The Christian Century

As we remember the Reformation over the next couple of years, we should also recall its global context.

In religious terms, the emerging South Africa looks at once thoroughly African and surprisingly European.

Alec Reid’s heroic story sounds as if it comes from a Catholic suspense novel. But it really did happen—in Belfast in 1988.

For decades, Western human rights groups sounded the alarm about East Timor. Rarely did they note the religious dimension.

Since the 1970s, Ethiopia has seen something like what Europe saw around 1520: a movement based largely on growing access to the vernacular Bible.

Portugal no longer sends out missionaries on any scale, but Brazil has taken up that mantle. Worldwide, one in 11 Christians speak Portuguese.

Most of what westerners know about the Caucasus region is negative. But the South Caucasus has a different history, and Christianity plays a central role.

Shared holy places might puzzle American or European Christians. In the rest of the world, religions have rarely enjoyed such a monopoly.

It's ironic that multicultural approaches to Christianity are dismissed as novel or “politically correct.” They are deeply rooted in our past.

For centuries Ireland was synonymous with staunch Catholic piety. Now it seems to be undergoing a process of secularization as rapid as any in history.

Armenia is a nation of 3.3 million in a territory a fourth the size of Pennsylvania. Its small scale belies a much larger ancient reality.

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.

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.

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

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