Christianity is Rising Around the World
Christianity is the largest religion in the world, with over two billion adherents to the faith. Spanning Christian history, thousands upon thousands of men and women have been willing to leave their homelands to face severe trials and persecutions. Many, over the centuries, unwilling to deny their faith in this Jesus Christ and threatened with martyrdom, have given their lives. From its humble beginnings of Jesus Christ and several dozen adherents, the Christian revolution has multiplied exponentially through many generations, transforming entire societies and nations across the earth. Today, an average of one in every three people you might meet on any street in the new global community professes faith in Jesus Christ.
Christianity is far greater than a Western religion or an American ideal. According to Eusebius, the father of Church history, Christianity has been a global religion ever since the first Apostles divided up the known world for evangelism. Thomas went as far as India. Others went into the heart of Africa, and Peter and Paul may have gone as far as Spain and England before returning to Rome to face imprisonment and martyrdom.
In our generation, Christianity is exploding in the global South. A revealing look on this subject is The Next Christendom by Philip Jenkins. According to Jenkins, there are more Pentecostal Christians (Assemblies of God) in Brazil alone than the entire Mormon religion worldwide. We should also consider that .. a single evangelist, Reinhard Bonnke—little known in the United States—has, on multiple occasions, watched as many as 1,600,000 Africans come to hear the good news of Christ on a dusty field in a single night!
In China, where the revolution of Christianity is strictly prohibited, Chinese Christians have built an extensive network of underground churches outside the auspices of the government. The US government estimates that there are nearly 100 million Christians in China’s underground churches, making China one of the largest populations of Christianity anywhere in the world. This is an astonishing response in a land where persecution is aggressive for an act as simple as possessing a Bible.
Many Westerners are ignorant to what is going on around the world today, as well as what happened in Church history since the coming of Jesus Christ into the world. With only minimal study, you will joyously learn that Christianity is a revolutionary movement to be reckoned with.
