an uncommon path (mini) |
this is the mini version of my blog 'an uncommon spiritual path' - you'll find the maxi blog here www.dionforster.com |
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Notes Some interesting statistics on Global ChristianityMy friend, the missiologist, Steve Hayes posted some interesting commentary on the research of the Pew foundation on Christianity across the globe. This makes for some fascinating reading - in short Christianity is the world’s largest faith group, most Christians come from 10 countries across the world, Catholic and Orthodox Christians make up about 2/3 of all Christians (Protestants and Independents make up about 37%).
I spotted one error in the article - in the section where it talks about the location of Christians in Africa it mistakenly says that all of these countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa, which they are not.
This research (as with all research) is a ‘lag indicator’ as we learnt at business school - in other words, it is a report that sheds light on the state of Christianity at some point in the past. However, I did didn’t see any comment on the fastest growing regions in the world. From the research that I have read in ‘The Next Christendom - The comong of Global Christianity’ (2011, Philip Jenkins) it would seem that the Christian faith is growing fastest in the two thirds world. Particularly in Asia and Southern Africa.
Still, these are some very interesting statistics on the state of Global Christianity. You can find the source article here.
Read the rest of the post here.These are some of the key findings of a new report released by the Pew Research Center, called Global Christianity: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Christian Population, which provides data on the world’s Christian population by region, country and tradition.
• Almost half (48 percent) of all Christians live in the 10 countries with the largest number of Christians. Three of the top 10 are in the Americas (the United States, Brazil and Mexico). Two are in Europe (Russia and Germany); two are in the Asia-Pacific region (the Philippines and China); and three are in sub-Saharan Africa (Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia), reflectingChristianity’s global reach.
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Notes"Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don’t have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see. Only, who could have the courage to see it?"Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (via invisibleforeigner)
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Notes"Serving people is the only way people’s perceptions of the church are ever going to change. This is why it is so toxic for the Gospel when Christians picket and boycott and complain about how bad the world is…why blame dark for being dark? It is far more helpful to ask why the light isn’t as bright as it could be."Rob Bell (via haereticum)
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Notes"Grace has a grand laughter in it."Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (via invisibleforeigner)
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Notes"Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness, and pride of power, and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear … Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now."Dietrich Bonhoeffer (via fyeahchristianradicalism)
(via invisibleforeigner)
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Notes"If humans are incapable of describing the distinctive aroma of coffee, how can they cope with something as subtle as God?"Ludwig Wittgenstein (via mshedden)
(Source: stephanieberbec, via invisibleforeigner)
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Notes"The Christian faith is not well suited for safe harbors and island fortresses. It has a way of stagnating when the water gets too calm or placid. Jesus is always “going on before us,” beckoning us, like God beckoned Abraham, into new and unknown territory. The religion of the Pharisees was a sure thing with little risk. They knew exactly what they needed to be “good people”. But Jesus slapped their dead religion, calling them as cold as tombs. The Pharisees were so bound to the comfortable security of their old-time religion that they were blind to the miracle of the Savior coming into their midst. As Christians, we are free to risk, ask questions, doubt, try bold things because we are secure in the love which does not let us go, the love of the God who is always in front of us, leading us on. Part of maturity is learning to live without firm assurances, without all our questions answered, without everything nailed down. That’s why faith is best defined not as firm belief but as trust."The Gospel for the Person Who Has Everything, William H. Willimon (via diegedankensindfrei)
(via invisibleforeigner)
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Notes"Only a justice shaped by the practice of reconciliation makes it possible for Christians to be a people of peace in a world of violence. We are called to witness to this peaceableness even while we wait upon it."Stanley Hauerwas, Working With Words (via invisibleforeigner)
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Notes"Christians are missionaries by necessity because all that we are and do only makes sense if what we are and do is done in the name of Jesus."Stanley Hauerwas, Working With Words (via invisibleforeigner)
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Notes"Prophecy remains of absorbing interest to millions of Americans, but those who expound the prophetic scriptures are no longer the era’s intellectual or even theological authors. It is not to disparage the ingenuity or earnestness of the television evangelists and paperback writers who are today’s principal prophecy expositors to observe that they hardly bear comparison to Irenaeus, Origen, Augustine, Joachim, Hildegard, Mede, Milton, Newton, the Mathers, Edwards, and Dwight - intellectuals all."Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More (via invisibleforeigner)
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Defining the Bearded Gospel Man.
Hi. I’m Aaron. I’m the new Proprietor here for Bearded Gospel Men, the internet’s most trusted source of pictures...
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source - bikemag instagram
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Centraal Station #Amsterdam #SundayNightSunset #latergram #summer #lovethiscity (at Prins Hendrikkade)
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Spiegelung | reflection by axel wohlbold on Flickr.
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edie cambell in celine
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2013.6.16 地元練習散歩
お〜い、聞こえるかあ
EOS 6D+24-105mm f4L
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2013.6.15 奥入瀬自転車散歩
天狗の季節・・・
EOS 60D+70-200mm f4L
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2013.6.15 奥入瀬自転車散歩
虫も嬉しい季節
EOS 60D+70-200mm f4L
