The Race is On in the Global South

Steve Addison's blog drew my attention to a fascinating report on the major shift in religion happening in Latin America. Is this the beginning of what Philip Jenkins calls The Next Christendom? Jenkins writes, "We are currently living through one of the transforming moments in the history of religion worldwide." He looks at the global numbers to exhibit a coming shift that will move the center of Christianity out of the pews of Europe and the megachurches of America into the dirt streets of Africa and the passion-filled people of Latin America...and the transition will have major ramifications on world affairs.

The facts below show the current race to capture the hearts of Latin Americans. They're ready to receive something that will inflame their passion and ignite their faith. The only question is what that something will be.

• Protestant evangelicals, and sects like the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses are on the rise. Mexico now has the second largest Mormon population in the world, and there are a million Jehovah's Witnesses in Brazil.

• Forty million people left the Catholic church in Latin America during the last ten years.

• Latin America seems to be a free-for-all, for all the fast-growing Christian sects that have sprung up here. Not only are the more mainstream evangelicals and Pentecostals here, we've got the Latter Day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, and any of the plethora of lesser-known but equally fervent new churches. And they're all thriving in their new fertile pastures.

• The number of Pentecostals and charismatics combined in 1970 was only 4% of the Latin American population. In 2005, the percentage of Pentecostals alone was 13%, or 75 million. Charismatic members of non-Pentecostal churches accounted for another 15% or 80 million people.

• One of Latin America's poorest countries, and one of the biggest success stories for evangelicals is Guatemala, where Gallop polls show between 25% and 30% of the population identifying themselves as born-again.

• 2,000 people are leaving the Catholic church per week in Mexico.

• The Assembly of God church has 12 million people in Brazil; in Mexico there are a million Pentecostals. But Catholicism still has a very strong presence in Latin America; the problem is, the dynamic is completely different to what Latinos want. For example, the current Pope has ideas which are totally contradictory to the dynamic. These are more straightforward things than issues like abortion. He wants to go back to mass in Latin, and teaching it in schools. He prohibits what he calls profane music in churches, but if he goes to the basilica in Guadalupe, he'll see mariachis, and on the Day of the Dead you'll see a lot of people dancing. So really, the people will keep doing this. The problem is that the institution is culturally disconnected with very high costs.

• Mexico only has 14,000 priests for those 80 million people. That's one per 7,000 followers. Compare that to the evangelicals who have one pastor for 300 people.

These numbers combined with future predictions of global growth make me believe more and more that our work here in Mexico City is critical. Praise the Lord that He has led us to employ a style of ministry that focuses on empowering nationals to lead and create from the beginning.

Nazarene Pastor, Mario Rayez, had this to say about the history of the Church in his country:

"Here in Guatemala, the evangelical church came in a long time ago. It brought an Anglo-Saxon culture into a Latin American culture. But the church started to understand it needed to grow, and to grow it needed to clean hearts of men. It started adapting the church to Guatemalan culture, which is very different, because also the church was very passive and sedate when it started here. But bit by bit, it started waking up. We Latinos are very joyful, so while the church was quiet when it started, we said, 'No, we need to get more people, more young people'. And young people are very energetic and they need more movement. And then of course, we started working in their hearts."

Bingo. We're targeting the future generation of leaders in the country - college students. When you look at the fact that in Mexico, 43% of second-generation evangelicals have no affiliation with the church, it's time for an awakening of the Mexican church.