Religion: Another Base

At the turn of the century, most Christians were either Europeans, Russians or North Americans. By the year 2000, however, nearly 60% of Christendom's 1.9 billion souls will be living in the so-called Third World—Africa, Asia, Oceania and Latin America. As never before, Christianity is on the move—southward—and on the way to becoming predominantly a religion of nonwhites.

So predicts Dr. David B. Barrett, author of Schism and Renewal in Africa (1968) and secretary of an ecumenical research team based in Nairobi. Christianity's growth in Africa is the most dramatic aspect of the geographic and ethnic shift. By the end of the 20th century, the number of African Christians of all faiths will have grown from 4,000,000 in 1900 (3% of the continent's population) to 351 million (46%). In the process, Christianity in Africa will have surpassed its rival Islam by 25 million adherents. The remarkable growth is attributable to normal population increase and a high incidence of conversion: one of every three African Christians is a first-generation convert.

"For sheer size and rapidity of growth, this must be one of the most spectacular stories in history," says Theodore L. Tucker, executive director of the Africa Department of the National Council of Churches. Three hundred million African Christians "might well give Christianity a permanent non-Western base." With Christianity in mild decline in the developed world (a projected 65% of its populace in 2000, as opposed to 77% in 1900), the day may well come when African and South American missionaries are sent to the far north for the purpose, in Melville's phrase, of christianizing Christendom.