Vorkosigan

Very interesting interview on the future of Christ-inanity.

<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/interviews/int2002-09-12.htm" target="_blank">Jenkins' interview</a>


But I think it is important to say that African or Asian Christianity will become a lot more diverse. Something like that is already happening. If you look at South Africa, for example, which is probably the most socially advanced country on the continent, you have a very wide range of religious belief—everything from very liberal academic intellectual folk associated with mainstream churches like Anglican and Methodist, over to some of the independent churches, the Pentecostal churches. Will the Christianity of the South liberalize? Yes, I think that's happening already. But that won't necessarily shut out some of the older ideas and practices. Built into Christianity, I think, is a kind of cycle, in which the further people move toward secularism and intellectual approaches to religion, the more at least some people will be drawn back to the idea of an original "primitive" religion. Wherever you have a religion based firmly on a scripture, you'll always get that cycle. That's why fundamentalism has always been around and always will be, under different names.

Carlos

Thanks for the link. I had read the full article in the print version of The Atlantic, but the interview did not appear there. Possibly it was in the September issue. Jenkins's article can be found online <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/10/jenkins.htm" target="_blank">here</a>.

I found it an interesting and informative article. Didn't realize the importance of Southern contingent in John Paul II's papal election. Will have to look into that some more.

There were a couple of points on which I disagreed, though. Jenkins suggests that the schism between North and South will affect all of Christianity, while I suspect it will be limited to those religions with strong hierarchies - primarily Catholicism. For those religions that are more loosely organized, I see less need for consistency between the different branches.

For all the mention of how similar this is to the Reformation, I don't feel that his future would produce a Second Reformation that was as important as the First. He built a compelling case for the conflict between North and South, but stopped short of predicting the outcome. In the interview he said he did not believe a real schism would occur in the Catholic church. What he leaves us with is a world in which Christianity has grown substantially, and where there are now internal conflicts in addition to the external ones.

I was a little disappointed by the abstract. In light of the September 11 attacks, "[t]umultuous conflicts within Christianity will leave a mark deeper than Islam's on the century ahead" suggests war and violence, but his article had little to say about the results of the conflict. While he allowed for the possibility of violence between the two factions, most of it will be between Muslims and Christians - which occur when the two expansionist religions meet, and have little to do with internal factions.

I did find it ironic that after colonizing - err, I mean evangelizing - for centuries, the old power base will be overrun by the sheer numbers of those it has converted. It is, as Jenkins said, a case of "the empire strikes back."

A few good quotes that I liked:
[ December 21, 2002: Message edited by: Carlos ]</p>

Troma

You might be surprised to hear this, but fundamentalism is actually a modern rationalistic form of religion. Think of how the fundies take it all 'literally', there's no room for 'creative' interpretation the way they read it. They seem to read the bible the way they would read a computer manual.

I can't speak from experience though, but that's what it seems like to me. What do any ex fundies here have to say about it? Am I on the mark?

Amos

Right on except that fundamentalism is not modern but is as old as the mythology itself.

Amos

Yup, and the Jesus of the new millennium is black already.