CALVIN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY FORUMWINTER 2015 of Global Christianity at Calvin Seminary 1 CALVIN SEMINARY FORUM • WINTER 2015 CALVIN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY ProvidingFORUM Theological Leadership for the Church from the Volume 22, Number 1 Winter 2015 president Ripples of Global Christianity at Calvin Seminary Julius T. Medenblik Articles 3 Emerging World Christianity Seeing and Believing by Albert Strydhorst hat do you like about being President of Calvin Theological 6 Seminary? My answer to this very frequent question focuses on Ph.D. Program Serves the W our students and the privilege to join a world-class faculty and staff in Church Around the World creating a learning environment that prepares persons for engagement in by Bruce Buursma the mission of God. 8 Country Profiles Calvin Theological Seminary is a seminary that has a global reach and impact. Since being named as President, I have had the privilege of traveling 8 Brazil by John W. Cooper to Nigeria, South Korea and Egypt where I have seen God at work through and Carl J. Bosma our graduates. God is at work across the world. 9 China by Sarah Schreiber 10 Indonesia by Dean Deppe Nearly every semester, students from twenty different countries come 12 Mexico by Mariano Avila together to learn at Calvin Theological Seminary. 30% of our student body 14 Nigeria by Albert Strydhorst comes from outside the United States and Canada. The world is present in 15 Pakistan by Emily R. Brink the Student Center of Calvin Seminary. 16 South Korea by Sarah Chun It is while being at Calvin Seminary that I have truly seen and experienced what Philip Jenkins wrote about in his influential bookThe Called to Serve Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (A prior seminal 2002 18 “Atlantic Monthly” article with the same focus can be found at http://www. What’s Transcendant About the Arts? theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/10/the-next-christianity/302591/). Jeremy Begbie Delivers Stob Lectures by Bruce Buursma In this issue, we present a mosaic of stories. These are not all the stories that could be shared, but they are a sample of the larger whole. These stories challenge us about how the Christian faith is foundational for personal and Cover: fotosearch.com societal renewal. The Calvin Theological Seminary Forum is published in Winter, Spring and Fall editions. These stories inform and challenge us to pray for the church. These Calvin Theological Seminary, 3233 Burton St. SE, stories inform, challenge and encourage us about the formative role of Grand Rapids, MI 49546. seminary education in raising up leaders who as disciples of Jesus Christ The Forum is available at www.calvinseminary.edu will be involved in forming more disciples of Jesus Christ. Designer: Paul Stoub, Stoub Graphics Photography: Steve Huyser-Honig, Paul Stoub We hope that as you “see” these stories, that it will encourage your belief © 2014 Calvin Theological Seminary that the God who so loved the world is still at work in loving the world and PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT NO. 40063614 forming His Church! RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO: CALVIN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 3475 MAINWAY, LCD STN 1 BURLINGTON, ON L7M 1A9 email: [email protected] 2 CALVIN SEMINARY FORUM • WINTER 2015 RIPPLES OF GLOBAL CHRISTIANITY AT CALVIN SEMINARY Emerging World Christianity he Redeemed Christian then briefly and very generally by Albert The church is experienc- Church of God (RCCG), describe three features of this Strydhorst, ing amazing growth, but so Field Operations which meets at Redemp- emerging world Christianity. is the world. A century ago, Director, Timothy tion Camp in Southern The hope is to spark gratitude Leadership Training world population was 1.8 bil- Nigeria, has outgrown for the movement of God’s Institute lion, with Christians making its worship auditorium. So announced Spirit and initiate informed dis- up about one third of that.* TGeneral Overseer Enoch Adeboye cussions and action in response. Today, world population is during the Holy Ghost Service in 7.2 billion, with the 2.4 billion August 2013. This is hardly remarkable What Growth, Exactly? Christians making up about news—except for the fact that the audi- Sometimes rhetoric about one third. The church is not torium already seats over half a million the phenomenal growth of the growing any faster than the people. church soars to great heights. world. The RCCG is one of the fastest- To hear some reports, one may In these calculations, a growing churches in the world. Started wonder why the final trumpet Christian is defined as anyone in 1952, the church now has a global hasn’t already sounded. who self-identifies as such—a very broad membership of about 5 million. It is definition. The rate of growth is different Pentecostal in its theology, emphasizing if one is talking about specific expres- obedience to the Bible, prayer, fast- sions of faith within Christianity. ing, miraculous healing, and material For example, evangelicals—those What is truly ▼ prosperity. Furthermore, it has global aspirations: one of its stated goals is remarkable is not * Most of the statistical references in to have a member of RCCG in every that the church is this article come from two excellent, family on earth. exhaustive studies: Christianity in its The growth and theology of the growing so fast but Global Context by the Center for the RCCG give evidence of what church that it is moving from Study of Global Christianity (2013, historians such as Andrew Walls, http://wwwgordonconwell.com/ Lamin Sanneh, and Philip Jenkins have north to south and netcommunity/CSGCResources/ been saying for decades: the numerical from west to east. It ChristianityinitsGlobalContext. strength and evangelistic passion of pdf) and Global Christianity by the Christianity is shifting to the south. is all about the shift. Pew Research Center (2011, http:// This article will sketch out some www.pewforum.org/files/2011/12/ of the highlights of this shift and Christianity-fullreport-web.pdf). 3 CALVIN SEMINARY FORUM • WINTER 2015 Emerging World Christianity ▼ From its beginnings who profess a personal relationship with in the Los Angeles growth in previous years was predomi- God, recognize the Bible as the Word of Azusa Street revival nantly in animist contexts; what largely God, and believe they are to spread their remains now are Muslim populations faith—are growing about twice as fast as in 1906, [charismatic among whom Christian converts have the population. As many as 20 percent Christianity] has grown historically been meager. of all Christians are evangelical. But now consider the story devel- Pentecostal Christianity is growing to become the faith oping in China. Thirty years ago it was even faster than evangelical faith, at expression of a quarter unclear if Christianity had even sur- about four times the population growth vived the Cultural Revolution; today it rate. But even with the evangelical and of all Christians. is clear not only that it has, but that it is Pentecostal growth, losses in other tra- growing rapidly. The gravitational cen- ditions keep the growth of Christianity ter of Christianity has not only moved on track with the world’s population. today that number is 1 in 4. south; it is also shifting east. What is truly remarkable is not that The election in 2013 of the Argen- And the church in China has room the church is growing so fast but that tinian Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis to grow, with more than 1.2 billion it is moving from north to south and was also a significant marker of the Chinese who do not profess to be from west to east. It is all about the southward shift. In addition to his Christian. A Chinese scholar visiting shift. other credentials, Pope Francis’s moth- Calvin Seminary recently noted that er-tongue is Spanish—already by 1980 the time could be soon when China is Christianity Moving South… the leading language of church mem- the largest church and mission field. The gravitational center of Chris- bership in the world. tianity is moving from the global The global South is called the major- A Conservative Faith North—understood as Europe and ity world for a reason—over 80 percent The Christian faith that is spread- North America—to the global South, or of the world’s population lives there. ing rapidly and coming to characterize majority world—understood as Africa, So even though only 25 percent of world Christianity is theologically con- Asia, and Latin America—and east- the global South is Christian com- servative, biblically oriented—even ward. The “gravitational center of world pared with 70 percent in the North, the fundamentalist—and marked by tradi- Christianity” is that point on the globe numerical advantage clearly goes to the tional social values and morals. with an equal number of Christians to South. What will drive the trajectory This conservative faith took promi- the north, south, east and west. south even faster is that Christianity as nence in the 1998 Lambeth Conference Imagine a see-saw going from a percentage of the population in the of the Anglican Communion. While north to south. Now picture Chris- global North is declining at a dramatic the Lambeth deliberations had tradi- tians getting on the south end and rate, while it is rising in the South. tionally been dominated by bishops off of the north end. The fulcrum, or The situation in China—home to 1.4 from Europe and North America, their point on the globe, would need to shift billion people—illustrates the weight names on the 1998 participants list were south to keep gravitational balance. of numbers. It is estimated that the in the minority. Almost one third of the That shift is what has happened in the Christian population is 7 percent of the clerics hailed from Africa—a visual past century.