The Unexpected Christian Century: Book Review Part II
Scott W. Sunquist, The Unexpected Christian Century; The Reversal and Transformation of Global Christianity, 1900-2000. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005.
A book summary, with special focus on Chinese Christianity, continued
Chapter 4 - Confessional Families: Diverse Confessions, Diverse Fates
This chapter traces the different ways in which the trends discussed earlier impacted Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Spiritual churches around the world. After very helpful analyses of the orthodox and Roman Catholic experiences, Sunquist turns to Protestantism.
“Protestantism, starting late in the modern mission era, greatly outpaced Roman Catholicism globally in the twentieth century. But by the end of the…century the growing edge of Christianity was suddenly passed on from the Protestant churches to the Spiritual, African Indigenous Churches, and unregistered churches in China” (112).
Sunquist states that the two main “themes after 1920 were the tandem issues of ecumenical unity and mission,” and frames his discussion accordingly. He traces the rise of the ecumenical movement as it was crystallized in the World Council of Churches (WCC), noting its increasing commitment to liberal and then to liberation theology. The 1932 Hocking Report called into question the meaning and methods of traditional missionary efforts and sparked a ferocious controversy at home and on the mission field, including China. More conservative theologians challenged the idea that Christians should aim to collaborate with other religions in works of social reform, not compete with them, by proclamation of the gospel.
Other important themes were “liturgical development, especially the proliferation of Christian music,” and “the increased role of the laity, especially of women.” This last theme is more important in Protestant Christianity, and even more significant (or radical) still among the Spirit family” (122-123).
The author also pays attention to formation of parallel missionary and ecumenical organizations among evangelicals, such as, in America, the National Association of Evangelicals, and the missionary conference convened by Billy Graham and John Stott at Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1974.
“By the end of the century the WCC maintained a broad involvement in missions, with much greater emphasis on peacemaking, environmental issues, and justice. The evangelical groups also maintained a broader involvement of mission than before, with greater emphasis on evangelism and church planting among ‘unreached people groups.’” But it was “no longer just a Western discussion. As the Western institutional structures promoted ongoing discussions, most of the missionary work had become the prerogative of Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans after the 1980s” (116).
In China, the split between liberal and evangelical approaches expressed itself in the tensions and division between the Three-Self Patriotic Movement and the unregistered churches, which were many times more numerous. The totalitarian Communist government imposed a forced unity upon “mainline” Chinese denominations, while a common commitment to the Bible and to the spread of the gospel united unregistered groups in spirit, if not organizationally.
As in the rest of the world, liberal church leaders in China stressed social transformation, while evangelicals focused more on repentance, faith, and a transformed life. This Christianity “was more biblical in orientation, more evangelistic, more diverse, and more like the early church” (122).
Spiritual Churches: Independents and Pentecostals
“Of all of the transformation and themes we might discuss concerning Christianity in the twentieth century, the single most important is the rise of ‘four stream’ churches: those that are independent and rise up, or suddenly spring up, in local contexts” (124). These churches emphasize “the spiritual life that Christian faith engenders and even requires. [It] may be a matter of exhibiting spiritual power or uncommon gifts, but often it is seen in transformed behavior” (128).
This is true in China, too. Sunquist mentions the Great Shandon Revival, which affected all denominations; the Jesus Family; the Spiritual Gifts Movement; the revivals that accompanied the preaching of the Bethel Band and John Sung; the True Jesus Church; the Little Flock of Watchman Nee; and churches led by “important pastors like Wang Mingdao,” all of which “provided indigenous Chinese Christian leadership that would become the foundation for a large percentage of Christianity that germinated during the Mao years (1949-76)” (131).
These movements “often have Confucian concerns for a moral and ethical life mixed with a Daoist openness to the mysterious and mystical.” Out of them “have come new indigenous hymns and spiritual writings,” as well as dynamic evangelistic and, recently missionary, endeavors (131).
Chapter 5 - On the Move: Christianity and Migration
“At their best moments Christians recognize that they are sent in the pattern of Jesus Christ, to go into the world – to all the nations – proclaiming redemption and exhibiting the coming kingdom of God on earth. In the twentieth century this missionary identity underwent an odd twist, based on a false assumption.” Christianity was for a long time considered a Western religion because its main base was in Western Europe. “Slowly, as Europeans moved out to the Americas, Africa, and Asia, a new belief came to be assumed, that missionary work was ‘from the West to the rest’” (135).
“From the very beginning Christianity was a missionary faith in two ways: apostolic individuals being sent out from a church center and migrations of people carrying the cross of Jesus into new cultures and nations” (137). This chapter explores the latter form of “missionary” movement.
“The twentieth century…brought two odd twists to this global understanding of mission and Christian identity. First…‘the nations’ began to come back to the old Christian homelands of Europe and the Americas” (137). As Western colonial empires have collapsed, migration has transformed the religious landscape.
The second “strange twist” “relates to the missionaries themselves; most of them are no longer European or North American. “Just as the missionary movement up to the twenty-first century could be seen as an undercurrent of modern migrations, we can also understand the modern, non-Western missionary movement as an undercurrent of present migration trends” (138). By 2000 “more than 62 percent of the Christians in the world were non-Western, and more than 70 percent of the missionaries were non-Western” (138).
Most of those who migrate are “seeking a safer or healthier place to live… Most of the migrants of the world are intensely religious people, and at times the experience of migration magnifies the religious commitment” (139).
Sunquist examines in turn several causes of migration. The two fundamental ones are communications and transportation, both of which make migration much easier than before. Other factors are urbanization, as masses move into cities, the urbanization of China being the greatest internal migration in history. Economics plays a huge part, as “poverty pushes and hope pulls” (140). Many migrants “drift away from the religion of their childhood, and some become Christ. There is a much higher rate of Christian practice among Chinese among Chinese, Korea, or Indian professors” of faith in the West than in their home countries (140).
“Chinese flooded out of China to Southeast Asia as well as across the globe after the victory of Mao’s Red Army in 1949. With these Chinese immigrants also came Western missionaries who had been working in China. Thus Mao’s political policies helped to spread Western missionaries – most of whom were fluent in Chinese dialects – and Chinese Christians to Southeast Asia.” Further, the “persecution of Christians and the removal of foreign support strengthened the small Christian community in China” (141).
One of Sunquist’s major themes is that “Christianity develops, for the most part, along the borderland, or along the overlapping folds of cultures… Christianity, unlike other religions, seems to exist within or on the missional edge” (144).
In the case of the Chinese, at “the end of the twentieth century, as China was once again opening up to the world, Chinese began moving out. Most…have only a rudimentary understanding of Christianity. Unexpectedly, however, many Chinese who have encountered Christians in their adopted countries have been converted. Many of these…return to China, either permanently or on visits, with their newfound faith. This is not a planned strategy of a church or of a mission agency, but many Christians who receive Chinese in their countries do what they can to enhance the movement” (145).
As one who spent twenty-five years intentionally seeking to reach Chinese who have come to the United States, I would only need to disagree with one part of that succinct statement of an enormously significant development: For at least the past twenty years, China-related ministries in the West have very consciously sought to take advantage of this major work of God in bringing the gospel to people who have been, in some ways, more receptive than they would have been had they remained in China.
Christians also join in migrations, for various reasons including a desire to escape persecution. Chinese believers who left Hong Kong in 1997 planted churches in Canada that later actively evangelized newcomers from China. Those from Taiwan formed Bible studies and churches that have had a huge gospel influence on students and scholars who have come to the West since the 1980s.
In the conclusion to this chapter, Sunquist draws out the significance of massive migration: First, “Christianity is more and more a religion practiced as a minority faith without ‘Christian’ government support,” as it was for 1,700 years in Europe (150). In short, “Christendom Christianity…is coming to a close… Second, and closely related, is the shift away from Western religious hegemony” (151). Christianity is entering into other cultures as a minority faith and is appropriating indigenous religious culture into itself, forming a new synthesis.
This new development comes as a result not just of migrations but also “the surprising fruitfulness of Western Christian missions” (152).
Third, without its former support and protection from governments, Christianity will be more vulnerable to hostile governments. The dissolution of Christendom means, on the other hand, we must remember that “it was such an alliance with power that gave Christianity its darkest blots in the historical logbook… As always, Christianity is centered on the person of Jesus, not in a culture, nation, city, or ethnic group” (152).
Chapter 6 - One Way Among Others: Christianity and the World’s Religions
“The missionary encounter of the nineteenth century set the stage for three related movements in the twentieth century: religious pluralism, religious conflicts, and the conversion of many from one religion to another” (164).
As religions met and often clashed with each other, sometimes violently, within Christianity some argued for “greater tolerance and pluralism in practice and belief,” while others “became anxious and belligerent about the growing pluralism. Some in this second group became intolerant of diversity; others became more committed to missionary work among other religions (154).
In this very wide-ranging chapter, the author explores these general trends. New Religious Movements (NRMS) arose all over the world, some of them mutations of Christianity and other world religions, others being amalgamations of several different faiths.
Christianity and Asian Religions
“Western Christianity developed two minds regarding its relationship to other religious beliefs, especially in relation to Asian religions… One of the great themes of Christianity in the twentieth century is the development of theologies of religion related to Christian interaction with the great religions of Asia” (159). Influential “mainline” theologians, greatly influenced by Enlightenment rationalism, called for a “humanization” of Christianity that made it more like other faiths and less “superstitious.” At the same time, missionaries and local Christians were “encountering a world more like the first than the twentieth century as they became embedded in African, Latin American, and Asian communities,” where exorcism, healings, and other spiritual experiences were common.
While theological liberals developed a theology and the practice of interreligious dialogue, evangelicals, still felt ‘the call to be witnesses to all nations” (164). Throughout the chapter, Sunquist seems to be mostly aware of “the loss of Christian vitality in the West, the decline of missionary work among theological pluralists, and the divisions that persisted in the remnant of Western Christendom” (164). Only in a few passages, and very briefly, does he seem to take note of the huge rise of interest in evangelical missions and the ongoing energy of the evangelical and Pentecostal/charismatic missionary movement, though he is surely aware of these.
China
Reflecting conditions at the time of writing, the author says that “today religions are not seen as being evil and expedient, but as useful and inevitable” (166). At the same time, he rightly draws attention to cults and sections that are millenarian and even violent, such as Eastern Lightning (now called Church of the Almighty God), which is noxious mutation of Christianity that reminds us of the Taiping rebellion of the mid-nineteenth century. (Since 2017, the Chinese government has launched an all-out campaign against all religions.)
Shifting Beliefs and Relationships
Returning to an earlier theme, Sunquist writes, “I want to emphasize that Western Christianity in the twentieth century lost its confident. In retrospect we can say that it lost its misplaced confidence. Rather than trusting in the work of God through Jesus Christ as its power, Christendom leaders trusted in their institutions, their empires, and the cultural forms of faith” (170). As missionaries learned more about other faiths, a new respect for other religions grew into a belief that all religions are equal – at least among liberal theologians and missiologists. Thus, “Christianity in the West, in an age of great comfort and affluence, slowly dissipated as it became its own worst enemy, dying by suicide, or at least by growing irrelevance” (171).
At the same time, “in Asia…Christians were actively proclaiming and spreading Christian faith,” and developing forms that were more indigenous (172).
Religions Growing and Declining
In China, Confucianism continues to serve as the “core” that is “surrounded by other religions,” including folk religions (173). Sunquist claims that “the folk-religious aspect of Chinese religious life is not returning,” apparently on the basis of statistics available to him at the time, but contrary to what we now know about the massive resurgence of traditional Chinese religions, at least before the recent crackdown. He does correctly note the striking rise in the number of agnostics and atheists, not only in Russia and China, but also the West.
Once again, he concludes that Christians at the start of the twenty-first century, though still about 34% of the world’s population, now live predominantly outside the West. “Christianity now has a darker complexion and speaks more languages and dialects than any other religion in the world. The twentieth century was a Christian century in that Christianity finally completed the movement out of Western Europe to become a truth global faith – a process that began in the fifteenth century.”
The Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20 was being fulfilled as never before, and “the vision of John in Revelation [7:9] was closer than ever to being fulfilled” (176).
Epilogue: Future Hope and the Presence of the Past
This concluding section is so eloquent and powerful that I am tempted to quote it in full, but a few highlights must suffice.
Where The Twentieth Century “Great Reversal” Has Brought Us
On the one hand, “We live in the ruins of civilizations, hopes, systems and souls,” wrote George Florovsky in 1955, citing the decline of Christianity in the Soviet Union and Western Europe and “then the loss of Christian culture in the United States” (178-179). He concluded that “if there is any historical future at all, it may well happen that this future is reserved for another civilization, and probably for one which will be quite different from ours” (179).
Sunquist agrees. “There is a vitality, hope, and life to Christianity, and this hope is now a historical reality among the poor and minority groups…among the powerless Christian minorities in Asia and among the poor in Africa and in Latin America” (179). More specifically, he quotes veteran China missionary Calvin Mateer, who wrote in 1907 that “the future of the church and of the world lies wrapped up in this great people,” that is, the Chinese (179). Christian hope moves this great religion forward, “and now we see that there may even be Christian hope in one of the most ancient and immovable civilizations, China” (180). This Christianity, like China itself, will be diverse, but Christians will “recognized themselves across such cultural and social divides,” showing that “the centeredness of Christianity in the person of Jesus Christ” (180).
“Christians are united around the Word of God, revealed in the Bible, revealed in creation, and incarnate in the communion of his followers” (181). In addition to their common allegiance to the Word of God, Christians recognize that “[m]ission and evangelism remain a permanent duty of the Church at all times and places” (181, quoting Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople).
What the Twentieth-Century “Great Reversal Has Taught Us
“First…the Jesus movement has always been about clay vessels and the glory and power within [not in any worldly power, as some have always believed]… Second, the Jesus movement thrives on borderlands, where cultures overlap and encounter one another... Third…the apostolic nature of Christianity is part of its essence. Another way of stating this is that Christianity atrophies without missionary expression.
“Finally, it should be remembered that the unexpected Christian century is a paradox, the type of paradox that is at the root of Christianity. Jesus talked in parables about the need for a seed to die for it to bring fruit… Suffering and death are essential to the DNA of Christianity. This paradoxical century of Christian reversals can best be understood as the planting of Christian seeds throughout the globe during ‘The Great Century’ [Kenneth Scott Latourette’s name for the nineteenth century and its massive missionary movement]” (183-5).
As an historian and missiologists, Sunquist affirms that the “missionary movement made the miraculous growth in Africa and in parts of Asia possible… The miracle of Christian growth in China is directly related to missionary in earlier decades and even centuries. The appropriation of that gospel message was the work of local people, but the message that was delivered [by missionaries] was given in a form that could be understood and then be reshaped to make sense to local farmers and traders” (185).
In short, “the development of Christianity in the twentieth century resulted from the synergy of Western missions and non-Western appropriation… [Despite its flaws] missionary work, with great sacrifice and suffering, established some small, local Christian presence, then, in each of the many contexts, local people adopted the teachings of Jesus and made them their own,” often at great cost to themselves and their families (186-187).
This tells us that “the message of the gospel is more powerful than human motives and more gentle than human powers.” Missionaries from non-Western countries today move out “in ways not that different from the Europeans and Americans of the past, but with little of the worldly power… A gentle and suffering Savior will be Lord of all these efforts in the future, as in the past” (187).
Evaluation
Overall, this is an outstanding book, of great usefulness to anyone wanting to understand the immense changes that took place in the twentieth century. It is also a marvel of conciseness: Sunquist packs an enormous amount of information and analysis into fewer than 200 pages.
Throughout, he seeks to maintain almost strict neutrality as he describes people and movements from hugely divergent streams of Christianity. In general, I think he succeeds in presenting different points of view in a way that those on the “Inside” would consider fair and accurate. Though an evangelical, he portrays Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and Pentecostals favorably and sensitively.
My only difficulty with his method is that at times Sunquist appears to affirm radically different positions as if they were of equal fidelity to the Scriptures. In other words, in seeking to be ecumenical and broad-minded, he frequently seems to endorse mutually contradictory convictions. He often reproduces opinions without qualification, as if they were true, rather than introducing them with some statement like, “according to…”
The reader is left with the question: Does the author really agree with and endorse, for example, both Liberation Theology and conservative evangelicalism? He portrays Y. T. Yu ( Yu Yaozong), who helped found the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, in a positive light, though Yu was very liberal in his theology and the TSPM has often worked closely with the Communist state to persecute those who chose not to join the TSPM.
Perhaps it’s best to see Sunquist as a teacher of history who aims simply to present the best of all the different men and movements he surveys, leaving the readers to make their own evaluations.
That might work for very knowledgeable and theologically trained persons, but could also lead to a great deal of confusion for others.
Other Comments
While Sunquist is definitely correct that Christianity declined in Europe and among mainline Protestants in America in the twentieth century, we should also note that evangelical and Pentecostal-charismatic churches experienced tremendous vitality and growth. That trend slowed and has almost stopped in the early years of the twenty-first century, to be sure, but American Christians with traditional beliefs, though perhaps shallow in their theology and inconsistent in their practice, demonstrated enormous energy while liberal Protestantism was hollowing out.
During that same period, missionaries from the North America helped to spearhead the explosive spread of Protestant Christianity that forms the main theme of this book.
His rootedness in mainstream ecumenical Protestantism results in detailed treatment of the two themes of church (meaning denominational) unity and mission, perhaps with less coverage of developments among evangelicals than would have been appropriates. For example, Sunquist talks about “Western theology,” by which he means liberal and neo-orthodox theology, without acknowledging the stunning growth and vitality of evangelical and conservative theology in the North America in the latter half of the twentieth century, of which Carl Henry was one major catalyst and spokesman.
Finally, he writes in several places of the indigenization or enculturation of Christianity in Africa and Asia in ways that would seem to endorse what evangelicals would consider syncretistic.
These criticisms should not in any way detract from my delight in, admiration for, and strong endorsement of this remarkable book, one which, perhaps, only someone with Sunquist’s immense learning and elegant style could have written.