Steeple Chase.

The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, by Philip Jenkins (Oxford, 304 pp., $28)

The quasi-apocalyptic warnings are all too familiar by now. Christianity is on the way out, and the West's stranglehold on religion is going the way of the dodo (and, most of the critics add, none too soon). If the old faith of the oppressors has any hope at all, opine the advocates of obliterating "reform," it must change or die; meanwhile, the fearsome forces of Islam range unchecked across the globe, as the crescent surely and irrevocably replaces the cross. The religious landscape of this new century holds little hope for the followers of Jesus.

All of these deadly serious predictions are familiar; they also, however, happen to be laughably untrue. At present count, and with the most accuracy that demographic science can hope to achieve, there are 2 billion Christians in the world. By the year 2050, there will be 3 billion, outnumbering Muslims three to two. Christianity is anything but moribund, so whence the rumors of its imminent, whimpering death?

Philip Jenkins, professor of history and religious studies at Penn State, makes the sensible case that Christianity is indeed growing quickly, just not in its old haunts -- Europe and North America -- and not in ways particularly attractive to the mainstream media. In the first place, Christianity's center of gravity is shifting south: Before the end of this century we can well expect Africa, Asia, and Latin America to be the home of the most vibrant and populous Christian nations on earth. Already fast approaching Europe's 560 million Christians (many of whom, let us admit, are only nominally so), Latin America is home to 480 million, Africa to 360 million, Asia to 313 million -- and all of these are notably larger contingents than North America's mere 260 million.

Perhaps even more striking is the kind of people who are attracted to Christianity in the Southern Hemisphere. On the whole, they are not much like their northern counterparts: They are overwhelmingly poor, displaced from rural villages into overcrowded cities in search of work. They are morally conservative, often to the point of being what northerners would call puritanical, and theologically orthodox. They adhere strictly to the word of Scripture, which commands their loyalty far more than state or society; and they expect supernatural intervention in their daily lives, be it in the form of faith healing or ecstatic prophecy. They tend to be Roman Catholics (frequently of a charismatic stripe) or Pentecostals.

Despite the West's predilection for reporting only the more syncretistic or corrupt extremes of Southern Hemisphere churches, the overwhelming majority of these churches are recognizably Christian. On the whole, the old guard in Europe and North America has simply ignored the burgeoning masses of Christians in the South. When they have noticed them, it has generally been in the service of the northern churches' polemical agendas. Northern conservatives laud the traditional morality, in particular the traditional sexual morality, found in the South, and discover therein the means to defend unpopular decisions at home. Northern liberals, on the other hand, uphold the South's tendencies towards liberation theology in order to plead for social reform and make prophetic critiques of capitalist excesses.

The churches of the South do, in fact, exhibit the qualities Northerners ascribe to them; but Jenkins argues that adopting the southern churches for northern rhetorical purposes is a dead end -- because what the North has to say about Christianity is not going to matter much as the years pass. One need only cursorily examine the relative birth and conversion rates of North and South to see where the future lies -- and where the future, there also the power.

The southern churches have ceased to be the transplants of colonial good will they still were at the beginning of the 20th century. They have become indigenous, with their own clergy, prophets, traditions, and theologies; and so it is entirely reasonable to expect that the heart, soul, and mind of the Christian faith will very soon be found not in Europe, but south of the Equator.

This is not an entirely novel situation in the history of the Church. For hundreds of years, while Europe was still pagan, Christianity was centered in the Holy Land and the Near East. The churches in Armenia and Ethiopia were especially strong and influential, and to this day there remain groups such as the Monophysites and Nestorians, who have hung on these many years outside the European fold.

In many ways, Jenkins demonstrates, the growth of the Church in the Southern Hemisphere now shows striking parallels to its growth in Europe after Constantine. Just as Church and country were tightly bound together in medieval Europe, now too politics south of the Equator is deeply colored by the religious allegiance of various constituencies, whether to throw off tyrannical regimes or establish positively Christian nations. Today's pressing question -- how to deal with enemies who make war in the name of Islam -- also has a precedent in that period. But though the religious and cultural changes in the post- Constantinian period were often the object of violent struggle, we tend to view the outcome as basically good; and there is little reason to doubt that there will be a similarly positive result in the South.

Jenkins's meticulously researched work should serve, however, as a wake-up call for northern Christians. The North is steadily losing its population and grip on the faith, to such an extent that it is no longer surprising when missionaries come from the South to their secularized elder brothers up North. Jenkins's book should also pop the balloon of conceit that supposes that the North knows what the really compelling and cutting-edge issues of Christianity are; these concerns are not frequently shared by the burgeoning South. (A notable example of this came at the Anglican Communion's last Lambeth conference, when African bishops played a key role in rejecting a move to endorse homosexuality.)

The most peculiar note struck in this book is Jenkins's occasional display of glee at the dashing of white northern liberal hopes for the future of the Church. This is peculiar because the book is primarily a sociological study, not a theological one; Jenkins asserts that "we can be none too precise about defining Christianity," so the criterion for membership in the Church is self-definition and not any particular body of belief. He also indulges in intermittent bizarre speculations such as the following: "There is now talk that the Virgin might be proclaimed a mediator and co-Savior figure, comparable to Jesus himself, even a fourth member of the Trinity. Such ambitious schemes remain controversial, but demographic trends within the Church make it highly likely that they will be implemented in the coming decades." This is in fact a change that most orthodox Christians -- especially the ones he has spent the better part of his book defending -- would agree departs from catholic Christianity altogether.

Nevertheless, these are minor quibbles, and the larger point of the book is well taken. Whatever one's personal hopes for the future of the Church, one basic fact remains unchanged: "Christianity exercises an overwhelming global appeal, which shows not the slightest sign of waning."