Notes from the Global Church

Notes from the Global Church

Philip Jenkins charts developments in the Two-Thirds World

Article image

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.

Article image

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.

Article image

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.

Article image

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.

Article image

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?

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?"

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.

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.

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.

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.