This book was an interesting study on religious expansion throughout the globe as a whole. Hanciles, being from Africa, provides a unique perspective on globalization and how trends are moving through the Western as well as Non-Western Worlds. The book is divided into three portions, those being globalization and the key factors that have lead up to the stage in which we find ourselves in now, the reshaping of the world order and what role international migrations play in it, and finally exploring the movement of South to North and how religion has moved as such.
Chapter one discusses globalization including its descriptions, debate surrounding it, and the destiny for which it is headed. Hanciles notes three factors leading to the rapid expansion of globalization. They are: Global time keeping, the moon landing, and the Living Room and room for living. This chapter is quite interesting because it shows the marked difference in how the world operates as having been within the recent history. One can easily relate to the stories and examples he provides.
The focus of chapter two is on the Globalization of culture, specifically how Western culture has migrated to the rest of the world. Often times, the translation of the culture is the translation of secular culture. We see very different statistics however, when comparing the secular cultural expansion between the Western world and the Non-Western or Africa specifically. In Africa, we are seeing the spread of famine, disease, and poverty, which looks quite opposite to all other continents.
Chapter three somewhat compares and contrasts with the previous chapter, and as Hanciles states, “The encounter with the non-Western world also had profound, reflexive consequences for Western societies” (Hanciles: 67). In the previous chapter, the author focused more on the expansion of the West, but this chapter primarily focuses on how the Western world was changed because of that expansion.
Chapter four is entitled “The Birth and Bankruptcy of Christendom” (Hanciles: 84) and focuses on the missiological implications on the globalization of Christianity. The chapter begins with a brief history of the conversion of the West as well as highlighting the Western Missionary Movement. Hanciles then moves into how this movement has bankrupted Christendom and any further hope of expansion.
Chapter five deals mostly with Twentieth-Century transformations and how the new global Christianity collides with Western Intellectualism. The chapter does discuss the movements between America’s own North and South and how the two interact and change in the 1900’s. The chapter also deals with the significance of African Christianity, posing that it contributes more to Christianity and it’s expansion than just numbers.
Chapter six is the start of the second part of the book, which deals with migration and the new world order. This first chapter introduces this new section using exile, migration, and mission and puts them all into a biblical perspective. Hanciles begins with a brief overview of how mission is shown to be from the Old Testament forward throughout the rest of the Bible. He ends in the New Testament, as it is shown to be a light unto the world. For those that have read books on a similar topic, not much new information has been presented.
Overall, I found this book to be insightfully written and interesting to read. I felt Hanciles related well to the reader and broke down difficult and large concepts into small and easy to understand chunks of information. I look forward to taking a class with Hanciles this coming Winter Quarter.
2.5/2.5