Abstract
This attractive book, full of colourful tables, charts and illustrations along with number-tables, is a welcome ‘desk book’ for anyone engaging in global Christianity and its related studies. Published almost at the same time as a bigger and more expensive Atlas of Global Christianity (Johnson and Ross, 2009), this book deserves wide use. The author, Patrick Johnstone, is a guru in Christian statistics in our day. He served as a field missionary, mission strategist, and a global mission statesman. His Christian statistics tradition began with Operation World (OW) in its six editions (from 1965). The publication of this global mission prayer guide turned out to be a treasure house for global Christian statistics. In each OW edition, each country is presented with factual figures, and six chronological reference points offer a clear trajectory of half a century. Of course, they become a rich source for analyses and projection for the future. This OW tradition has now resulted in this mini-atlas of world Christianity zooming in to the period between 1960 and 2050.
This book is organized around Johnstone’s philosophy of history: the Great Commission (p. 21). This perspective comes with two main players: God and humans, as Chapter 2 (‘History: 20 Centuries AD’) illustrate. Thus, the author wishes that the book would better prepare ‘for the ministry in the 21st century’ (p. 21). The book progresses from a macro landscape of the world to a specific concern for mission. Chapter 1 (‘Demography: Nine global Challenges’) sets a firm background where the majority of global Christians live and witness, at present and in the foreseeable future. The list of nine challenges is illustrative, but also it does not include ‘Religions’ as the book deals with them intensely. The moves to ‘History: 20 Centuries AD’, which I like very much. Each century receives one page for ‘secular’ history, and the other page for ‘Christian history’. Following this, Chapter 3 discusses ‘Religion: The Major Streams’, surveying the major world religions, including ‘The Non-Religious’. Each group is introduced with its geographical spread, its growth/decline pattern (in comparison with Christianity) between 1900 and 2050. Chapter 4 (‘Christianity: Six Megablocs’) divides today’s Christian families into: Orthodox (or Eastern), Anglican (or Celtic), Catholic, Protestant and Independent. They are presented by continents and also between the global North (or ‘EuNAPa’) and the South (or ‘AfAsLA’), a clumsy but clever idea! Each megabloc receives separate treatment. Chapter 5 (‘Christianity: Renewal Growth’) focuses on the ‘Charismatics’ (Johnstone’s choice to refer to the ‘renewalists’ or ‘pentecostals’). Although the chapter is devoted to the twentieth-century rise of the Charismatic Christianity (also by continents, and between Pentecostals and non-Pentecostal Charismatics), Evangelical awakenings from the eighteenth century provide a useful backdrop for the modern renewal movements. Chapter 6 (‘Christianity: The Evangelical Explosion’) reveals the author’s conviction that Evangelical Christianity (along with Charismatics, majority of whom are Evangelicals) holds a key to world evangelization. After a discussion on the identity of evangelicals, continental close-ups take up much of the chapter. The last three chapters (Chapter 7, ‘the Unevangelized’; Chapter 8, ‘Christian Mission and Future’; and Chapter 9, ‘Conclusion: An Evangelized World?’) take the readers back to the author’s main interest: How can the Great Commission be fulfilled in our generation? The ‘Unevangelized’ chapter is almost a ‘strategy’ chapter, identifying affinity blocs, and detailed treatment of 11 clusters or people groups that are to receive a priority attention for mission bodies and churches. This chapter is the longest (63 pages), and this indicates the author’s missionary intent for this book. The penultimate chapter begins with an ideal model of church and mission (p. 225). The key, according to the five models is the position of the world in relation with various ‘members’ of the church (e.g., ‘denomination’, ‘theological institutions’, ‘mission agencies’, etc.). The author contends that the church and mission agencies are to be in close partnership for the evangelization of the world. Johnstone’s ‘Food for Thought’ for the concluding chapter sums up his sense of future mission:
The magnitude of the unfinished task is daunting. Most of the countries in the tables on this page [that is, p. 237] are Muslim-majority, and early all are unevangelized as a result of governmental and social oppression, discrimination and persecution. The barriers can be broken down only by prayer followed by innovative and courageous action.
As I would do with any reference work, instead of reading cover to cover, I closely read two sections: the chapters on ‘20 centuries AD’ (Chapter 2) and ‘Renewal’ (Chapter 5). The genius of the book is the presentation of macro picture of Christianity. The continental demographic presentations of Charismatics help the reader to instantly recognize a vast difference among the contexts (e.g., pp. 128–129). Illustrations brilliantly offer historical trajectories, and they also serve as basis for future projections. Thus, the author contends that the Charismatics, along with the Evangelicals, will play a vital role in the shaping of future global Christianity. But this superb presentation does not come without problems. At one point, as ‘Evangelicals’ and ‘Charismatics’ are placed side by side, I had to wonder if the Charismatic’ portion of ‘Evangelicals’ is included in the ‘Non-Pentecostal Charismatics’. Equally confusing is the use of certain terms. For example, ‘Charismatic’ is not generally used as an umbrella term (except ‘Charismatic Christianity’) to refer to the ‘renewalists’. I also wondered how to interpret the use of ‘Third Wave’ in this book. They, however, are ‘dusts on a jade’, as the main focus of the book is on the mega-picture of Christianity, and the book well fulfils this expectation. Equally informative is the historical section, providing a two-page whirlwind survey of each century. The readers can use the presented data and create more.
The book is full of interesting data and presentations. Several important features of the book are: 1) The abundance of illustrative graphs, maps, charts and tables; 2) Unlike the Atlas, this book often does not reveal the real numbers that give birth to all the illustrations (I suppose that the OW provides the numbers); 3) The author’s clear intention to ‘dialogue’ with the readers (who are assumed to be committed Christians) is quite evident, especially through ‘Food for Thought’ and ‘Burning Question’ for each presentation; and 4) The author’s motive is also evident: to present the data in the book to help Christians to fulfil their missionary mandate.
This is an excellent source book, and many great insights can be generated. At the same time, it is affordable, especially in comparison to the Atlas. If and when I teach a course on or about global Christianity, I would require our students to purchase this book (especially the electronic or paperback edition), while I keep the Atlas as a reserve reference readily available to the class. I am also using the pdf version for my presentations. It’s a great teaching tool!