A Sample Independent Reading Blog 2

When you finish a book,  summarize the ideas that were significant to you in the last section you read. 

     What will Christianity look like in the future, given the growing church in South America, Africa, and Asia? That is the question Phillip Jenkins addresses in the last few chaptesr of The Next Christendom. The answer is that it will look much more like the church of the first few centuries than the Western church does today. It will have a greater understanding of supernatural forces. It will have a far greater understanding of the power of God in the church than we in the American church have. It will be more energetic in  taking the gospel to the yet unreached than the Western church is today.  For me that is encouraging.

     On the downside, there will likely be tensions between the Western church and the Southern churches. Southern churches are far more conservative than their mother churches in the West. Already division are showing over issues of morality. Southern churches reflect far more closely the morality of the New Testament. Western churches have compromised with the world. That renewal of biblical morality is refreshing to me, but it will come at a price.  It will also probably run into conflict with the other major religions, Islam and Hinduism. That is most likely to happen when there are already political tensions among nations with majority religious populations in power. That is concerning to me.

Conclude by making a personal recommendation. Is this a book you'd recommend to other readers. If so, why? If not, why?

     The Next Christendom is not an easy read. Is is chock full of facts and statistics and notes. It is not casual reading. But for someone really interested in the church - past, present and future - it is a worthwhile read. I recommend it to pastors and Christians with an interest in history. I don't think many high school students would enjoy it or even complete the reading.

    

A Sample Independent Reading blog

 
Your blog should tell me what the title of the book is, who the author is, how many pages are in the book and how many you have read, and the genre of the book. 

     The book I am reading is The Next Christendom by Phillip Jenkins. It has 288 pages, though only 276 are really the book. The rest are notes. I am on page 231.

     Phillip Jenkins is a historian and he has written several other books on Christian history.

     This book is non-fiction, but it is not strictly speaking history because it is more about what Christianity will be like in the next fifty years.

Your blog should include a brief summary of what you have read since the last blog and what you think about it.

     The main idea of the book is that Christianity will be very different in the next fifty years. First, most of the world's Christians will live in South America, Africa, and Asia. Right now we in America think most Christians live here. But that is wrong. There are more Christians in Africa than in America, even now .In fifty years the southern hemisphere, which includes Africa and South America, will have many times more Christians than America.

     Another change will be that the church will have a greater emphasis on the supernatural; it will look a lot more like the church in the first century than the church looks like in America today. There will be an emphasis on miracles and healing. There will be an understanding that Christians are in a real conflict with evil spirits.

     However, I did not buy the book to read about the future. I wanted to read about the past. What was Christianity like in the Middle Ages and in Asia? The author answered those questions for me. First, the church in the Middle Ages in Europe was a missionary church that was expanding among the non-Christian people of Europe. Some of those were the Celts in Ireland who are my ancestors.

     Secondly, the church in Asia was really larger than the church in Europe during most of the Middle Ages. There were churches in what is now Afghanistan, India, China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and many other countries. That was a surprise. Another surprise was that when Islam appeared and began to conquer nations in the Middle East, Christians lived among the Muslims without many problems. It was not until the Mongol invasion of the Middle East in the 1200s that Muslims began to persecute the Christians who lived among them. That was because the Mongols were at least partly Christians, and the Muslims after that put all Christians in the category of enemies.

     I have enjoyed reading this book. I am learning a lot of new things about Christian history. That has helped me think about how I should live among people who are not Christians. If I would put that in one word, it would be "respectfully."