Christianity is Rapidly Losing Ground in Europe Lutheran Theologian: Southern Hemisphere Outgrows ³Christian Occident²

Leipzig, July 23 (idea) ­ The Christian world will change dramatically within the next decades. While Christianity is losing ground in the West, it is making fast progress in the Southern hemisphere.

As the dean of the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Paul Rajashekar, pointed out in a lecture at the University of Leipzig (Germany), Europe, previously known as the ³Christian Occident², is turning into a post Christian society. One hundred years ago more than half of the world¹s Christians lived in Europe, today only a quarter.

By comparison Africa and Latin America constituted only twelve per cent of Christianity around the turn of the 20th century. Today they make up for 40 per cent of the two billion or so Christians. In the year 2025 Europe will only account for one fifth of the worlds Christians, Africa and Latin America for more than half.

Rajashekar believes that one of the main reasons for this development is the difference in the understanding of the Bible. While Western theology had removed the mystery from the ³Book of Books², Christians in Africa and Latin America did not simply see it as a historic document but as God¹s living word.

³They have no problems with miracles or apocalyptic statements in the Bible.² Christians in the West could learn from the living faith of their brethren in the South.

Rajashekar came to Leipzig to sign a contract between the Theological Faculty of the East German university and the Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia about a student exchange program.

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Evangelical news agency idea. Wolfgang Polzer

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