Western Religion

Grant Montgomery – Grant’s Rants on Christianity as a Western Religion

Have you ever heard Christianity bad-mouthed as a “Western” or “white man’s” religion?

Well, for starters, Christianity began in the Middle East, not in the West. The founder of Christianity was born there, the first bodies of believers were also established there before spreading into Africa and further into Asia, well before Christianity was ever associated with “the West”.

Secondly, of all the continents in the world, presently Africa is home to the most number of Christians! The Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (2018) has determined that more than 631 million Christians reside in Africa.

Second is Latin America, estimated to have 601 million Christians.

Next on the list of the continents with the most Christians is:
Europe with 571 million Christians,
Asia with 388 million (which includes up to 120 million Chinese, working in secret)
North America with 277 million Christians,
Oceania with 29 million Christians.

  • “Christian” above includes Catholics, Protestants, Independents and Orthodox.

From the vantage point of those in North America –where church membership has been going nowhere for years– you may not be aware of the biggest mega-shift in history.

For the last one hundred years, the percentage of the world that is “Christian” (many of those in fossilizing, tradition-bound, highly-centralized and strategically useless organizations) has held steady at about 33 to 34% …while other parts of the world are growing at warp speed.

Up until 1960, Christians in western countries outnumbered non-westerners by 2 to 1.
By 2000, non-westerners (Africans, Asians, Latin Americans) had shot ahead 4 to 1.
By 2010, it was 7 to 1!                                          [Source: “Mega Shift” by James Rutz]

Bottom line: Most people who identify themselves as Christians do not live in the so-called “Christian West”. Furthermore, there are now more missionaries sent from non-western nations than western nations.

 

Grant Montgomery – Grant’s Rants on Christianity as a “Western Religion”