The Siberian Grinder

From John Piper’s sermon, The Legacy of Antioch:

• At the beginning of the twentieth century, about 71 percent of professing Christians in the world lived in Europe. By the end of the twentieth century, that number had shrunk to 28 percent. 43 percent of the Christians now lived in Latin America and Africa.¹
• In 1900, Africa had 10 million Christians, which was about 10 percent of the population. By 2000, the number of Christians was 360 million, about half the population of the continent. This is probably the largest shift in religious affiliation that has ever occurred, anywhere.²
• There are 17 million baptized members of the Anglican church in Nigeria, compared with 2.8 million in the United States.³
• “This past Sunday more Anglicans attended church in each of Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda than did Anglicans in Britain and Canada and Episcopalians in the United States combined.”
• “The number of practicing Christians in China is approaching the number in the United States.”⁴
• “Last Sunday . . . more Christian believers attended church in China than in all of so-called ‘Christian Europe.’”
• Kenya has more people in Christian churches on Sunday than Canada.
• “More believers worship together in Nagaland than in Norway.”
• “More Christian workers from Brazil are active in cross cultural ministry outside their homelands than from Britain or from Canada.” In other words, the churches of the Global South are increasingly sending churches.
• Last Sunday “more Presbyterians were in church in Ghana than in Scotland.”⁵
• “This past week in Great Britain, at least fifteen thousand Christian foreign missionaries were hard at work evangelizing the locals. Most of these missionaries are from Africa and Asia.”⁶

If you have not already, you may want to read the recent article in The Moscow Times concerning the proposed restrictions on religious activity in Russia (click here to download the article in PDF form). The proposals are included in legislation that the Russian parliament is considering right now. The bill is widely believed to be linked to the Russian Orthodox Church. If you care about missions in Russia, or the local church in Russia, please pray for the bill to be voted down. The language of the new law would be a huge blow to religious freedom in Russia.

A Christian group in Russia has summarized the implications of the proposed legislation with seven points:

1. Children under the age of 14 would not be allowed to attend church without the express written permission of their parents.
2. Missionaries would be restricted to preach and teach only within church buildings and with a letter of permission from the sending and receiving organization for the specific dates he plans to preach.
3. Rehabilitation centers would be closed. Christians would not be able to work in places of ministry outside of church buildings.
4. Churches would not be allowed to offer ESL classes, VBS, or any other social work.
5. Preachers will have to give invitations that do not to appear to be influential.
6. Foreigners involved in missions activities would have to obtain religious visas. Religious visas are notoriously difficult to obtain and maintain.
7. It would become a crime for Christians to share their faith outside of a church building.