, suddenly came into view in the spring of 1960 at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Van Nuys, California. Several members revealed that they had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Dennis Bennett, the rector, was as surprised as anyone when he began speaking in tongues, too. Suddenly he was plunged into the national spotlight. Charismatic activity quickly spread from coast to coast.

If Pentecostalism has been especially attractive to members of the working classes, the charismatic movement began as a middle and upper class phenomenon.

Today it’s almost a given that every congregation (including yours) has at least a few adherents who, whether openly or privately, are speaking in tongues, teaching prophetically, or offering healing in Jesus’ name.

Just 125 years ago, that would have seemed incredible.

Another unexpected development is happening right now, even as you read this reflection. The global center of Christianity is heading in a new direction. 

The historian Andrew Walls has pointed out that every major religion except Christianity has an enduring geographical center. Hinduism began in south Asia and it is still primarily at home on the Indian subcontinent. Buddhism remains centered in eastern and southeastern Asia. Confucianism is thoroughly Chinese. Shinto is centered in Japan. Islam, the world’s second largest faith, has an inviolable middle eastern pedigree, which is why Muslims pray in the direction of Mecca five times daily. 

The Jesus movement is different.

It was originally centered in Israel, where Christ lived and died and rose from the dead. After Rome obliterated Jerusalem in A.D. 70, Christians migrated eastward throughout the Mediterranean world. As the empire imploded, Christianity’s center gradually moved north into Europe. Then it hopped the Atlantic Ocean and spread throughout the New World. While Catholics remind us that Rome has always been their spiritual center, one can make a strong case that the throbbing heart of Christianity has been located in Britain and America during the past two centuries. 

But all that has changed during our lifetimes.

The faith that honors Jesus has stagnated – first in Europe and now in North America. But it is exploding in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, even in the face of fierce persecution. Christianity’s “center of gravity” has gradually migrated south of the equator – something that missiologists could hardly have imagined in 1900.

It’s quite possible that Billy Graham was the last Anglo to be regarded as the most recognized Christian leader on earth. The next such person will probably be a person of color from the Global South.

If current trends continue, the nations with the largest Christian populations in the year 2050 will be Brazil, India, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, and Uganda. And the largest Christian population of all? That will be found in China, where demographers are currently reporting a 7-8% growth rate in the Christian community.

The evangelistic explosion in China has been likened to a second book of Acts.

It’s possible that within 10 years there will be more Christians in the People’s Republic of China than there are citizens in the United States – some 350 million believers, most of them first generation followers of Jesus, hungry to be taught and ready to discover how to live and work as the Body of Christ.

It’s a whole new world. 

Why isn’t such miraculous growth happening where we live?

Andrew Walls shrugs his shoulders. “God goes where he is wanted.”

Until revival or reformation grips our nation – until we truly want God to be God, and not just a religious hobby, or a political bumper sticker, or a heavenly therapist whose only job is to make us feel happy – God’s reign will be growing and thriving somewhere else.

Remember Jesus’ assurance that “many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11). 

That prediction no doubt takes into account every point on the compass.

And there’s nothing trivial about that.