God delights in doing new things. In the words of Isaiah, “Remember not the former things, / nor consider the things of old. / Behold, I am doing a new thing; / now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? / I will make a way in the wilderness / and rivers in the desert.” (43:18-19 ESV)
According to Andrew Walls, a new thing is happening in the Global South: “Today, the signs suggest that what the Christianity of the twenty-first century will be like, in its theology, its worship, its effect on society, its penetration of new areas, whether geographically or culturally, will depend on what happens in Africa, in Latin America, and in some parts of Asia.”[1] In particular, he describes sub-Saharan Africa as “the most remarkable theatre of Christian accession in the modern world.”[2]
Are you watching closely?
[1] Andrew F. Walls, The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission and Appropriation of Faith (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2004), 32.
[2] Ibid., 45.
