Articles by Philip Jenkins

Notes from the Global Church

Port Talbot Passion

May 08, 2013 by Philip Jenkins

Recently, 20,000 residents of a Welsh industrial town participated in a play—and reaffirmed the residual power of Christian imagery in a secular society.

Features

Waco in red and blue

20 years after the siege

Apr 30, 2013 by Philip Jenkins

In April 1993, the FBI siege on the Branch Davidian compound ended in disaster. The event still casts a long shadow on our divided nation.

Notes from the Global Church

Church of William Harris

Apr 10, 2013 by Philip Jenkins

A century ago, William Wade Harris began his march across the Ivory Coast. He proclaimed a Christ who was not the property of the master race.

Notes from the Global Church

A secular Latin America?

Mar 12, 2013 by Philip Jenkins

The U.S. may be heading toward European-style secularization. More surprisingly, several Latin American countries mirror conditions in the States.

Notes from the Global Church

The three faces of Guanyin

Feb 14, 2013 by Philip Jenkins

When Chinese leaders lifted the persecution of religion, what was in it for them? Actually, they stood to benefit in many ways.

Books

The First Thousand Years

A Global History of Christianity

By Robert Louis Wilken

Unfolding the map

Jan 24, 2013 by Philip Jenkins

Robert Wilken's historical survey of Christianity is impressive, accessible and lively. It also leaves out a lot.

Notes from the Global Church

The Vietnamese diaspora

Jan 16, 2013 by Philip Jenkins

U.S. religious communities' responses to the Vietnam War have been amply documented. What about the religious battles within Vietnam itself?

Notes from the Global Church

Saving the Soviets

Dec 20, 2012 by Philip Jenkins

Sunday Adelaja's story sounds like the start of a bad joke: "Did you hear about the African who tried to start a church in the Soviet Union?"

Notes from the Global Church

India’s original Christians

Nov 14, 2012 by Philip Jenkins

For over a thousand years, Christian communities flourished in India. Their first real identity crisis? The arrival of European Catholics.

Notes from the Global Church

The African mainstream

Oct 23, 2012 by Philip Jenkins

The vast majority of Africa's christians belong to familiar, mainstream denominations. But scholars give more attention to the minority.

Books

Homies and Hermanos

God and Gangs in Central America

by Robert Bren­neman

Understanding World Christianity

The Vision and Work of Andrew F. Walls

edited by William R. Burrows, Mark R. Gornik and Janice A. McLean

God Is Red

The Secret Story of How Christianity Survived and Flourished in Communist China

by Liao Yiwu

Summoned from the Margin

Homecoming of an African

By Lamin Sanneh

Religion in China

Survival and Revival Under Communist Rule

by Fenggang Yang

Bad Religion

How We Became a Nation of Heretics

By Ross Douthat

Into the Pulpit

Southern Baptist Women and Power Since World War II

by Elizabeth H. Flowers

God and the Atlantic

America, Europe, and the Religious Divide

by Thomas Albert Howard

Southern Crucifix/Southern Cross

Catholic-Protestant Relations in the Old South

by Andrew Henry Stern

Heavenly Merchandize

How Religion Shaped Commerce in Puritan America

by Mark Valeri

World Christianity & American religion

Take & read
Oct 04, 2012 selected by Philip Jenkins and Grant Wacker

Homies and Hermanos: God and Gangs in Central America, by Robert Bren­neman. A courageous scholar, Brenneman has undertaken extensive interviews with former members of some of Central America’s most lethal street gangs who have converted to evangelical and Pentecostal Chris­tianity.

Notes from the Global Church

Patriarchs of Babylon

Sep 27, 2012 by Philip Jenkins

In the ninth century, Timothy I was a global statesman. In the 20th, Raphael Bidawid led a tiny denomination in the paranoid Iraq of Saddam Hussein.

Notes from the Global Church

Jesus meets the Buddha

Aug 30, 2012 by Philip Jenkins

Ever since Westerners discovered Asian cultures they have been intrigued by possible relationships between Christianity and Buddhism.

Notes from the Global Church

Globalization circa 1578

Jul 31, 2012 by Philip Jenkins

If one moment symbolizes the unification of the continents, it might be the creation of the diocese of Manila—as a suffragan see of Mexico City.

Notes from the Global Church

The clash that wasn’t

Jul 05, 2012 by Philip Jenkins

Somehow, newspapers never publish banner headlines announcing "World's Largest Muslim State Fails to Persecute Christians."

Notes from the Global Church

The Orthodox in Africa

Jun 01, 2012 by Philip Jenkins

Orthodoxy's roots in Egypt and Ethiopia are ancient. In East Africa there is a younger movement: a native Orthodoxy, locally grown.

Notes from the Global Church

Aussie Christians

May 09, 2012 by Philip Jenkins

Among modern nations, a British imperial background seems to be correlated to secularism. But in Australia, the story is more complex.

Notes from the Global Church

Betrayal of the faithful

Apr 12, 2012 by Philip Jenkins

For some Christians, the menace of apostasy is anything but distant or theoretical.

Notes from the Global Church

Whose holy ground?

Mar 08, 2012 by Philip Jenkins

“You are here to kneel,” wrote Eliot, “where prayer has been valid.” But which prayers are valid at the Mezquita Catedral, or at Hagia Sophia?

Notes from the Global Church

Muslims and Barnabas

Feb 16, 2012 by Philip Jenkins

Any Christian who travels in Muslim countries or on the frontier between the faiths may well encounter the Gospel of Barnabas and be asked to respond to its claims.