“God is back”

Inadvertently last week, whilst driving, I listened to a book review entitled  'God is Back' which is co-authored by John Micklethwaite, editor of the Economist.  Later I returned home and listened again to the podcast just to make sure I had heard it right.  (…on the Internet go to “Five Live” and search for “God is back”)

 You may have heard of a work written by Richard Dawkins – essentially arguing that the need for people to turn to a God figure will die as people become more educated and aware of the rules which seem to run our lives and the world around us. 

 Micklethwaite’s work essentially tests this.  He spent a considerable time doing genuine research on the extent of people’s religious experiences around the world.  I am sure that his findings will come as a big surprise to many.

 Firstly he makes the point that the role of religion in the West, especially Europe, is not typical of the rest of the world.  People in England are embarrassed to talk about their faith; some will recall the famous Tony Blair-ism that “we don’t do religion”.  Micklethwaite says that the rest of the world views the idea of founding your life on a set of teachings and values in a very different light.  For example, it would be almost impossible for an American presidential candidate not to found his or her ambitions in a Christian context.

 Micklethwaite then went on to say that though in Europe, the perception is that of the church retreating in the face of Islam, that this is not true of the rest of the world, and is in fact not based on any real data at all.

 The presenter asked him why the book has a cross on the cover, he answered directly, that:

a)     In recent decades the church has grown faster than at any point in the past, in India, in Africa, in North and South America and perhaps most significantly in Russia and in China.

b)     That Christianity is growing more than any other world religion and quoted as an example that currently in China more people attend church than are members of the communist party! Within a decade, he asserted, China will become the largest Christian country in the world.

 “How is that possible?”  The answer seems to be found in the actions of a repressive regime, the more that the church was persecuted, the more it goes underground.  For example, government rules prevent gatherings of more than 25 people, but this has ensured that every time a church is set up (usually in someone’s house) it divides again almost immediately causing literally hundreds of thousands of house churches to grow and flourish.

 He then went on to say (and this is the point that he was keen to make in response to the Dawkins hypothesis) that in Africa, India, China and America, the people who are basing their lives around religious values, are not the poor and ill-educated, but almost always the rising, educated middle classes.

 Food for thought?      

                                                                                                          God Bless Alan