As the great ship of world Christianity continues to adjust course in its 21st century, the ballast is shifting from the global North to the global South. The reason is clear: more than any other form of Christianity, it is the explosive growth of evangelicalism in the Third World that is transforming global religious demography and casting new doubt on conventional assumptions about the North’s leadership vis-ŕ-vis the transnational Body of Christ.
There is, consequently, a great deal of curiosity and expectation about what a more empowered evangelicalism might be able to achieve in the Third World and beyond. Some have likened the possibilities to “The Next Christendom”—none more famously than Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History and Religious Studies at Pennsylvania State University, who has recently issued under this title a widely cited book and an Atlantic Monthly cover story. It is a rich, learned, and provocative thesis. And, not surprisingly, invoking a “Christendom” frame for the future of the faith has generated as much anxiety as anticipation, because it conjures up images of an imperial political program.
What are the realistic political prospects for Third World evangelicalism? More specifically, does evangelicalism in the developing world arrest or advance the process of democratization? Along with an international team of scholars, I have been engaged in research on these questions for several years. While case studies now abound, there is at least one clear generalization that can be made about Third World evangelicals and their politics: they are, by their nature, extremely unlikely to form anything close to an anti-democratic “neo- Christendom.”
If there is a single idea around which to discuss the long-term political implications of evangelicalism, it is pluralism. That is, I would suggest that pluralism and variety characterize evangelicalism’s external political impact, and that this pluralism and variety arise not by accident but from the very nature of evangelicalism, a foundational character trait I call “sanctified voluntarism.” In what follows I will elaborate this idea first by discussing the definition of evangelicalism, and then contrasting the theme of pluralism with a few widespread misconceptions—misconceptions rampant among evangelicalism’s friends and foes alike. I conclude with some observations about evangelicalism’s ability to construct a certain kind of democratic citizen, the vigilant dissenter, rather than democratic political institutions per se.
To read the entire article, please open the PDF to the right.
