One of the peculiar features of the spread of Christianity is that it has been characterized primarily by serial, not progressive, growth. In other words, Christianity has not had an even, steady growth beginning with a central, cultural and geographic center from which it subsequently spread to its present position as the largest, most ethnically diverse religion in the world. Instead, Christian history has been one of advance and recession. Christian history has witnessed powerful penetrations of the Gospel into certain geographic and cultural regions, only to later experience a major recession in that region and, sometimes, even wither away almost to extinction. However, just as Christianity was waning in one quarter, it was experiencing an even more dramatic rebirth and expansion in another.

Today, we are experiencing two simultaneous and seismic shifts moving in opposite directions regarding the demographics of where Christians are located. The first is the emergence of a post-Christian West. At the turn of the 20th century, there were approximately 380 million Christians in the Western world. However, since 1970 North America has, on average, lost 2,739 Christians per day. If you put the losses in North America with an even more alarming drop in Europe (9,000 per day), it amounts to around 12,000 fewer Christians every single day in the Western world. This has all happened within the lifetimes of many of those reading this article.

Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to think that the central Christian story of our time is about the recession or withering away of the Christian Gospel. It would also be a mistake to assume that what we are experiencing is unprecedented. As noted earlier, this has happened several times in our history, including in North Africa and the Middle East, which were once vibrant centers of Christianity. Augustine, for example, was born and died in modern-day Algeria. Yet today, Algeria is 99% Muslim. North Africa has given the church both Latin fathers like Augustine (354-430) and Cyprian (200-258), but also Greek-speaking fathers such as Origen (185-254), Athanasius (296-373) and Clement of Alexandria (150-215). What is unique is not that we are experiencing a surge of Christian faith in a new place, but that multiple surges are happening around the world in a polycentric way. Let me give a few examples to demonstrate this polycentric reality. The 16th-century Reformation has now come to Latin America in full force. Many of the central conversations in 16th-century Europe are now being discussed and debated throughout Latin America. Pentecostalism and Independent Christianity in Latin America are changing the face of Christianity on the continent.

At the same time, the church below the Saharan desert is experiencing explosive growth. At the turn of the 20th century, sub-Saharan Africa had approximately 8 million Christians, compared to more than 680 million today. This is why Africa is sometimes called the modern day “engine” of the burgeoning world Christian movement. Yet even though Africa led the church in growth between 1970 and 2020, China has now taken the lead as the fastest growing church in the world, moving from 1 million to 100 million in a single century. India, too, is now the home of 40 million Christians and some of the most robust church planting movements in the world are taking place in the traditional Hindu heartland of North India.

The point to recognize is that this growth is simultaneously multi-continental and is not centered in any one region. We are experiencing what John Mbiti, Kenyan philosopher and writer, has called “multiple centers of universality.” In missiology, this is known as polycentric Christianity. So, these two seismic shifts are happening simultaneously. We are simultaneously experiencing a post-Christian West and a post-Western Christianity.

Beeson Divinity School is poised to respond to these dynamics in fresh and vibrant ways. It requires us to lean into a truly multilateral global vision which prepares students for very different contexts. Beeson must rise to this challenge because, despite the shift in the center of Christian gravity from the global West to the global South, the center of theological education remains in the Western world. The largest faculties, the largest schools and the highest offered degrees in theological education all remain in the Western world. Never in history have the richest theological resources (books, libraries, endowments, developed theological faculties) found themselves situated squarely inside an emerging mission field. Furthermore, we have to go back to the 16th-century Reformers to find a time when the church was growing so rapidly in a context where access to theological training was under such strain.

Beeson has raised full-tuition scholarship funds and housing assistance to support students from around the world coming to Beeson. These students will be equipped to go to these growing centers of Christianity to lead or start Bible colleges and seminaries among these people. We are also having healthy discussions about how our teaching can better engage a more globally diverse student body. So, Beeson is engaging with the rise of a post-Western Christianity. At the same time, Beeson is helping our students from the United States to live and serve in a context that is increasingly post-Christian and far more diverse than anything our forefathers could have imagined.

In short, the recession of Christianity in the West does not mean that Beeson is somehow resigned to teaching our students to live quietly as an ever-diminishing subculture in an increasingly secular, godless society. On the contrary, our graduates must become far more robust and missionally engaged in articulating the Christian Gospel, which is radically distinct from post-modern secular consumerism. Our graduates are being trained to help churches across this nation embody Kingdom values and to live out the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To do this with excellence requires in-person teaching, mentoring and an unwavering commitment to the biblical tradition, all hallmarks of Beeson Divinity School.