eChurch Blog

The main criticism levelled against me for my post on the death of Christopher Hitchens was: “Who are we to judge?”

Fair enough I thought, perhaps I was wrong to judge, especially in light of all of the “RIP” sentiments, prayers for his soul and tentative hopes for a deathbed conversion, emanating from the Christian world.

Today we heard of the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and the Christian world has been rather silent; no outpouring of the prayers, sentiments and hopes, that came in response to Christopher Hitchens.

Well of course there wasn’t, I hear you say. One was a brutal murderous dictator and the other wasn’t; in fact, Hitchens stood against totalitarianism.

Well let me say right now that I’m in no way setting up a moral equivalence between the two men. That would be simply impossible and ridiculous.

But what I will ask of those those who told me we cannot judge in regard to Hitchens; where’s your outpouring for Kim Jong-il? If we really are to avoid judging, then surely we should treat everyone equally and to do otherwise would be hypocrisy.

It seems to me that those of the “we cannot judge” camp have bound themselves up in a ludicrous trap. The truth is that we all judge; in fact, we have to in order to make sense of things.

It’s right and fitting that there has been no Christian outpouring of sympathy for Kim Jong-il, but I maintain that this is based on our judgement of the man.

Interestingly Archdruid Eileen has posted on the three recent notable deaths and says:

That of the three famous deaths of recent days, Christopher Hitchens provoked much mourning and opining; Vaclav Havel died and nobody (on Twitter) really mentioned it, and Kim Jong Il provoked mostly jokes.

This goes to show how we employ our faculty of judgement in reacting to the news of death.

On an aside, I came across a blog post examining Ezekiel 33:11 in respect of rejoicing over the death of the wicked. I’m not saying I agree with it, but thought it an interesting read.

I’ll reproduce below the Pew Research Executive Summary (without most graphics as I’m feeling lazy and depressed), but would urge you to hop over and take a look for yourself, as there is a great deal more information available.

Pew Research – Global Christianity: Executive Summary

A comprehensive demographic study of more than 200 countries finds that there are 2.18 billion Christians of all ages around the world, representing nearly a third of the estimated 2010 global population of 6.9 billion. Christians are also geographically widespread – so far-flung, in fact, that no single continent or region can indisputably claim to be the center of global Christianity.

A century ago, this was not the case. In 1910, about two-thirds of the world’s Christians lived in Europe, where the bulk of Christians had been for a millennium, according to historical estimates by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity. Today, only about a quarter of all Christians live in Europe (26%). A plurality – more than a third – now are in the Americas (37%). About one in every four Christians lives in sub-Saharan Africa (24%), and about one-in-eight is found in Asia and the Pacific (13%).

The number of Christians around the world has nearly quadrupled in the last 100 years, from about 600 million in 1910 to more than 2 billion in 2010. But the world’s overall population also has risen rapidly, from an estimated 1.8 billion in 1910 to 6.9 billion in 2010. As a result, Christians make up about the same portion of the world’s population today (32%) as they did a century ago (35%).

This apparent stability, however, masks a momentous shift. Although Europe and the Americas still are home to a majority of the world’s Christians (63%), that share is much lower than it was in 1910 (93%). And the proportion of Europeans and Americans who are Christian has dropped from 95% in 1910 to 76% in 2010 in Europe as a whole, and from 96% to 86% in the Americas as a whole.

At the same time, Christianity has grown enormously in sub-Saharan Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, where there were relatively few Christians at the beginning of the 20th century. The share of the population that is Christian in sub-Saharan Africa climbed from 9% in 1910 to 63% in 2010, while in the Asia-Pacific region it rose from 3% to 7%. Christianity today – unlike a century ago – is truly a global faith. (See world maps weighted by Christian population in 1910 and 2010.)

These are some of the key findings of Global Christianity: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Christian Population, a new study by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life.

The study is based primarily on a country-by-country analysis of about 2,400 data sources, including censuses and nationally representative population surveys. For some countries, such as China, the Pew Forum’s estimates also take into account statistics from church groups, government reports and other sources. (See Appendix C (PDF) for more details on the range of estimates available for China.)

Christians are diverse theologically as well as geographically, the new study finds. About half are Catholic. Protestants, broadly defined, make up 37%. Orthodox Christians comprise 12% of Christians worldwide. Other Christians, such as Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, make up the remaining 1% of the global Christian population. (See Defining Christian Traditions.)

Taken as a whole, however, Christians are by far the world’s largest religious group. Muslims, the second-largest group, make up a little less than a quarter of the world’s population, according to previous studies by the Pew Forum.

Almost half (48%) of all Christians live in the 10 countries with the largest number of Christians. Three of the top 10 countries are in the Americas (the United States, Brazil and Mexico). Two are in Europe (Russia and Germany), two are in the Asia-Pacific region (the Philippines and China), and three are in sub-Saharan Africa (Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia), reflecting Christianity’s global reach.

Clearly, Christianity has spread far from its historical origins. For example:

Though Christianity began in the Middle East-North Africa, today that region has both the   lowest concentration of Christians (about 4% of the region’s population) and the smallest   number of Christians (about 13 million) of any major geographic region.

Indonesia, a Muslim-majority country, is home to more Christians than all 20 countries in the Middle East-North Africa region combined.

Nigeria now has more than twice as many Protestants (broadly defined to include Anglicans and independent churches) as Germany, the birthplace of the Protestant Reformation.

Brazil has more than twice as many Catholics as Italy.

Although Christians comprise just under a third of the world’s people, they form a majority of the population in 158 countries and territories, about two-thirds of all the countries and territories in the world.

About 90% of Christians live in countries where Christians are in the majority; only about 10% of Christians worldwide live as minorities.

Global Distribution of Christians

So where are the bulk of the world’s Christians today? The Pew Forum study suggests at least four possible answers, depending on how one divides up the world:

The Global South  

In recent years, a number of scholarly books and articles have discussed the rapid growth of Christianity in the developing countries of the “Global South” – especially Africa, Asia and Latin America – and debated whether the influence of Christians in the “Global North” is waning, or not. A century ago, the Global North (commonly defined as North America, Europe, Australia, Japan and New Zealand) contained more than four times as many Christians as the Global South (the rest of the world). Today, the Pew Forum study finds, more than 1.3 billion Christians live in the Global South (61%), compared with about 860 million in the Global North (39%).

The Global North 

But even though Christians are more numerous in the Global South, the concentration of Christians is much higher in the Global North, where 69% of the population is Christian. By contrast, 24% of the people living in the Global South are Christian. This reflects the fact that the total population of the Global South is about 4.5 times greater than the population of the Global North.

Another way of looking at the distribution of Christians around the world is by region. Numerically, at least, Europe no longer dominates global Christianity the way it did 100 years ago. Rather, the bulk of Christians are in:

The Americas 

Of the world’s five major geographic regions, the Americas have both the largest number and the highest proportion of Christians. More than a third of Christians worldwide (37%) live in the Americas, where nearly nine-in-ten people (86%) are Christian. The three countries with the largest Christian populations – the United States, Brazil and Mexico – are in the Americas. Together, these three countries alone account for nearly one in every four Christians in the world (24%), about the same proportion as the whole of Europe (26%) and all of sub-Saharan Africa (24%). Although Christians make up a smaller portion of the 2010 population in the Americas (86%) than they did in 1910 (96%), the Americas account for a higher share of the world’s Christians (37%, up from 27% in 1910).

Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia-Pacific 

But sub-Saharan Africa and the Asia-Pacific region now have a combined population of about 800 million Christians, roughly the same as the Americas. And five of the top 10 countries with the largest Christian populations are either in Africa (Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia) or Asia (Philippines and China). Moreover, the fastest growth in the number of Christians over the past century has been in sub-Saharan Africa (a roughly 60-fold increase, from fewer than 9 million in 1910 to more than 516 million in 2010) and in the Asia-Pacific region (a roughly 10-fold increase, from about 28 million in 1910 to more than 285 million in 2010).

How Estimates Were Generated

The Pew Forum, in consultation with demographers at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria, acquired and analyzed about 2,400 data sources, including censuses and general population surveys, to arrive at Christian population figures for 232 countries and self-administering territories – all the countries and territories for which the United Nations Population Division provides overall population estimates. (See Appendix A (PDF) for a more detailed explanation of how the estimates were made; see Appendix D (PDF) for a list of data sources by country.)

In many countries, however, censuses and surveys do not contain detailed information on denominational and religious movement affiliations. Christian organizations remain in many cases the only source of information on the size of global movements within Christianity (such as evangelicalism and pentecostalism) and on Protestant denominational families (such as Baptists and Methodists). The figures in this report on pentecostal, charismatic and evangelical Christians and on Protestant denominational families were commissioned by the Pew Forum from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Mass., whose researchers generated estimates based in large part on figures provided by Christian organizations around the world. Readers should bear in mind that these breakdowns were derived differently from the overall Christian population estimates.

According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, there are about 279 million pentecostal Christians and 305 million charismatic Christians worldwide. (Charismatic Christians belong to non-pentecostal denominations yet engage in spiritual practices associated with pentecostalism, such as speaking in tongues and divine healing; see Defining Christian Movements.)

In addition, more than 285 million Christians can be classified as evangelicals because they either belong to churches affiliated with regional or global evangelical associations, or because they identify as evangelicals. Since many pentecostals and charismatics are also evangelicals, these categories are not mutually exclusive. (For more details, see Christian Movements and Denominations)

You probably know by now that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has died of a massive heart attack whilst travelling on a train. His son Kim Jong-un will ascend the throne and it’s great to hear they’re cracking on with testing mid range weapons.

If you feel “engulfed in indescribable sadness” then may I suggest you spend some time on this powerful and moving blog:

kim jong-il looking at things

“Whoever marries the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the next.”

William Ralph Inge

First Reading Judges 13:2-7, 24-25

There was a man of Zorah of the tribe of Dan, called Manoah. His wife was barren, she had borne no children. The angel of the Lord appeared to this woman and said to her, ‘You are barren and have had no child. But from now on take great care. Take no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean. For you will conceive and bear a son. No razor is to touch his head, for the boy shall be God’s nazirite from his mother’s womb. It is he who will begin to rescue Israel from the power of the Philistines.’ Then the woman went and told her husband, ‘A man of God has just come to me; his presence was like the presence of the angel of God, he was so majestic. I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not reveal his name to me. But he said to me, “You will conceive and bear a son. From now on, take no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean. For the boy shall be God’s nazirite from his mother’s womb to his dying day.”’

The woman gave birth to a son and called him Samson. The child grew, and the Lord blessed him; and the spirit of the Lord began to move him.

Gospel Acclamation 

Alleluia, alleluia!
Root of Jesse, set up as a sign to the peoples,
come to save us,
and delay no more.
Alleluia!

The Gospel Luke 1:5-25

In the days of King Herod of Judaea there lived a priest called Zechariah who belonged to the Abijah section of the priesthood, and he had a wife, Elizabeth by name, who was a descendant of Aaron. Both were worthy in the sight of God, and scrupulously observed all the commandments and observances of the Lord. But they were childless: Elizabeth was barren and they were both getting on in years.

Now it was the turn of Zechariah’s section to serve, and he was exercising his priestly office before God when it fell to him by lot, as the ritual custom was, to enter the Lord’s sanctuary and burn incense there. And at the hour of incense the whole congregation was outside, praying.

Then there appeared to him the angel of the Lord, standing on the right of the altar of incense. The sight disturbed Zechariah and he was overcome with fear. But the angel said to him, ‘Zechariah, do not be afraid, your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth is to bear you a son and you must name him John. He will be your joy and delight and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord; he must drink no wine, no strong drink. Even from his mother’s womb he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, and he will bring back many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God. With the spirit and power of Elijah, he will go before him to turn the hearts of fathers towards their children and the disobedient back to the wisdom that the virtuous have, preparing for the Lord a people fit for him.’

Zechariah said to the angel, ‘How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is getting on in years.’ The angel replied, ‘I am Gabriel who stand in God’s presence, and I have been sent to speak to you and bring you this good news. Listen! Since you have not believed my words, which will come true at their appointed time, you will be silenced and have no power of speech until this has happened.’ Meanwhile the people were waiting for Zechariah and were surprised that he stayed in the sanctuary so long. When he came out he could not speak to them, and they realised that he had received a vision in the sanctuary. But he could only make signs to them, and remained dumb.

When his time of service came to an end he returned home. Some time later his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept to herself. ‘The Lord has done this for me’ she said ‘now that it has pleased him to take away the humiliation I suffered among men.’

A few links I found interesting for one reason or another:

The Biblical World – The Theology of Snoopy

Elizaphanian – Of Strategy, Smallbone and the Spanish Train

Gordon’s Blog – Do evangelicals choose their religious faith based on their pre-existing extrinsic values?

Barna Group – Top trends 2011

The Vernacular Curate – Trolls and Blogging

The American Catholic – Vaclav Havel: Requiescat In Pace

Edward Feser – Greene on Nozick on nothing

(In the Feser article he mentions his book “The Last Superstition” which is on my Amazon wishlist. I mention this should anyone suddenly be overcome with a generous Christmassy desire to purchase me a book.

Although the below quote is from an article referring to the Ukraine, I found the observations of Fr. Borys Gudziak intriguing:

“Much of modernity is predicated on an antagonistic relationship between the sacred and the secular. We are proposing that we can move beyond that hostility. We are in a post-secular age now where people are yearning for a sense of meaning. It’s a pilgrimage, with few set answers.”

Read all

Are we living in a post-secular age; one in which the problems bedevilling our world prompt folk to reassess spiritual issues in search of meaning?

As we enter the 4th and final Week of Advent, and we draw ever closer to our Lord’s Advent and the dawning of our Salvation. Let us join with Mary, to trust God in all things and choose to say ‘Yes’ praying with Mary, the cosmic changing prayer -”Fiat mihi” – “Let what you have said be done to me”

First Reading 2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8-11,16

Once David had settled into his house and the Lord had given him rest from all the enemies surrounding him, the king said to the prophet Nathan, ‘Look, I am living in a house of cedar while the ark of God dwells in a tent.’ Nathan said to the king, ‘Go and do all that is in your mind, for the Lord is with you.’
But that very night the word of the Lord came to Nathan:
‘Go and tell my servant David, “Thus the Lord speaks: Are you the man to build me a house to dwell in? I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, to be leader of my people Israel; I have been with you on all your expeditions; I have cut off all your enemies before you. I will give you fame as great as the fame of the greatest on earth. I will provide a place for my people Israel; I will plant them there and they shall dwell in that place and never be disturbed again; nor shall the wicked continue to oppress them as they did, in the days when I appointed judges over my people Israel; I will give them rest from all their enemies. The Lord will make you great; the Lord will make you a House. Your House and your sovereignty will always stand secure before me and your throne be established for ever.”’

Second Reading Romans 16:25-27

Glory to him who is able to give you the strength to live according to the Good News I preach, and in which I proclaim Jesus Christ, the revelation of a mystery kept secret for endless ages, but now so clear that it must be broadcast to pagans everywhere to bring them to the obedience of faith. This is only what scripture has predicted, and it is all part of the way the eternal God wants things to be. He alone is wisdom; give glory therefore to him through Jesus Christ for ever and ever. Amen.

Gospel Acclamation Luke 1:38

Alleluia, alleluia!

I am the handmaid of the Lord:
let what you have said be done to me.
Alleluia!

The Gospel Luke 1:26-38

The angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. He went in and said to her, ‘Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you.’ She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean, but the angel said to her, ‘Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God’s favour. Listen! You are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David; he will rule over the House of Jacob for ever and his reign will have no end.’ Mary said to the angel, ‘But how can this come about, since I am a virgin?’ ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you’ the angel answered ‘and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the child will be holy and will be called Son of God. Know this too: your kinswoman Elizabeth has, in her old age, herself conceived a son, and she whom people called barren is now in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible to God’ ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord,’ said Mary ‘let what you have said be done to me.’ And the angel left her.

Readings for this week

Monday 

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

I’m not going to say anything about David Cameron’s speech as so much has been said already. I think the general consensus in the Twitterati world seems to be that he’s a hypocrite, with a few folk suggesting he has no real faith, but more a belief in belief.

Anyway, you can be the judge of all that if you wish.

Here is the link to his speech in full.

Let us know what you think.

First Reading Genesis 49:2,8-10

Jacob called his sons and said:
‘Gather round, sons of Jacob, and listen;
listen to Israel your father.
Judah, your brothers shall praise you:
you grip your enemies by the neck,
your father’s sons shall do you homage,
Judah is a lion cub,
you climb back, my son, from your kill;
like a lion he crouches and lies down,
or a lioness: who dare rouse him?
The sceptre shall not pass from Judah,
nor the mace from between his feet,
until he come to whom it belongs,
to whom the peoples shall render obedience.’

Gospel Acclamation

Alleluia, alleluia!
Wisdom of the Most High,
ordering all things with strength and gentleness,
come and teach us the way of truth.
Alleluia!

Gospel Matthew 1:1-10

A genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham:
Abraham was the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah, Tamar being their mother,
Perez was the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of Ram,
Ram was the father of Amminadab,
Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
Salmon was the father of Boaz, Rahab being his mother,
Boaz was the father of Obed, Ruth being his mother,
Obed was the father of Jesse;
and Jesse was the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife,
Solomon was the father of Rehoboam,
Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa,
Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat,
Jehoshaphat the father of Joram,
Joram the father of Azariah,
Azariah was the father of Jotham,
Jotham the father of Ahaz,
Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,
Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh,
Manasseh the father of Amon,
Amon the father of Josiah;
and Josiah was the father of Jechoniah and his brothers.
Then the deportation to Babylon took place.
After the deportation to Babylon:
Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel,
Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,
Zerubbabel was the father of Abiud,
Abiud the father of Eliakim,
Eliakim the father of Azor,
Azor was the father of Zadok,
Zadok the father of Achim,
Achim the father of Eliud,
Eliud was the father of Eleazar,
Eleazar the father of Matthan,
Matthan the father of Jacob;
and Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary;
of her was born Jesus who is called Christ.
The sum of generations is therefore: fourteen from Abraham to David; fourteen from David to the Babylonian deportation; and fourteen from the Babylonian deportation to Christ.