The New Faces of Christianity

Christians in the booming churches of Africa, Asia, and Latin America live in settings very close to the social, cultural, and intellectual milieu in which the New Testament itself was written. For this reason, Jenkins argues, they read the Scriptures with a freshness and authenticity impossible in the prosperous societies of North America and Europe. These new Christians are often fundamentalist or literalist in their approach to the text, and to ideas of Biblical inspiration. But at the same time, they draw conclusions from scripture that are innovative, creative, and socially liberating. Churches seek both deliverance and liberation - deliverance from evil supernatural forces, and liberation from oppressive worldly structures. Such examples challenge our conventional division of religion into conservative and liberal forms, and make nonsense of our concepts of "fundamentalism."