The Changing World of Christianity: The Global History of a Borderless Religion
«‘The Changing World of Christianity’ is an encyclopedic treasure trove of information, a real tour de force that can rarely be carried out by a single author. In fewer than 300 pages Daughrity has succeeded brilliantly in his task of providing a ‘global history of a borderless religion.’ Readers will be quickly disabused of any notion that Christianity is a Western religion and at the same time will have a vivid sense that the future of Christianity is bright. Written in a lucid and accessible style, this book will serve as an excellent text for undergraduate and continuing education courses on Christianity as a world religion.» (Peter C. Phan, International Bulletin of Missionary Research 35:3 (July 2011). Peter C. Phan is the inaugural holder of the Ignacio Ellacuria Chair of Catholic Social Thought at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.)«In the last few years, thanks to scholarly work by such people as Philip Jenkins and Mark Noll, the world has come to understand a major change in the demographics of Christianity that has happened in just the last 50 or 60 years. Christianity, in short, is booming in the Southern Hemisphere, Africa and Asia, while it has become a dwindling voice elsewhere - especially in Western Europe. But it's still hard to picture, region by region, what has happened. A new book from a man who teaches at Pepperdine University in California provides exactly that clear picture in a highly readable and helpful form. ‘The Changing World of Christianity: The Global History of a Borderless Religion’, by Dyron B. Daughrity, is a great follow-up to the work by Jenkins, Noll and others. One of the useful thing this book does is to straighten out all the people who believe that Islam is now and will be forever the largest religion in the world. Indeed, about 33 percent of the world's population now is Christian versus about 21 percent who are Muslim. And, Daughrity notes, because of birth rates and other factors, that isn't likely to change significantly for the next several decades at least. When I give talks about the religions of the world I often ask people which religion has the most adherents and inevitably someone will say Islam. I hope all those folks will read this book. One thing I especially like about this book is that it breaks the world into various regions and considers the current religious makeup of each - with maps and tables - to help us see things more clearly. This is a comprehensive view of not just Christianity but also how Christianity fits into the picture of all the world's religions. And it helps us understand how the tiny band of early followers of Jesus planted the seeds that have resulted in one-third of the globe's population today identifying themselves as followers, too.» (Bill Tammeus, National Catholic Reporter)«‘The Changing World of Christianity’ is laden with good information from many diverse sources, and it represents a striking achievement. Daughrity should be congratulated for creating an informative, provocative introduction that brings some order to this bewildering new frontier in the study of Christian history.» (Keith Huey, Mission Dei: A Journal of Missional Theology and Praxis)«This interestingly written and well documented book (...) consists of nine descriptive chapters organized, except the introductory one, according to a geographical key - namely, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania. [...] It is not easy to write a textbook about world Christianity, covering both the past and the present (...). Still, the book by Daughrity, well researched and interestingly written, presents the enormous factual material concisely and yet clearly. Maps, statistical data, index, copious endnotes, and a set of a few questions after each chapter help readers to comprehend the