fire & globalization

I've been reading Philip Jenkins' The Next Christendom (Oxford University Press 2002) for a Globalization Learning Forum I'm doing through church. Jenkins' basic premise is that -- though the general conception of Christianity is of a dying, Western ideology -- a true perception of Christianity would recognize the life and growth of Christianity in the South, that is in Africa, South and Central America and Asia. An important question that is addressed regards whether the globalization that will continue forcing the interaction of people, nations and churches from around the world is itself good or evil.

My first thought is that it is refreshing to read a Western thinker who is writes about the global church with an eye toward the South! Jenkins describes the Southern churches,

"The churches that have made most dramatic progress in the global South have either beern Roman Catholic, of a traditionalist and fideistic kind, or radical Protestant sects, evangelical or Pentecostal. Indeed, this conservatism may go far toward explaining the common neglect of Southern Christianity in North America and Europe. Western experts rarely find the ideological tone of the new churches much to their taste. ...These newer churches preach messages that, to a Westerner, appear simplistically charismatic, visionary, and apocalyptic. In this thought-world, prophecy is an everyday reality, while faith-healing, exorcism, and dream-visions are all basic components of religious sensibility. For better or worse, the dominant churches of the future could have much in common with those of meieval or early modern Euroopean times" (7-8 Jenkins).

But as refreshing as covering the Southern church may be, I still find myself frustrated with many of the characteristics Jenkins mentions above. And so I ask myself, Do I have a prejudiced distaste for non-Western churches? Jenkins goes on to talk about the Taiping movement in China, Virgin movements in Latin America and various prophetic and liberation movements in Africa, all of which in some way or another absused Christianity, using it to further their pre-existing agendas (e.g. to establish communism, dictatorships, and personal authority over the masses). These descriptors by Jenkins were helpful in showing these frustrations of mine to be in many ways legitimate (despite his intent to criticize Western thinkers instead of offer them a compassionate hand). With the buzz of disapproval surrounding all things Western, I think it is important to take a breather and realize that it doesn't make any sense for us to love the world by hating the West.

(And yet the West has much to learn. With powerful movements growing in the South, Westerners need to take the position of students, wide-eyed and close-lipped at what is moving in the world beyond our own.)

***fire & globalization***
Last night, I reveled in the company of friends by a bonfire. As I sat there, I was thinking, "I'm enchanted by the streaks of color in these flames, by the way they move, by the fact that something about being by this fire draws out the souls of my friends." And I started thinking: In the age of information and globalization, it becomes increasingly difficult to live quiet lives protected by national borders or large bodies of water, resulting in constant exposure to cultures and languages and religions different from our own. The idea of a global village results. A camp of thinkers hails globalization as our upcoming savior and proclaims an age in which nations will pool together their resources so that everyone is accounted for. But as I sat around the fire with my friends, I realized that small community works. Traditionally, communal activities have occurred around fires and around dinner tables. Here, community is organic. When it gets bigger than this, organization must be formalized and feels rigidly obvious. In these larger communities, tolerance is a must. And I wondered what effect it would have on our sanity to perpetually break rhythm and tradition and identity for the sake of tolerance and assimilation with cultures different from our own. Would we become neurotic scraps of information amounting to a pile of nothing in particular?

A good friend of mine was part of the Crowded House church in Sheffield, England, and the policy of their community was to split if they could no longer fit in a living room. This makes so much sense to me. (See Faith's Blog by clicking on "wtgm" in my Amigos links) ...and so at the beginning of this Globalization forum, I certainly do not hail globalization as savior; I am wary of its evils or at least aware of its limitations. ...but more to come...