#198 | What Does the Future of Christianity Look Like? Pt. 2 | Gina Zurlo

Interacting with Christians from around the world is such a wonderfully biblical thing because, you know, we see in Revelation 7. 9, the coming together of the nations, right? Everyone looks different, speaking different languages.

And you get kind of a taste of that here, of your interaction with other people.

And if you can really see the equality in that, that all these expressions of Christianity, despite their diversity, are beautiful and good and equal before God, then you're embracing a kind of biblical Christianity that was the way of Jesus.

It's watering time, everybody.

It's time for Apollo's Watered, a podcast to saturate your faith with the things of God so that you might saturate your world with the good news of Jesus Christ. My name is Travis Michael Fleming, and I am your host. And today on our show, we're having another one of our deep conversations.

Find out where God is working and then join him there. So says the study Experiencing God with Henry Blackby and Claude B. King. You know, I think about that phrase often.

It actually led me to examine the communities that I was living in. When I was in Chicago and New England and in Chicagoland, I started to see the nations all around me. I also saw that statistics didn't lie.

The church was on the decrease within Europe and in the United States. When I was in New England, I saw this firsthand. I saw churches begin to close.

And when I examined further, I saw that they were actually older, white churches that were closing and immigrant churches were thriving. And seeing how God had brought the nations made me stop and go, well, God is working there, and I want to join him in that.

And that's exactly what happened. And the churches, each of the churches that I ministered in was revived, experienced great revitalization.

Now, I know that many of you out there have a hard time with that. You might think you're in a community where there's not any diversity, but you would be wrong. Diversity, if it's not there, already, is coming.

And I'm not talking about just the urban centers of our world, but I'm talking about the small towns, because God has brought the nations, and it's either to be reached or to revive. And I think we need to have the eyes to see and the ears to hear what God is doing in our midst and is doing around the world.

And that's why we had our conversation with Dr. Gina Zurlo. Now, Gina comes to us and shares what God is doing around the world.

And she's not coming as a biblical scholar, she's not coming as a theologian, but she's Coming as a sociologist, she is coming as a person who is just looking at the data.

Now I know some of this data can be very uncomfortable for us, especially of those of us who are really driven by our theology on who's in and who's out. And she doesn't look at the same data that way.

They're simply looking at the self identification and how people wish to articulate themselves in the midst of our world. And we need to hear this because we need to see what God is doing around the world.

Because if we're going to accomplish his mission and we want to be a part of a work that God is doing, then we need to have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. And once we do, we will be better equipped to look for, listen to, and lean into what God is doing and how you and your church can be a part of it.

As I said before, that's what I did in my churches and they have become great revitalization stories. So here's my challenge.

Listen for one or two things that you had never thought about before and if you can write them down, I want you to think about that little bit of information and how it can and should change the way you view living out your faith in your everyday life. If there is something that comes up in the show that makes you go, hey, wait a minute, I'm not so sure about that. I want you to write that down.

I want to know why that's an issue and can you articulate it. And if you aren't sure about something, send us a line because we would love to hear about it.

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Now let's get to this second conversation that I had with Dr. Gina Zurlo. Happy listening.

Every culture has to self theologize. Now I know for some people that have been up in the church, they went, wait a minute, what do you mean by that?

What we mean is we have to figure out how to live as Christ's followers and interpret the word of God in our specific culture. Because we've passed through the Enlightenment, Romantic period. Some of these other cultures in Africa haven't.

So when they see the Bible, they're seeing it in the same world that Jesus really did.

Absolutely.

I mean the pantheon of gods and goddesses, the spirits, all of those different things. So we in essence have a harder time.

We think it's easier for us, but actually it's easier for them because they don't have all the cultural baggage in some way to deal with to go back. And so this is where, what, what you're referring to.

If I, if I could just be so bold as to elaborate on that because I know some of our people are really confused. They're saying what, what do you mean Congolese theology? What do you mean? A Brazilian theology? It's we. Every culture has its theology.

There is an American individual. We're very much about the individual in America, whereas other cultures are collectives. So, so we, we have to understand that.

And that's why we had a great interview on here with misreading scripture with Western eyes. Just give an idea. Because we do read our culture into it and, and God transcends it. He does.

The Gospel finds its embeddlement, I mean embeds in every culture. It's why Jesus came in a culture. Right. And incarnate.

But as we're talking about this, the idea of self theologizing and seeing how Europe, Europe, the global north, not just Europe, but we're exporting not just the faith but their culture as well. I want to talk about Europe because it has been the center of so much of our understanding of Christianity.

Most of our written church history that is available to us in the west has come from Europeans.

As you mentioned, with the Protestant Reformation, we have Martin Luther, we have John Calvin, we have all these different people, but yet we've seen Christianity decline within, as we've said, the west, not just referring to the United States, but Europe too. How much of a decline are we seeing within European Christianity over the last, I don't know, few decades?

Yeah, European Christianity is experiencing a very, very fast decline. I think in the post World War II era in particular is when we saw the fastest decline.

But you have to nuance, because I'm a social scientist, you have to nuance what, what does decline mean? So in our statistics. So if you open up my book and you go to Europe, Europe is going to look really Christian still.

Yeah, the numbers were High. I was like, what?

The numbers are a lot higher than what people assume. And the reason for that is because a lot of Europeans still self identify as Christians in some way. They're baptized into the church.

Or to be Hungarian is to be Christian, to be British is to be Anglican in some way.

But what those figures don't show is belief in God, church service attendance, prayer, how much you tithe, or any other these kind of beliefs and practices of Christianity is Jesus, son of God.

So if I were to map, for example, belief in God, that's going to be a very different map than what you have there of self identification as a Christian.

So, like looking at France, a lot of French are still Catholic in some cultural way, but only about 5% of French Catholics attend church on any regular basis.

So the European religious context is much, much different than the United States because of a long history of the connection between church and state. And all that secularization looks a lot different there than it does in the United States or in other places.

So while the decline narrative is true, I also like to nuance the decline narrative a little bit, because I don't want the only thing that people think about European Christianity is decline.

Well, it's not just declining, though. I mean, we have so many immigrants coming in.

Exactly.

They're renewing and reviving it. So talk about that for a moment.

I'm glad you've mentioned that because we had on the show Daniel Yang, Matt Sorens and Eric Costanzo in Inalienable and how these marginalized churches are renewing or can renew really the church. And it's my. My contention that God has brought the nations for one of two reasons. One, to be reached to hear the gospel. Gateway cities.

David Garrison. People that have never heard the gospel have been closed off, have the opportunity to hear that. That's number one. Number two, or to renew or revive.

That's the other option. God is. Is doing a work where he is taking these immigrant groups into the churches and renewing and reviving them.

We're seeing an increase in Europe, are we not? And tell us about that, if you wouldn't mind.

Yeah, so I would say nearly every major European city has immigrant populations there, and the large proportion of them are Christians.

If you look at Italy, for example, there are at least 500 congregations of one particular Nigerian denomination and another 500 congregations of one particular Ghanaian denomination. So Nigerians and Ghanaians going to Italy and they're planting churches all over Italy.

And that this is an astounding trend that people really did not Anticipate. So the connection between migration and Christianity and mission is huge.

And people are doing a lot of research in that area, but we see it all throughout major European cities that the growth of Christianity is happening among people of color, among migrants, and they're from all around the world, bringing a different kind of Christianity than has been known in Europe for the most part.

Well, elaborate on that, because you just freaked out a bunch of people by saying that a different Christianity makes it sound like it's some alien form. Describe what you mean by a different form of Christianity, just to put our audience at ease.

Sure. So most European Christianity is Eastern Orthodox or Catholic or Anglican. Right.

So kind of high church traditions, very liturgical, very ancient old traditions.

But the kinds of Christianity that being that are being brought by people from Latin America, from Asia, from Africa, for the most part, it's pet Pentecostal charismatic Christianity. It's more Protestant theologically, but it's also very exciting. There's a lot going on in Pentecostal charismatic churches.

There's exuberant worship, there's miracles that are happening. There's interpretation of tongues and speaking tongues and long worship services and all kinds of things like that.

So it's just a different flavor of Christianity than generally you see in Europe.

Well, in the United States, I mean, you mentioned that the church, though, the Latino groups that are coming in, immigrants, are changing the face of it. What can our Anglo brothers and sisters, I mean, you and I share same skin color.

I mean, we're both Caucasian, and we've grown up or at least been around. I mean, you've been in New York. I was in Chicago. But you still have a tendency to be around people that look like you.

As I interact with churches, though, I'm trying to show them the benefit and the blessing that they can have by being much more broad, by being much more aware and engaging and inviting to be a people part of it, to invite more leaders to do this, because there's a great blessing in it. What are the great blessings that you see by uniting with other Christians around the world, as well as the challenges?

To me, interacting with Christians from around the world is such a wonderfully biblical thing because we see in Revelation 7. 9 the coming together of the nations. Right. Everyone looks different, speaking different languages.

And you get kind of a taste of that here, of your interaction with other people.

And if you can really see the equality in that, that all these expressions of Christianity, despite their diversity, are beautiful and good and equal before God, then you're embracing a kind of biblical Christianity. That really was the way of Jesus.

And that's what we should be doing as Christians is trying to embrace that level of equality which, which plays out in other ways in society.

So once you kind of, I guess, humanize people who don't look like you or don't eat the same food you do or speak the language that you do, you humanize the other and you become in relationship with them, then you can work together, right? So let's work together in reaching these refugee populations.

Let's work together in helping to make sure girls have an education in this particular place. Let's cross our boundaries to be the church together.

That's a really Christian thing to me that I would love to see more of in this country and throughout global Christianity. The intentional boundary crossing for the sake of doing good in the world.

That's what it's about. Even with us, you hear so much about the Great Commission.

I mean, at least in the circles I'm in, there's a lot of people talk about the Great Commission. And it's interesting, though Jesus never calls it the Great Commission. That's something we've called it now.

He did talk about the Great Commandment, which is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, to love your neighbor as yourself. But I also think one of the most overlooked parts is John 17, when Jesus in his high priestly prayer prays that they may be one, as we are one.

And there's this. The Great community is to me one of the greatest evangelistic tools in the world. When you have, and I think acts is really.

This is when they show the cultural people crossing their cultural barriers which otherwise wouldn't, and shows the reality and the magnificence, the power of Jesus. It just overwhelms me. But I want to go back for a moment.

I know this is an issue you're very passionate about talking about the issue of just women in mission and around the world. You have a book that's coming out about this.

You also just alluded to the access to education for so many young women as well as you didn't mention this, but just. I'm going to throw it out there, doctors, because there's not a lot of women's healthcare providers in certain cultures.

We know that's gone on in Afghanistan where they're building madrasas and there's not hospitals for women in Access. We know of female genital mutilation in parts of Africa.

You just hear about this gender violence and yet you're trying to draw attention to this from a global perspective, because women really are the future within Christianity. You see that statistical. If you were to create like a figure, an avatar, if you will, of global Christianity, it would be an African woman.

Is that right? So. So what are the issues that you see facing women in the future of global Christianity right now? And the objections? The. I mean, everything.

Let's just lay it all out.

Sure. I can summarize a 350 page book on the subject in the next two minutes.

I'm sorry, ask you to summarize the book. That's the next time you come back. We'll get into that book. But I do know that this is an issue you're passionate about.

You just wrote an article for CT about it. I mean, and it was just a really small introduction.

But I just think that this is such an area that has been so overlooked and so many Western Christians are just very ignorant of. But what do you see in your research?

So the starting place is that in the words of mission historian Dana Robert, world Christianity is a woman's movement. Women have always made up the majority of Christians around the world from the time of Christ to the present.

And I think that very basic demographic fact gets overlooked over and over and over and over again.

And I have lots of historical evidence and lots of statistical evidence to support that, that the female majority of Christianity has consistently been downplayed by the male leaders. Why? Why would you do that? Is it because you're ashamed to admit that your church is majority female?

Does it have implications for your denomination or your mission organization or whatever it is that it's mostly women doing all the work? So there's a lot of gender dynamics and power dynamics at play here that for the most part men are running things, but women are the majority.

And then being the majority, women are facing unbelievable challenges around the world. Now, there have been great strides, right? More girls are getting education, fewer women are dying in childbirth.

That's all great, but these higher levels of the gender gap, like political participation or becoming leaders of companies or, you know, PhDs, there's still tremendous gaps there, that it is becoming harder for men and women to be equal in this world, not easier, despite all that work that's been done.

And so women are facing challenges from culture where traditional gendered norms say that the public sphere is for men, the private sphere is for women. They're facing religious expectations, gendered expectations that the man is the preacher and the wife is the supporter.

Or the Bible says X or Y about women. And that's what We've always said so. Therefore, that's what it's always going to be. So they're facing these obstacles on all sides.

And one of the most basic of obstacles that cuts across. No matter where you are in the world, no matter what your culture is, women are not physically safe anywhere in the world. Nowhere.

Imagine trying to do anything in this world without having physical safety.

I suspect most men don't understand what that's like, to know that you constantly have to be on guard about where you are, what your surroundings are, what you're wearing, who you're around, how long have you been there? What do I have on me? Where's the nearest exit? Who's the nearest man who can protect me in case something happens or whatever? The.

That is a whole different way of living than most men understand. Nowhere in the world do women have complete physical safety. And that's something that is not getting talked enough about.

I think you're absolutely right. I remember reading a little bit of an article on that where one woman said, men don't get it. And I don't. I'll fully admit I don't.

She goes, I find, though, that men, when they get older and their strength starts to go, that's when they start to get it. And only then do they start to get it because they realize they're not the most strong person that's there, that someone is stronger.

And we had on as a guest missionary by the name of Nick Ripken. And he has aware, you know, he has just ties all over the world. And Nick said he was.

When everything was happening in Afghanistan, and he's talking about different refugees he's interacted with. He was talking about some of these women who had been in refugee camps and overhearing what they said.

And it was that it wasn't if they would be raped, it was by who they would be raped by. I mean, they couldn't even go to latrine without having to worry about that. And I don't think that we have an understanding of that globally.

I mean, even with just within different cultures, there's so many different things. But when we see Christianity, we see Jesus giving women this really exalted position that I don't think many people realize of how.

How exalted that is. I mean, even having the first. The person that's entrusted with the resurrection, the first news of the resurrection is just.

It's incredible when you start really getting into it. You just see how Jesus empowers and strengthens women. But seeing this around the world I mean, I don't even know what my question is.

I'm overwhelmed just by the knowledge of such violence. I mean, of course I grew up in a single parent household with a very strong female that was there. She did her best that she could.

And of course married. And I have two daughters as well as two sons. And when my daughters are out, you're just aware of that.

And I can't imagine different parts around the world. When I hear about like a gang rape in Mumbai and you hear these men say, well, she deserved it. It's just horrific to think about.

And even the woman had an escort and they beat him up and they went, well, he wasn't strong enough. That's her fault. Are you kidding me right now? It's just horrific. Horrific.

And I will say the situation's not much better in Christian context than in churches, by the way. So we can't assume that because a place is Christian that this problem has been solved or addressed.

It's not some individual bad apples.

There are structural problems going on there where women are literally considered biologically second class citizens and not just in society, but also the church. And this is not just an issue for Congolese Christians.

It's an issue for American Christians too, who have certain theologies that place women as second class citizens as well. And that kind of theology is getting exported in other places around the world. I'm hearing it from places in Europe, for example.

I was talking to a guy from Sweden. Sweden's one of the most wonderful places to live in the world, especially from a gender dynamics.

Women can do pretty much anything men can do in Sweden.

And he said that some of the, the more conservative theologies from the United States about gender relations are being exported to Sweden and challenging generations of women's empowerment there. And he was so discouraged by it. He said, what are you guys doing in your country? I was like, I don't know. I don't know.

So this is not just a problem for, quote over there. This is a problem even then.

The cases of different denominations releasing their abuse reports that have been out there, I mean, whether it's sexual abuse, whether it's physical violence, whether it's emotional and even spiritual abuse, these are things that we have to talk about as Christ followers because as Christ followers, we should be open and authentic about what we're dealing with. And when I hear people say, oh, they're Christian, I'm glad that you expect something higher of them. But at the same time, we have sinful natures.

And sometimes the spiritual language that we employ is. Is just used to hide a sinful behavior, and that is not acceptable to Christ. It's an insult to Christ. It's really an insult to Christ.

Moving in a different direction, if I might, for a moment, one of the regions that you talk about, I mean, we've talked about the explosion of Christianity. You mentioned Latin America and how so many Christians are coming in. We talked a little bit about Brazil, talked about Europe.

We've talked about Africa and Asia. Europe, which, by the way, I never know where to do with Russia. Gina, tell me what to do with Russia. Is it European or is it Asian?

It's European, even though most of its country is geographically in Asia. But most of the people live closer to Europe, if that helps.

It does, but it always makes me mad because I'm like, wait, where are the lines? Who determines this?

I know that's.

But I want to talk about. You mentioned Oceania from Oceana, which that's not an area people talk about very often, and you've made great effort.

You mentioned it in your article on ct. You mentioned the conversation.

It seems like this is a new area of discovery for you personally, and you've written and want to share that with other people. I want to hear more about this. What has brought this out and you think we should hear from, and what God is doing there.

Yeah. I really love that you asked this question. Thank you. Because what we're doing is Christianity in every country of the world.

Truly global, the most global attempt. Every country, meaning every island nation that you've never heard of. That's what we're all about. It's global or bust.

And there's all these island nations in the Pacific Islands that most people have never heard of. French Polynesia, Fiji Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, New Caledonia.

You know, just a lot of places that seem insignificant, frankly, either because you can't see them on a map. Most maps, it's hard to see these tiny places or because their populations are really small. So they're just kind of far removed from the discourse.

But what's interesting to me about the Pacific Islands in particular, there's two things. One, the Pacific Islands became Christian by a partnership model between Western missions and indigenous Christians.

So Christianity was introduced to the islands in a particular place and time. People became Christians and then from one island to the next, Christianity moved over a really short amount of time.

Over the 19th and early 20th century, the Pacific Islands became majority Christian. And from a percentage perspective, the Pacific Islands are more Christian than sub Saharan Africa.

We talk about sub Saharan Africa all the time, but we never talk about the Pacific islands.

So that's one reason it's interesting because there's this fabulous partnership model of mission that existed there that was completely overlooked by the Western missionary movement in its analysis of it. The other thing that's interesting about the Pacific Islands that I think we need to be looking towards them more, is the climate crisis.

These island nations are pretty much at sea level or really close to sea level, and they feel the impacts of climate change disproportionate to their own actions. So it's the actions of the usa, China, India, huge countries, USA being the country with the most Christians. Right.

We should have a moral responsibility to care for Christians elsewhere in the world.

Things that we do in the United States impacts these people in the Pacific Islands so that when the tide comes in, it covers their cemeteries, it comes into their churches and renders them unusable until the tide goes back out.

They are literally trying to decide if they should just all go to New Zealand in some of these places because they see that their entire country and societies and cultures and histories are at risk of extinction.

So we're looking at the extinction of Christian peoples in the Pacific Islands, and we're still having a debate in the United States if climate change is real. So if we want to be globalists and we want to be global Christians, we have to look at how what we do impacts other people around the world.

And the Pacific Islands is one of the best examples of that as we.

Go trying a new way to grow. You mentioned there are 233 countries, plus Kosovo.

But yet when I look at according to the member states of the United nations, there's like 195, 96, 97 in there. That number. How do we miss 37 ish countries? What classifies as a country?

So we're using the United nations demographic database, which has a slightly different list than that list you were looking at of UN Member states. So the demographic database is using a different definition of what a country is.

And in fact, since my book came out last September, the UN population revision came out and now there's 237 countries in the world, so there's actually a few more than what's in that book, which is just the unfortunate Consequence of doing the demography of religion, it's constantly changing. So they have their own idea of what a country is and what a country isn't. But so for example, between the 234 and 237, there was the Caribbean.

Netherlands was a group of three islands. And they broke out into individuals, islands, countries, according to the un. So sometimes it's just small changes like that.

If Scotland ever decides to break away from the uk, they'll be their own independent country. And so there's all these kind of geopolitical realities going on all around the world all the time.

And we just watch to see what the tipping point is when they get recognized by the un.

Being in the United States and having your finger on the pulse of these things like you just mentioned a little bit, we talk about sub Saharan Africa all the time. Most people I know don't talk about sub Saharan, but within your group. I understand, though. I know you meet, your people do all the time.

What though do you find that most Western Christians don't see that you wish they could see?

I wish they could see how authentic Christian faith is around the world, even when it doesn't look like your Christian faith. That is still the major hurdle of being a global Christianity scholar.

Is there still this work to be done of convincing Western Christians that other expressions of Christianity are just as legitimate as yours, that other interpretations of Scripture are just as legitimate as yours, that other ideas of gender roles are just as legitimate as yours?

We're still at the level of legitimacy, which is too bad, because I feel like we should be much further along in this conversation because the shift of Christianity to the global south didn't just happen yesterday. This has been a long time coming.

And if we've been paying close attention, we should have the legitimacy question checked off and moved on to the mutual understanding conversation, the dialogue conversation, the work together conversation, the mutual witness conversation. But to me, we're still at legitimacy of people asking, well, is that kind of Christianity real? Let me give you an example I just heard the other day.

So in Uzbekistan, which is a Muslim majority country, Christians there recently became large enough that the government allowed them to build a church building. Great.

So the Uzbek Christians are building or have these plans to build a church, and a German church finds out about these plans and wants to partner with the Uzbeks and help fundraise and give money to build this new Uzbek church. So Germans come and the Uzbek show them the plan for the church. And the Germans are like, that's a mosque.

And the Uzbek Christians are like, no, it's a church in Uzbek style. The Germans look at it again and say, it's a mosque. And the Christians say, no, it's a church in Uzbek style.

It's a church that makes cultural sense for us. And the Germans pulled out because they didn't want to be a part of a church that they thought looked like a mosque.

But it's not up to the Germans what kind of church the Uzbek Christians build. It's up to the Uzbeks to decide what kind of church the Uzbeks build.

There's all kinds of social and historical and cultural reasons why that Uzbek church that they designed themselves would look the way it looks. And that's the level of legitimacy that we're still working at.

Christians should be able to build whatever kind of church looks right and feels right to them.

They should be able to speak and worship in whatever language and whatever musical style, wearing whatever clothes makes sense for them without any Westerner telling them it's right or wrong. That's where we're at. And that's what I want people to know.

Where is Christianity growing the most, by the way, the most exciting developments that you've seen? And that inspires you? I mean, we can talk about the obstacles and then get really frustrated and get our. Because. And we should. I mean, frankly.

But sometimes I need to have a positive example to look at, to get some. To get some joy. Where.

Yeah.

Where do you find joy in global Christianity? Right now?

I find joy in the places where Christianity is getting to the place where indigenous Christians are saying thank you to all the people who helped us become Christian. We're going to take it from here, and we're going to figure out how to be Christian on our own terms. So an example of this is Mongolia.

That's a very small number.

Yes. In our lifetimes. Right. That's astounding. And the church has grown dramatically. Now there's like 60,000 Christians in Mongolia.

And now they're getting to the point where they're saying, okay, we don't want to be Christian the way the Koreans are telling us to be Christian. Lots of Korean missionaries in Mongolia. We don't want to be Christian the way the Americans are telling us to be Christian.

A lot of Americans in Mongolia, we want to be Christian in Mongolian ways. And it's like the first century church over there as a result, right.

This is the stuff of the New Testament, of figuring out how to be gentile and Christian, how to be Jewish and Christian, how to be Mongolian and Christian, how to be Nepalese and Christian, how to be Cambodian and Christian. So there's places in the world where these conversations are happening. And that is where I find joy in world Christianity.

It's that indigenous initiative to say, we love and respect all of you who have helped us, but please let us figure this out on our own, in our own way. And as long as people say, okay, good, do it and if you need help, we're here for you.

But that, that initiative, that indigenous initiative, that's the stuff of world Christianity that I get excited.

Where do you find that at? Like, where do you find the biggest indigenous Christian movements right now, where it's exploding?

So India is a big place for this, where we have movements or Hindu background believer movements as they're called, where people are doing a lot of experimenting about what it means to be Indian and Christ.

And there's a huge spectrum of theology that goes along with that, from people building Western style churches all the way to Christian movements within Hinduism where people publicly retain their Hindu identity, but privately they are Christ followers. So on that spectrum you see all kinds of things.

And there's movements in India and Bangladesh is a pretty significant place for these kinds of movements. But again, there's these legitimacy questions that are happening because a lot of Westerners don't like it.

But it's not up to the west for Indians to decide how they're going to be Christian. It's up to Indians how they're going to say that.

What do you mean by that?

Flesh that out for us just for a moment, because you've alluded to that a few times, the legitimacy Western Christians determine whether or not it's legitimate. What are the criteria that you find that most Westerners employ when they look to determine whether legitimacy happens in these indigenous cultures?

Yeah, I think there's a few. A few things. So they're looking for what they understand to be, quote, unquote, orthodox theology.

They're looking for the centrality of scripture is what are the decisions you're making for how your church is going to look or how your movement's going to look. Are they biblically based or are they culturally based?

And that's where part of the rub is, because Westerners try to differentiate religion and culture, but that's not how it works. In most of the world, religion and culture are so intricately bound. What is Hindu and what is Indian? Right. What is.

You can apply that to all kinds of places. Right. What is shamanistic and what is Mongolian? It's almost impossible to tell. Right.

But then there's also other things that some western organizations look for, such as if a particular movement is led by women, they don't consider it a movement. Or if a church, if a house church is led by a woman, they don't consider it a real church.

It has to be led by a man in order for it to be considered a church.

That is very problematic because many of these movements are led by women because generally women are more likely than men to convert to Christianity. So that gender dynamic is a really big piece of this.

Why do you think that we're seeing so many women? Is there anything. I know this is hard to quantify, but you mentioned women are more likely to convert than men.

Why do you think that is, in your personal opinion?

Yeah, I think when Christianity is done well, it's abundantly obvious the benefits that exist for women because of the example of Jesus. Jesus intentionally reached out to women. He used metaphors that women would understand on a different level than men would use.

He said, let the children come to me. And in most places of the world, women are the ones taking care of the children. He didn't bring shame onto the woman at the well.

He brought her honor right in restoring her honor despite whatever her life circumstances were. So there's all kinds of examples. If you know Jesus, you know Jesus supported women.

And so you go into these societies, whether they're sex segregated in some way or women are considered second class citizens, their testimony is not worth as much as a man's.

And you come in with the message of Jesus saying, Jesus treats you with honor and integrity and empowerment and cares about you and you specifically, not just as a human, but you specifically as a woman. That's a really appealing message.

And then if we create Christian community around that, women are generally communal and are empowered by other women, and you create these communities of women of faith. So that's one reason why. And women tend to be a little more relational.

So if you have people coming into a place, women might be more likely to build relationships with them faster than men. And all mission is relational. Right? It's not just proclamation. Mission, when done well, is relational.

It's about personal relationship with Christians that leads to a personal relationship with Jesus.

Days time was free. All I knew was one part of it all. So many different Western missions ideas brings this idea of modernity.

When they go to do missions, they think, if I have food and shelter and all these different things. But at the same time, when secularization comes in, you see a shift culturally. I know Philip Jenkins has written about this in his work.

What role does secularization play within the. I don't want to say the constricting of the faith. What is secularization doing to our faith? Perhaps that's a better question. Globally.

That's a big question. I know, yeah.

And it's, it's very complicated and contested. So a lot of social scientists are looking into secularization now. That's kind of the latest and greatest in religious studies.

And there's a lot of different ideas about how secularization works. And the Europe situation has been studied pretty closely. But the models of European secularization don't work.

In the United States, for example, the USA never really had a state church right. The way that Catholicism and Orthodoxy were, and other churches were state churches.

So the secularization processes are going to look different there. And so now some people are trying to find out what does secularism look like in the Global South? Is there any secularism in the Global South?

Because if you look around, it looks like a pretty furiously religious place. Religions of all kinds, not just Christianity.

But the problem is they're still trying to use Western models of secularism and apply them in non Western places. And it's just not working.

So I have yet to see, in my opinion, some really convincing studies of secularism in the Global south from the perspective of those cultures. Not taking the Western model and trying to find it somewhere in the Global south, it's not going to work.

So we have to understand that Indian secularization, if it is occurring, is going to occur in a different way than French secularization happened or British secularization happened. But the field isn't quite there yet. The scholarship has not quite moved in that direction.

But what some people think about how secularism impacts Christian faith, one thing secularism does is it makes faith more private. And that's one definition of secularism, is that religion is no longer the public central organizing structure of a society.

Now it's more internal, it's more private. And some people think that when religion goes private, you have maybe more authentic versions of faith.

Because now there's no public expectation for you to go to church or publicly identify as Christian or tithe or whatever. So those who are still doing it are really, really Christian.

Like they're doing it because they're personally motivated and they feel personally indebted to the Faith in some way. So people think of it as some kind of like refiner's fire kind of thing, that all the quote, nominal people are gone.

What's left is kind of the faithful remnant. That's how some people are understanding secularization. But again, globally, we can't assume that those models are going to hold.

That's a lot.

Yeah, it's really complicated.

I mean, all of these issues and.

It'S still under study.

All these issues are complicated because you're talking about humans and there's.

As soon as we put a category on someone, it becomes different because the categories that we employ here in the west, within our tribes of familiarity, let's say when you put a label on someone, they might eschew that label, they might reject that label because they themselves don't like the way that you've quantified it, qualified it. And I think that's what makes it a lot more of a struggle for so many of our people that are non academics. It just becomes overwhelming.

The data, the statistics, and it comes down to, let's just follow Jesus. Can we just follow Jesus? And, and, and while I understand not everyone is going to be a scholar of your magnitude, we still need you, though.

We need, I mean, we need this. We need this. Not that you needed my thing. You didn't need anything.

I'm so glad.

What I mean is, for our people is that I want them to understand how needed and necessary your work is, because it does help us to understand. I'm a big believer in find out where God is working and join him in life.

And I also am enough of a Bible student to know that God doesn't work according to my categories. He has a way of doing things outside of my comfortability. I mean, even look at the New Testament with Mary.

I mean, even Mary, just the magnificat, her being pregnant, she was right on the line of acceptability and cultural and understanding. I do know that God is sovereign in the middle of all this.

And despite the magnitude of the discussion that we've had today and the overwhelming nature of these statistics and trying to quantify and qualify all these different things, we do know at the end of the day that Jesus Christ is God and that he is going to do his will and in his way.

And we want to join him in that and partner with our brothers and sisters around the world that are being persecuted, where the church is growing, and how we can help one another and learn from one another, be students and listen to our brothers and sisters. One of the reasons we chose. Chose Apollo is our namesake is because Apollos after he gets converted in such a weird way.

You know, hearing about John, the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, that's not your typical conversion sermon. And he starts to preach, but then when Priscilla and Aquila hear him, they pull him aside to explain the way of God more accurately. And he.

He listened. He listened. And so we want to listen to our brothers and sisters around the world to be able to partner with them and learn from them.

Because I think our vision of God grows when we hear from our brothers and sisters. We see God through their eyes and what he's done in his world, in their world. And we see that he's a lot bigger we ever give him credit for.

I want to thank you for coming on the show. How can you know, oftentimes we try to give people a water bottle for the week, something for them to sip on.

What's an encouraging thought that we could leave for our audience today that they might be able to just ruminate on and be nourished by?

One thing that has been really encouraging to me is on this discussion of women in world Christianity. Despite all the challenges that women are facing, they are amazing warriors. Overcoming them.

You put a challenge in front of women, they're going to find a way to overcome it.

And I've been really encouraged that even when it might seem impossible, there's all these faithful Christian women around the world who are doing the impossible. So I would encourage people in that.

And how can people follow more about what you're doing?

Yeah, so our website is globalchristianity.org and we have a Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram, you can follow us there. We have a newsletter that we put out every once in a while.

So feel free to follow us on social and check out all the free resources available on our website.

There's a lot. I mean, there's so many different stats on there. I've used some of them and pass it around and then it gets people pass it around to other people.

It's an encouragement I want. So I want to. I want to thank you for coming on Apollos Water. Thank you for sharing.

Thank you for being so passionate about these issues and drawing our attention to it so that we might hopefully grow in our understanding of God and be able to just partner with him and what he's doing around the world. Thank you again for coming on Apollos water. So what struck you?

What stood out and made you pause? There was so much there. I learned a lot. And I have a Lot of questions. And I'm both excited to see the growth of the church around world.

I mean, 1,000 congregations from two African denominations in Italy. And I recognize that there are things I hadn't thought about. Some of the challenges women face around the world.

How do we as Westerners interact with indigenous churches around the world who are trying to live their faith in their cultures, which are often very different than our own. At the same time, Dr. Zirlow raised questions about legitimacy and what's okay and what's not.

Where are the lines cultural and where are they theological? Sometimes it's tricky to parse that out. But the questions are very, very important because we aren't just talking about an abstract set of ideas.

We are talking about the truth of God in real people. And let me say this. Orthodoxy, right, belief matters. It matters greatly. A personal and authentic faith in the face of secularism matters.

But it shouldn't merely be a private belief. At the same time, what do you do when to be a Christian publicly could be a death sentence?

Nick Ripken reminded us that that is very real in many parts of the world. I suspect that Dr. Zurlow's answers to some of the questions of legitimacy and orthodoxy might be slightly different than our own.

At the same time, I share her joy at indigenous churches who are able to stand and be the church where God has planted them. I mean, think about it. In just over 30 years, the Church of Mongolia has gone from four to over 60,000. That's incredible.

We are increasingly convinced that as the church, we need one another. None of us have all the answers. All of us have our blind spots and sins. All of us need to become more like Christ.

And together we encourage and lift up those in need. We correct and rebuke. We become what God is calling us to be. I am so encouraged to be a part of it, and I hope you are too.

And remember, conversations like this can only happen because of your involvement and your partnership. And right now we do need to raise that extra $4,000 in monthly support to accomplish this goal and to do what God has called us to do.

He has called us, but he has called individuals like yourself to partner with us in that endeavor. Simply click the link in your show notes and select the amount that God lays on your heart so that we might together water faith around the world.

With that in mind, that's it for today's show. I do want to thank our Apollo's.

Water team for watering the world.

This is Travis Michael Fleming signing off.

From Apollo's Watered Stay watered everybody.