The New Frontiers of Protestantism
The New Frontiers of Protestantism
The Global South
The transformation of Protestantism in the twentieth century was the outcome of many forces, social and cultural as much as theological, that combined to give a new lease of life and sense of identity to a movement that seemed to some to be about to run into the enfolding sands of history in the aftermath of the First World War.
The shaping of Protestantism in the later twentieth century was dominated by the United States, which became the intellectual and entrepreneurial powerhouse of the movement after the Second World War. Yet the recent history of Protestant America is only part (although a very important part) of the greater story of the movement as a whole. For one of the most intriguing aspects of the transformation of Protestantism as the twentieth century proceeded was that America—and indeed, the entire Western homeland of Protestantism—began to lose its preeminence as other regions began to rise. Three factors combined to bring about this development.
First, the numerical center of Christianity, including Protestantism, shifted decisively away from the West between 1900 and 2000.1 Christianity is now predominantly a religion of the global South. Population growth in these areas, when set alongside the evangelistic and missionary successes of the twentieth century, has ensured that an increasing proportion of increasingly large populations are now Christian. For example, in 1900 the population of Africa was 10 million people, of whom 9 percent were Christian; in 2005 the population was more than 400 million, of whom 46 percent were Christian.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC;
Photo: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC/Art Resource, NY
Mount Cavalry, 1944, by William H. Johnson (1901–70).
Second, the styles of Christianity developing in Asia, Latin America, and Africa are noticeably different from those found in the United States, and even more different from those found in western Europe. The Protestantism of the global South tends to be more charismatic or Pentecostal, to maintain traditional moral values, and to have little time for the modernist modes of reading the Bible that have dominated the West until recently. As a result, the Protestant denominations of the global South tend to have more in common with each other than with their counterparts in America or Europe. African Lutherans tend to have more in common with African Methodists than with American Lutherans, despite the denominational link. This is especially evident in the case of Anglicanism: the totally different social mores and theological presuppositions of African and American Anglicans are causing serious, possibly irreconcilable, tensions within that denomination.
Finally, a new form of Christianity has emerged in the twentieth century, and it has now surged ahead in terms of its popular appeal, social impact, and, increasingly, its theological acumen. As noted in the previous chapter, Pentecostalism’s capacity to engage the urban poor and make Christianity accessible to the illiterate has led to the demographical transformation of Protestantism in many parts of the global South. Although the movement grew slowly until the late 1950s, it experienced sustained and spectacular growth thereafter, possibly unparalleled in the history of religion.
It is impossible in the scope of a single chapter to provide anything more than a sketch of the diversity, fecundity, and vitality of Protestant Christianity in the emerging world. In what follows, we highlight some of the most interesting developments and assess their implications both for an understanding of Protestant identity and for its future prospects and shape.
THE WESTERN RECOGNITION OF THE NEED FOR INDIGENIZATION
At the dawn of the twentieth century, Protestantism was at best a minority presence outside the West, sustained largely by Western missionaries. The great Edinburgh mission conference of 1910 had set an agenda that was interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War. Once the war was over, Western Protestants turned their attention to renewing and reinvigorating the missionary enterprise.2 Yet it soon became clear that things were changing. The war—which had seen death and devastation on an unprecedented scale—created serious difficulties for the entire missionary enterprise. How could Christianity be commended to the world when Christian nations had caused and participated in so scandalous a war?
From about 1920, a new mind-set began to emerge. Christianity had to be divested of its unhelpful associations with Western culture. This pragmatic response to the scandal of the war cleared the ground for more serious reflection on the theology of indigenization—that is, how the Christian faith might take root in new cultural contexts in ways that were sensitive and adapted to those situations.3 Rather than impose Western models of church order, it was necessary to discern what forms of Christian thought and life were appropriate to the local culture. This new theme, developed in works such as Daniel Fleming’s Whither Bound in Missions (1925), involved drawing a sharp distinction between Christ and Western culture.
This trend was assisted by the theology of mission championed by the Edinburgh Conference of 1910. Some conservative Protestants had adopted a “theory of degeneration,” which held that a primordial global monotheism had been corrupted and distorted in non-Christian contexts. Their more liberal counterparts often adopted a more Darwinian approach, which held that Christianity was the supreme religion, and Western civilization its greatest achievement. The inferiority of other religions was demonstrated by their social inadequacy. Though very different, both these theologies encouraged a triumphalist and negative attitude on the part of Christian missionaries toward native cultures.
In marked contrast to both these approaches, Edinburgh adopted a fulfillment theology of mission that saw Jesus Christ as the “fulfillment of other religions.” Holding that “all religions await their fulfillment in Christ,” the Edinburgh Conference gave its missionaries a mandate to respect and engage with native cultures, seeing these as capable of being fulfilled in and through Christ.4 This led to a new interest in finding “points of contact” between indigenous cultures and the gospel.5
The term “indigenization” proved unpopular. In Africa it was quickly replaced by terms such as “adaptionism,” which gave intellectual legitimacy to the use of African thought forms in Christian theology and of African rituals in the liturgy. Those of a more Catholic persuasion came to adopt “incarnationism,” some missiologists preferred “translation,” and the World Council of Churches adopted the preferred terminology of the Taiwanese theologian Shoki Coe (Chang Hui Hwang, 1914–88)—“contextualization.”6 Yet the same basic theme can be discerned throughout—the need to express and embody the gospel in a manner appropriate to a local culture rather than imposing a certain vision of the gospel upon that culture.7
Although this trend was not without importance in the period between the two world wars, the scholarly consensus is that the history of global Christianity began to move in significant new directions after the Second World War. Some of the most prominent activists for political independence in both sub-Saharan Africa and India were Christian; they saw the achievement of a proper national identity as essential for the establishment of a viable local theology instead of the culturally implausible Western impositions.
Some sociologists argued that Christianity in non-Western contexts, especially Africa, was sustained by the presence of the Western colonial power, and therefore, they predicted, the demise of Christianity would follow the withdrawal of this political support. Not for the first time, a theory proved misguided: the removal of Western power actually removed Western constraints that had been preventing the emergence of more culturally adapted forms of Christianity. The withdrawal of colonial powers—such as Britain and France—from their former territories allowed local churches to develop theologies, ministries, and styles of worship that were adaptations to their contexts rather than poor copies of the churches found in the colonial homelands. In most cases, the departure of the colonial power was followed by renewal as the cultural restraints on indigenous variants of Christianity were finally removed. Political independence rapidly led to ecclesiastical independence and the ending of the paternalist suppression of indigenous theologies and worship patterns.
Unsurprisingly, much of the emerging theology of Africa and Asia has reacted against Western Christian models. A revolt against the “colonization of the mind” demands self-definition and affirmation of identity over and against the colonizing “other.” With the end of the colonial era, therefore, we may say that a new understanding of Protestant identity and a new style of Protestant theology began to emerge. No longer, for example, did Singaporean Anglicanism look like that of Surbiton incongruously transplanted to the tropics; it developed its own ethos and identity—and began to grow.
Throughout these declarations of intellectual, ecclesiastical, and political independence, the churches of the global South maintained the fundamental Protestant principle of constant reexamination, reassessment, and restatement, thus allowing the Bible and the historical Protestant tradition to be brought to bear on their situation. Instead of importing ready-made theologies, liturgies, and handbooks of evangelism from the West, its increasingly confident indigenous practitioners were now prepared to create their own. Western influence on churches in the global South remains: many of its leaders have studied at British or American universities and seminaries and have been shaped at least to some extent by the Western ethos. Yet this influence now seems ministerial, not magisterial—a relation of committed partners, not of master and servant.
Before considering the impact of the new dynamics of Protestantism in the global South on Protestantism as a whole, we consider some individual cases as well as some more general trends to illustrate what is happening on the ground, giving an account that is often overlooked by the Western media and intelligentsia alike. In what follows, we present a survey of developments, not in order to provide a detailed analysis of the situation, but to show how Protestantism has been transformed in the twentieth century—in ways that would have been unpredictable at the beginning of that era.
AFRICA: ENGAGING TRADITIONAL RELIGION AND CULTURE
Early missionaries tended to regard traditional African religions as evil, primitive, and superstitious, and they extended this negative attitude toward African culture as a whole. The Ghanaian writer Kwame Bediako points out that African Christians were thus often put in the intolerable position of being obliged to turn their backs on their own traditions and culture and rely on an imported European heritage.8
This served to reinforce the perception that Christianity was culturally alien to Africa—a perception that was particularly acute in the case of Anglicanism, which retained many outward manifestations of its English origins (for example, the virtually universal use of the Book of Common Prayer until the Second World War). Catholic missionaries, often armed with a “natural theology” that encouraged them to find and value “points of contact” between the gospel and African culture, were rather more positive about cultural engagement. Protestants, often inculcated against “primitive superstition” by the culture of the Enlightenment rather than by Christianity itself, were much more censorious.9
The outcome was predictable. Africans who converted to Protestantism read the Bible through African eyes, not through the modernist prism of Western missionaries.10 African Protestants saw little difficulty in reading parts of the Bible in a literalist way, and so they alarmed the enlightened missionaries by taking literally gospel commands such as to heal and cast out demons. This was not to be seen as a “primitive” way of reading the Bible, but a rejection of the habits of interpretation that had emerged in the West as a result of the Enlightenment’s rationalist worldview, which held that “demons” and “spirits” were irrational beliefs. African converts had no difficulty in accepting their reality, and they relished the gospel’s direct engagement with these core elements of their worldview. As Elizabeth Isichei comments in her masterly history of Christianity in Africa, such converts
found in the world of the Bible, a world of victory over sickness and death, of mastery over evil spirits…. The emphasis on healing and miracles was not wholly absent from the mission churches, but, typically, they interpreted disease in a rationalist-scientific way, and relied more on hospitals than prayer to solve health problems.11
More significantly, African converts to the historical Protestant mission churches held that many traditional African practices—such as polygamy—should be regarded as permissible under the gospel.
The outcome of these tensions was the formation of a wide range of African Initiated Churches (AICs), which are virtually entirely Protestant.12 African Protestants knew enough about the history of their movement to draw the conclusion that it was perfectly legitimate to break away from parent denominations when these were seen to fail or fall short at critical points. AICs are strongest and most numerous in southern Africa, west Africa, the Congo Basin, and central Kenya. Three major categories of AICs can be identified.13
“Ethiopian” and “African” Churches
AICs that do not claim to be prophetic or to offer special manifestations of the Holy Spirit have been referred to as “Ethiopian” or “Ethiopian-type” churches in southern Africa and as “African” churches in Nigeria. Generally earlier in origin than the other two types, these churches arose primarily as a political and administrative reaction to European mission–founded churches. For this reason, Ethiopian or African churches are very similar to the historical Protestant churches from which they emerged. For example, they usually practice infant baptism, read set liturgies, wear European clerical vestments (often black), and use forms of worship that are less enthusiastic or emotional than the forms of worship in other AICs.
“Prophet-Healing” and “Spiritual” Churches
“Prophet-healing” or “spiritual” churches are AICs that have historical and theological roots in the Pentecostalist movement and emphasize the working of the power of the Spirit in the church. This is the largest grouping of AICs, and it includes a wide variety of some of the biggest churches in Africa. It includes the Kimbanguist movement and the African Apostolic church in central Africa, the Aladura and Harrist churches in west Africa, and the Zion Christian church and the Amanazaretha in southern Africa. The theology of these churches tends to be more precisely formulated than in European mission–founded churches, and the differences in belief systems, liturgy, and prophetic healing practices are often considerable. The most obvious distinguishing feature of these churches throughout most of Africa is the almost universal use of uniforms for members, often white robes with bright sashes.
“New Pentecostal” Churches
“New Pentecostal” churches, which are of more recent origin (mostly after 1980), also emphasize the power and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Probably the fastest-growing expression of Christianity in Africa today, these churches burst onto the African religious scene about 1975, and their explosive growth since then has challenged many previously accepted assumptions about the character of African Protestantism. The difference between these churches—examples of which are the Deeper Life Church in Nigeria, the Zimbabwe Assemblies of God African, and Grace Bible Church in South Africa—and those of Western Pentecostal origin has mainly to do with their form of church government. Leadership in the new churches is entirely black and essentially local and autonomous, with no organizational links with Pentecostal denominations outside Africa.
The surge of spiritual and intellectual energy now animating African Protestantism can be seen from one of the most significant publications of the opening years of the twenty-first century. The Africa Bible Commentary (2006) is a 1,600-page commentary on the entire text of the Bible, with the African horizon in mind.14 Western academic questions and agendas are gently set to one side in order to allow the text to address and engage the living issues of Africa, here and now—such as HIV/AIDS, demons and exorcisms, funeral and burial rites, the care of widows and orphans, and responses to persecution. A French edition is scheduled for release in 2007, with editions in Amharic, Portuguese, and other regional languages to follow.
KOREA: THE FIRST ASIAN PROTESTANT NATION
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the only predominantly Christian nation in Asia was the Philippines, which was a strongly Catholic country with a small Protestant minority. At the end of the twentieth century, Korea has established itself as a largely Christian nation, with Protestantism—especially Presbyterianism—being by far the largest Christian group.
Yet in 1901, only a tiny proportion of the Korean population was Christian—perhaps 1 percent. How did a country with virtually no Christian presence come to be, in effect, a Christian nation? The answer is complex. The Pyongyang revival of 1907 was one of a series of essentially independent Pentecostal movements of the first decade of the twentieth century and is known to have been a significant force in bringing about conversions among the native population.
A further point of importance is that Christianity came to be perceived as an ally rather than an enemy by Koreans in the twentieth century. Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910 and remained under Japanese rule until the end of the Second World War. Unusually, Christianity was seen as allied with Korean nationalism, especially in the face of Japanese oppression. Elsewhere in Asia, Christianity was easily depicted by its critics as the lackey of Western imperialism. In Korea, however, the enemy was not the West but Japan. Throughout this time, Christians played an active role in the Korean independence movement, out of all proportion to their numbers. Of the 123 people tried for insurgence by the Japanese in the 1911 popular revolt against Japanese rule, 98 were Christians. At this time, Christians made up just over 1 percent of the Korean population. The significance of this point could hardly be overlooked.
Following the Second World War, Korea underwent partition into a Communist north and democratic south following the Korean War, which broke out on June 25, 1950. The heavy involvement of Christian missionary agencies in the relief programs that followed the ending of the war created a powerful stimulus to the development of Christianity, which was catalyzed still further by the Korean churches’ programs of social action during the 1960s. Growth continued unabated, especially within Korean Protestantism. In 1957 there were about 800,000 Protestants in Korea. This figure had more than doubled by 1968 (1,873,000) and soared even further by 1978 (5,294,000). The Catholic church also enjoyed a surge in its growth, rising from 285,000 (1957) to 751,000 (1968), then to 1,144,000 (1986).
Today Korea sends out Christian missionaries to nations throughout Asia, and increasingly to the large Korean diasporas of major Western cities, from Sydney to Los Angeles, from Melbourne to New York. These missionaries are now closely linked with a network of churches that increasingly serve as a focal point for community action, mutual support, and spiritual nourishment. In 1979 Korean churches sent 93 missionaries overseas. In 1990 that number had increased to 1,645; in 2000 it stood at 8,103.15 South Korea is today home to some of the world’s largest Protestant churches.
And as North Korea shows every sign of being about to collapse, economically and politically, the question of the future religious development of this hard-line Communist state remains completely open. The anecdotal evidence suggests that Christianity has already made deep inroads among the population, and it is expected to grow further in the next decade.
The rise of Korea to prominence within global Protestantism is an important reminder of how situations change, often quite rapidly. Korea is overwhelmingly Presbyterian, although with a rich diversity of expressions not found elsewhere. Other versions of Protestantism are also found in Korea, including a small Anglican community of about 50,000 that traces its origins back to 1890. One of the most significant distinctive features of Korean Protestantism is its commitment to theological education, evident in its many colleges, seminaries, and universities. The oldest of these—the Presbyterian College and Theological Seminary—was founded in 1901 in Pyongyang; it relocated to an eastern district of Seoul following the Communist takeover of the north.
Korea is an example of an essentially Buddhist nation that has come to be predominantly Protestant. Yet Protestantism has also been gaining ground in other regions of the world, including some that until recently were regarded as uniformly Catholic. In what follows, we consider the astonishing rise of Protestantism in Latin America and its implications for Protestantism itself and the global dynamics of Christianity as a whole.
IS LATIN AMERICA TURNING PROTESTANT?
Latin America was colonized by Spain and Portugal during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with the result that Catholicism became the established religion of the area. The five-hundredth anniversary of the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492 was the subject of some controversy within the region, with many Catholic bishops and laity expressing unease over any form of celebration of the European presence in the Americas, owing to the abuses committed during and after the conquest.
European immigrants, particularly from Germany, founded small Protestant communities in many parts of the continent during the nineteenth century. An Anglican church was established in Buenos Aires in 1821. Yet Protestants—evangélicos—were generally seen as an elite minority, standing slightly outside the religious mainstream. They were never seen as a threat to the Catholic establishment, since they seemed content to retain their historic denominational beliefs and practices, usually imported from Europe, without attempting any form of outreach to the local population.
The situation of historical Latin American Protestantism has not changed significantly since the nineteenth century.16 The rise of liberation theology in the late 1960s brought some Protestant theologians in the region to wider prominence. Although liberation theology is widely regarded as a Catholic phenomenon, it is easily forgotten that some of its most prominent thinkers were Protestant—such as the Argentinean Methodist theologian José Míguez Bonino. Historic Protestants have been content to maintain their denominational identity and traditions and have not seen any significant growth in their numbers throughout Latin America. Nevertheless, they have exercised an influence far in excess of their numerical strength, partly on account of their entrepreneurial attitudes, which ultimately reflect the Protestant work ethic.
A significant debate within historic Protestantism in this region, particularly during the late 1940s, was the question of whether the Protestant community should see itself as Anglo-Saxon or as Latin. At a conference in Buenos Aires in 1949, Protestants resolved to commit themselves to work and witness within the Latin context—in effect indigenizing themselves. Yet this development had little impact on the numerical strength or missionary activity of Protestantism in Latin America.
The rise of Pentecostalism in the region, which dates from the first decade of the twentieth century, changed everything. The revival that broke out in the Methodist church at Valparaiso, Chile, in 1909 set the scene for a series of indigenous Pentecostal events throughout the region. Although this was assisted, especially in the aftermath of the Second World War, by missionaries from Pentecostal denominations in the United States, Latin American Pentecostalism has retained its own distinctive identity.
Why has Pentecostalism exploded in Latin America? Some Catholic and Marxist historians with axes to grind have had a quick and easy answer: American imperialism. Pentecostalism was the religious vanguard of a socioeconomic assault on the identity and values of Latin America. There were even dark rumors that the spread of Pentecostalism was due to the work of the Central Intelligence Agency during the Reagan era. However, more careful studies by sociologists and religious historians have established beyond doubt that the religious trends in question were in place long before this time.17
Careful sociological studies suggest that the accelerated transformation of Pentecostalism in Latin America has a number of causes, including its adaptive openness—characteristic of Protestantism—to local cultural beliefs and values and political issues. Yet the determining issue often seems to be accessibility. “Whereas nineteenth-century Protestant movements represented a religion of the written word, of civil and rational education, the current popular Protestant movements constitute an oral religion that is unlettered and lively.”18
The rise of Latin American Pentecostalism has transformed the religious dynamic of the region. In Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, Pentecostals now far outnumber all other Protestant groups, and on some projections, they may soon constitute the majority of the population. Pentecostalism is also growing rapidly in areas adjacent to Latin America, such as the Caribbean, where Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and Haiti have seen large increases in Pentecostal congregations. These developments, although noted in many research publications, have taken many in the West by surprise. Only the most obtuse could fail to realize what David Stoll’s well-researched 1990 book Is Latin America Turning Protestant? was all about.19
The greatest transformation of the Latin American religious landscape in the last fifty years—if not in the last five hundred years—is the transition from a monopolistic religious economy to a free-market one. Protestantism had been a small yet significant presence in Latin America since the early nineteenth century—yet it did not flourish, even with the disestablishment of Catholicism as the official state religion throughout Latin America between the middle of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth. It was only with the development of Pentecostalism in the first decades of the twentieth century that the popular classes had a culturally appropriate alternative to Catholicism. The implications for Catholicism are obvious and have been noted with concern by the bishops of the region.
One significant response has been to develop contemporary worship styles that mimic the informality of evangelicalism and Pentecostalism while retaining the basic structure and content of Catholic worship. Neo-charismatic elements within the Catholic church have shown that the needs and expectations of many who might otherwise be drawn to Pentecostalism can be met through Catholicism. The rise of Pentecostalism outside the church has thus proved a potent catalyst for the development of the charismatic movement within it. After four centuries of religious monopoly, the Catholic church has had to get used to competition—but the indications are that it is rising to the challenge.20
The implications for classic forms of Protestantism in the region are no less significant. Having also enjoyed something of their own kind of religious monopoly for a century, traditional Protestant denominations have found themselves confronted with an alternative model of ecclesiology and spirituality that challenges some of their core presuppositions. The most important of these concern word-centered preaching and spirituality and an essentially static conception of the denomination that creates no anticipation or expectation of church growth. Latin American Protestantism has a long and distinguished record of social involvement with the poor and marginalized—but not of evangelizing them. One of the most significant outcomes of Pentecostal growth within such socioeconomic groups has been the challenge to this non-evangelistic conception of mission.21 Yet there are other challenges. The many charismatic groups in Latin America have opened up new opportunities for spiritual leadership on the part of women, challenging the male-dominated church culture of historical Protestantism in the region.22
The unexpected developments in Latin America during the twentieth century raise some significant questions. One of them has to do with the future religious shape of the United States of America. Hispanics are already the largest ethnic minority in the United States, and they are predicted to become the majority within the next fifty years. It has traditionally been assumed that this will lead to the United States becoming increasingly Catholic. Yet recent developments in Latin America call any such assumption into question. The religious future of the United States remains far more open than many realize.
Perhaps a more intriguing question to emerge from the rapid growth of Protestantism in Latin America is whether this same phenomenon might occur elsewhere in the future. Might there be predominantly Catholic nations elsewhere in the global South that will experience a surge in Protestant growth as Pentecostalism expands still further? In what follows, we consider one nation where such a trend might well develop within the next two generations: the Philippines.
WILL THE PHILIPPINES TURN PROTESTANT?
In 1521 the great Spanish explorer Ferdinand Magellan discovered a group of some 3,141 islands. The islands, now known as “the Philippines,” became a Spanish colony. Under Spanish rule, a program of evangelization was undertaken by various religious orders, especially the Franciscans and Dominicans. The islands were annexed by the United States in 1898. The Philippines are unusual in that they constitute the only predominantly Christian country in Southeast Asia. Although Catholicism is the dominant form of Christianity in the Philippines at present, many Protestant missionary societies established a presence there following the end of Spanish rule. While various forms of Protestantism are now firmly rooted in the region, they constitute a minority. A 1970 survey suggested that, even after seventy-five years of American missionary presence, fewer than 1 percent of the population had turned Protestant.
In part, this must be regarded as the outcome of a series of lost opportunities, including a curious failure on the part of Protestant missionaries to appreciate the strategic importance of the emergence of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente at the beginning of the twentieth century.23 Furthermore, most American missionaries adopted a woodenly hostile approach to Catholicism, reflecting the defining Protestant ideology of the age—namely, that Catholicism was “the other.” In the end, this approach merely resulted in open confrontation with Catholicism, which achieved little in the way of results.
To add to the catalog of failures, the American missionaries of the early twentieth century took a radically individualist approach to matters of faith, a strategy that totally failed to connect with the strongly communal outlook of the Philippines, where the family plays an especially important practical and symbolic role. The predominance of a modernist worldview within the missionary community led to a somewhat rationalist and cerebral understanding of faith that failed to appreciate the imaginative, emotional, and communitarian aspects of Christian faith—aspects already well developed within Filipino Catholicism.24 In the end, American missionaries managed to export the old controversies of the Reformation and the newer battles of the fundamentalist-modernist debate more effectively than they did the gospel itself.
Protestant churches in Manila were in open competition with each other from the first decade of the twentieth century and spent more time and effort wooing members from each other than reaching out to the culture at large.25 Altogether, the missionary experience in the Philippines represents a textbook case of the imposition of Westernized forms of Protestantism in a culturally inappropriate and insensitive manner. Protestant churches in Manila and elsewhere have certainly grown since the end of the Second World War, yet this growth is primarily to be attributed to biological reproduction, not conversion or outreach.26
With such an unimpressive track record, it might seem unwise, even unrealistic, to speak of the Philippines as being poised to become a significant player in global Protestantism. Yet there are powerful points of comparison to be made to the situation in Latin America. Both regions were Hispanic colonies in which Catholicism enjoyed a virtual religious monopoly until about 1900.27
The real issue here is that certain critical changes that have taken place suggest that this is a genuine possibility. The most important of these is that Pentecostalism—the engine of Protestant growth in Latin America—is now a growing presence within the nation, especially in metropolitan Manila. Historical analysis indicates a multiplicity of historical originations of Pentecostalism in the Philippines, including through Filipino laborers and students returning home after working in the United States and encountering Pentecostalism during their stay.28
Although the forms of Pentecostalism introduced to the Philippines from the late 1920s onward were American in provenance, many adapted to the local culture, especially its ready acceptance of a “spirit world.”
The classic Pentecostalist denominations—such as the Assemblies of God and the Foursquare Church—were well established in Manila by the 1950s. These were supplemented by a number of groups that are best described as “independent” churches—such as the “Jesus Is Lord” church, founded in 1978, the Bread of Life movement (1982), the Christ’s Commission Fellowship (1982), and the Victory Christian Fellowship (1984). These movements have grown rapidly, in a manner similar to their Latin American counterparts. One of the factors that undergirds this growth is the use of cells as a means of pastoral care and outreach. The “cell” model of the church, which originated in East Asia, builds on the strong sense of group identity associated with the family in this region of the world. This way of conceiving the identity and function of the church sits uneasily with traditional Protestant models and represents yet another area in which Protestantism is being forced to reexamine existing paradigms and practices in the light of developments in the global South.
As developed by Lawrence Khong in Singapore or the Christ’s Commission Fellowship in Manila, the church is understood to be a “church of cells.”29 The basic idea behind the movement can be found in the patterns of church life described in the New Testament, especially in the Acts of the Apostles (for example, Acts 2:42–46). Like the early church, the movement forms small cells, sometimes called “basic Christian communities,” which are typically based in members’ houses. The life of the church lies in the cells, which are seen as primary; the gathered congregation on Sundays is secondary. The phrase “church of cells” is preferred, as it emphasizes the primacy of the cell; the alternative “church with cells” implies that the cells are secondary.
In what follows, we describe the cell church model found in the Christ’s Commission Fellowship, which is based on the “Discipling of Twelve” (D–12) model of church growth.30 The cells generally start off with six to eight people and then grow over a period of weeks or months to twelve. At this point, each cell splits into two smaller groups and grows again, before dividing again. New members are drawn into the group through personal friendship, witness, or evangelism and are cared for within the group. The primary purpose of the cell is often described as edification and multiplication—that is, to build up believers and to enable them to reach out into their communities and bring new converts into the church.
“Cell multiplication” is the watchword of this community-based approach to evangelism. The cells gather together for “celebration” on Sundays, but the real pastoral work and outreach takes place within the cells themselves. The church leaders emphasize the proper training of cell group leaders, which they see as critically important to support and outreach. Sundays are viewed as an opportunity to offer “seeker-friendly” services; additional services are held on Wednesday or Thursday evenings for the committed. (The influence of the Willow Creek approach is evident here.)
The significance of this development for the traditional Western notion of the “Protestant denomination” is clear. The cell church movement avoids the costly bureaucracies and committee-ridden structures of traditional denominations. Instead, this movement empowers the leadership of individual cells, while relieving the church leadership team of the administrative burdens normally associated with churches of this size. This new way of conceiving the church not only creates new possibilities for pastoral care and outreach but also creates a significant leadership role for the laity within the cells.
So what of the future? Neither the Catholic church, which is used to operating within a monopoly of religious influence, nor traditional Protestantism appears to have been able to match the growth rates in the newer forms of Protestantism that began to emerge in the Philippines in the late 1970s. As in Latin America, Protestant growth has primarily taken place within Pentecostal groups, both those with historic roots in America (such as the Assemblies of God) and the local movements that have emerged in the Filipino context. Although charismatic elements have emerged within the Filipino Catholic church, these tend to be initiated and led by laity; located outside the church’s hierarchy, charismatics are thus isolated from power and influence in the church.31 It is uncertain where these trends will lead. Present growth patterns, however, point to the significant theoretical possibility that a large portion of the Filipino population will be Pentecostal in the future.
THE GLOBAL SOUTH AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF PROTESTANTISM
In this chapter, we have sketched some of the developments taking place within Protestantism beyond the traditional heartlands of the West. A fuller analysis would consider many other regional developments, each fascinating and significant in itself, yet precluded from discussion owing to lack of space. The growth and transmutation of Protestantism in Hong Kong during its period as a British colony,32 in China,33 and in Indonesia34—each has its proper place in the greater narrative of which this book can only tell part. Similarly, there is much that can be learned from the present failure of Protestantism to emulate such patterns of growth and development in other regions of the world, such as Japan, where many Protestant denominations and representative groups remain suspicious of Pentecostalism.35
So what can be learned? What conclusions can be drawn? The most obvious point is that a Darwinian restlessness is evident within Protestantism. New forms are emerging in response to rapidly changing cultures and environments and the religious and social needs of the moment. In Western cultures, where historical constraints—such as state churches or a de facto religious establishment—are operational, such developments can be controlled or marginalized. But in the global South, especially since decolonization, such restraints generally do not exist. Only in Islamic nations is such a degree of enforced political control of Christianity now possible.
The result has been an unprecedented outbreak of entrepreneurial adaptation, leading to the emergence of new ways of conceiving the gospel. And as traditional control mechanisms begin to crumble in the West, partly under consumerist pressures, new possibilities for “being church” are beginning to emerge. Many in the West are exploring the cell church model, despite the fact that it originated as an analogue of the family in a social context in which the family plays a much more significant social role than it does in the West.
Yet whether this specific model of the church finds wider acceptance or not, Protestantism in the global South is forcing a radical rethinking of Protestant theories of the church (ecclesiologies) in the West. As we noted earlier, the core elements of all such theories are the proclamation of the gospel and the proper administration of the sacraments. Everything else is negotiable. Yet over the years, certain habits of mind and action have led Protestant ecclesiologies to remain shaped by the assumptions and norms of long-dead leaders and long-past social contexts. Above all, they have been dominated by the assumption that the church’s task is primarily educational, social, and pastoral. This was indeed the function of the church in an era when Christendom was still a plausible notion.
Protestantism in the global South has long since learned to work within a “post-Christendom” model of the church in which evangelism and the cultivation of discipleship are seen as integral to the mission of the church, alongside social outreach, pastoral care, and teaching.36 It has developed ecclesiologies that are adapted to the realities of their day and age, not to those of sixteenth-century Geneva or Elizabethan England. The basic aim has been to construct “local theologies” in which the “seed of faith is allowed to interact with the native soil, leading to a new flowering of Christianity, faithful both to the local culture and to the apostolic faith.”37 As secularism continues to be a significant presence in the West, the retrieval of this kind of ecclesiology is essential to Western Protestantism’s conception of its identity and tasks. What the church believes it is determines what it does as it shapes its priorities and agendas.
These developments are not geographically limited to the global South. Immigration from the south to the north has led to the emergence of these trends within Protestantism in its Western homelands. An excellent example is the arrival of the “new Pentecostal” African Initiated Churches in London, which have experienced significantly greater growth than older forms of black Pentecostalism. Of these, the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) is the largest and most successful in terms of membership growth. The RCCG planted its first church in Britain back in 1985, with just four people attending the first service. Today it has fifty churches of varying sizes, with a membership somewhere in the region of 200,000—mostly in London and the Midlands, but also with sizable representation in a number of Britain’s larger urban areas. In part, this growth may be put down to the historic need to provide social support structures in an alien culture.38 Yet the question remains: why this form of Pentecostalism rather than the older forms? And will the AICs penetrate the mainstream of British Christianity, or will they continue to be seen as a west African phenomenon? Many in these churches see themselves as missionaries to British culture as a whole, not simply to its immigrant communities.
The forms of Protestantism now emerging in the global South also pose a powerful challenge to traditional Western notions of theology. To Protestant leaders and pastors in the South, Western Protestantism has suffered from an overintellectualized theological tradition and a weakened spirituality. In their view, this has weakened Protestantism’s capacity to transform individuals and society in the West; furthermore, its well-meaning efforts to impose the same approaches on emerging churches without regard to their very different situations may have undermined their capacity for growth.
The challenge to Western Protestantism at this point is clear. Since Christians outside of Europe and North America live their faith in different historical, political, socioeconomic, and religious contexts, the kinds of questions they are asking are substantially different from those asked in the Western tradition. As the great South African church leader Desmond Tutu once remarked, Western theology has some splendid answers—but they are answers to questions that no one else seems to be asking.
© Christie’s Images/CORBIS
The Three Kings, 1958, by Carlos Merida.