Going through a stack of books on the coffee table in his office, the Rev. Briane Turley finds a copy of “The Next Christendom.”
Written in 2002, it predicts that Christians from non-Western countries will soon outnumber believers in North America and Europe.
When that happens, the book concludes, it will trigger a religious upheaval as big as the Reformation.
“I’ve seen it coming true,” Turley says, “right before my eyes.”
He recently came back from the Global Anglican Future Conference, or GAFCON, in Jerusalem. Being white and Western, Turley found himself conspicuously in the minority.
“This is where the leaders of the church in Africa stood up and said, ‘OK, we’re taking our place at the table now.'”
A “small congregation” with ASA of 250??
That’s not small for North American Anglicans of any stripe; my former TEC parish had ASA less than 150, and it was and is quite viable.
If our attempted Anglican startup had had ASA of 250, I wouldn’t be a Lutheran now.
For what it’s worth, this article misquotes me throughout. The journalist was trying to perform his task in an evenhanded manner, but he did not take many notes and wound up putting quotations marks around paraphrases. This is disappointing. So, for example, our congregation averages just under 150 and enjoys a membership of just over 250.
Such is life.