I agree that we are and have been at the end of the age (end-times) since Christ came, died, and rose again from the dead.
But where are we now? I hope to hear from people of the various end-time views, whether futurists, historicist, preterist, et.
Thanks.
I believe we are well into the final great soul harvest of the Gospel before the end of the world. Christianity is exploding in areas of the world where the Gospel was previously banned, and where once some 80 percent of Christians lived in Europe and America, today 60 percent live in the developing world. More than two out of three evangelical Christians now live in Asia, Africa, and South America. Compare the numbers: Today in Europe there are 560 million Christians and America has 260 million. But most of those are Christian in name only, that is, they are not practicing Christians. In comparison, there are 480 million Christians in South America, 313 million in Asia, and 360 million in Africa. The vast majority of these are practicing Christians. There are more churchgoing Presbyterians in Ghana than in Scotland!
Less than 100 years ago fewer than 10 percent of Africa was Christian. Today it is 50 percent, with some 350 million Christians. Uganda alone has nearly 20 million and it's projected to reach 50 million by the middle of this century. Some African congregations have grown so large that they can't build churches big enough to hold them. While Western preachers implore people to attend services, some African preachers ask their members to limit their attendance to every second or third Sunday to give others a chance to hear the message.
Central and South America is seeing explosive growth in Pentecostalism. Brazil, for example, has over 50 million evangelical Protestants. But Catholicism too is experiencing a resurgence. Where Brazil had 50 million Catholics in 1950, today they number 120 million.
Even in China, despite the restrictions against Christianity imposed by the Chinese government, it is estimated that there are 100 million Christians in underground churches and it is estimated that at it's present growth rate, in a few decades China will become the largest Christian country in the world. In Korea, where Christians already outnumber Buddhists, there are numerous mega-churches with more than 10,000 members, and the Yoido Full Gospel Church has an astounding 750,000 members. The Catholic Church in the Philippines has surged to 60 million members and is projected to reach 120 million by the middle of this century.
Western Christianity has become less and less relevant in the past 50 years, and with another decade or two Korea will surpass America as the nation which sends out the most missionaries into the world. The major centers of Christianity today are no longer Geneva, Rome, Paris, or London, but Buenos Aires, Manila, Kinshasa, and Addis Ababa, leading some observers to note that "The era of Western Christianity has passed within our lifetimes, and the day of Southern Christianity is dawning," wrote Philip Jenkins.
I believe what we are seeing with the remarkable explosion of converts to Christianity around the world, is the final, great harvest of souls before the end of the world.
The end of this age will begin with the loosing of that ancient foe, the Prince of Darkness, and we will see a spiritual version of the Roman advance on the nation of Israel and the encompassing and siege of the Holy City. But this contest will end very differently . . . God will rain down fire from heaven and devour them. And the Lord will return, not in the humility of his first coming, when he came to seek and to save, but he will return in glory, to judge and to reward. The heavens and the earth will melt before his presence. And we too, who have our names written in the Book of Life, we will pass through that fire, but rather than destroy us as it will the wicked, that fire will serve to cleanse and purify us of the corruption that our bodies have been subject to since the fall of our first parents. In that day we will receive a crown of life, and the pangs of death will be loosed, and there will be no more pain, or sickness, or weeping . . . but our God will dwell with us, in the new heaven and earth, in the New Jerusalem.
In Christ,
Pilgrimer
