WorldChristian Briefing #24

The World by 2000
Last time we looked at the very real possibility that the world could have been evangelized by the year 1900 (see the World by 1900). Yet though in 1900 there was more than enough evangelism for everyone in the world to hear the gospel, over half of the world's population had never heard of Jesus Christ. Christians did not give up and one of the great missionary conferences of Christian history was held a decade later in Edinburgh, Scotland. The slogan of the World Missionary Conference was “The Whole Church taking the Whole Gospel to the Whole World.” What seemed to be within reach in 1900 would surely be possible in the early years of the 20th century.

Global plans
What followed was a string of remarkable major initiatives best labeled 'global plans'. An examination of a select few of these (listed in the box below) shows the serious nature of these plans. In each case Christian planners expressed their confidence in their ability (under God's direction) to evangelize the world within a short period of time. And they made plans in light of the enormous resources of the global church.

Select Global Plans of the 20th century

1900 The evangelization of the world in this generation
1910 The whole church taking the whole gospel to the whole world
1914 Inauguration of the Kingdom of God on earth
1930 Bringing Christ to the nations
1934 Evangelize to a finish to bring back the king
1946 Complete Christ's commission
1956 The gospel to every creature
1957 Global conquest
1974 Let the earth hear his voice
1976 Bold mission thrust
1980 A church for every people by the year 2000
1990 Decade of evangelization
1995 A church for every people and the gospel for every person by AD 2000

The Map
The second color map in our series shows the status of evangelization in AD 2000. In contrast to the map last time this one shows remarkable progress in world evangelization. In particular, much of sub-Saharan Africa largely unevangelized in 1900 became more than 60% Christian by AD 2000. This demographic shift of Christianity from North to South is easily the most significant of all 20th century trends. Although Christians were approximately 33% of the global population throughout the 20th century, they were 81% White in 1900 but less than 45% White by AD 2000.

Increasing distribution problems
(see The World in 2000 chart)
Nonetheless, the problem of poor distribution of Christian resources at the heart of the failure of Christians to evangelize the world by 1900, was greatly exacerbated in the 20th century. By AD 2000 there was enough evangelism in the world for every person on earth to hear a one-hour presentation of the gospel 155 times a year. That is almost once every other day all year long! Yet under those conditions, over a quarter of the world's population had never heard of Jesus Christ. What had become painfully obvious at the close of the 20th century was the fact that the vast majority of Christian outreach never made it beyond the bounds of Christianity itself. This was perhaps understandable in light of the proliferation of Christian denominations, from less than 2,000 in 1900 to over 33,800 by AD 2000 most found in the Protestant and Independent worlds. The implication for Christian mission was clear: if you are one of 33,800 Christian denominations and you want to initiate outreach beyond your denomination, you would likely first focus on the lack of effectiveness of the other 33,799 Christian denominations before you would ever consider more challenging outreach to Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Chinese folk-religionists, or ethnoreligionists. And this is precisely what happened.

A surprising finding
Despite the relative lack of Christian engagement with non-Christians in the 20th century, there was an increasing tendency to label non-Christians as “resistant.” This offered an easy explanation for why more conversions had not occurred among Muslims, Hindus, etc. But is it accurate to label neglected or unengaged peoples as “resistant?” What emerged in Christian research at the end of the 20th century was a remarkable counterintuitive finding: the least-evangelized peoples were shown to be the most responsive. This fact was developed by contrasting the annual baptism rate among each of the world's peoples with the number of hours of evangelism invested in that people. Consistently, those with the least efforts showed significantly higher response rates. This finding is in harmony both with the biblical idea of God's initiative among all peoples (even prior to missionary efforts) and the eschatological expectation of God's community gathered from all peoples.

Expectations for the future
Twenty-first century mission will be radically different from the 20th century. It will soon be largely non-Western. Christian youth growing up influenced by postmodernism, may be more interested in preserving and dialoguing with other cultures, and the peoples forgotten in the midst of the cacophony of 20th century global plans may finally be introduced to Jesus Christ in a culturally-appropriate manner. What more is needed to direct and inspire 21st century prayer and planning?