C
Allen’s choices for the 10 future trends that the Church will encounter are: A World Church, Evangelical Catholicism, Islam, the New Demography, Expanding Lay Roles, the Biotech Revolution, Globalization, Ecology, Multipolarism, and Pentecostalism. Let’s look at a few of them.
In his chapter on the World Church, Allen calls the shifting of “the center of gravity from North to South” the most important change the Church underwent in the 20th century. He predicts this trend will accelerate in our century as the populations of Africa and South America continue to grow while the ranks of old, formerly Catholic Europe dwindle still further. The United States is an outlier here, largely because of massive (mostly Catholic) immigration from Latin America.
In Africa, much of the Church’s growth is due to a relatively high birthrate and more local control from native-born bishops (a sign their countries are no longer operating as missionary outposts). These bishops are on average younger and more vigorous in facing the struggles of enculturation, with polygamy and witchcraft being the most serious issues to be resolved. Allen does not draw the analogy, but this is reminiscent of the (700-year long) evangelization of the barbarian tribes flowing out of the Asian steppes, which was followed by the triple strains of dealing with the Black Death, the Avignon papacy, and the Protestant revolt. It is certainly helpful if the reader knows a good deal of Church history to understand Allen’s approach to the future.
In his chapter on evangelical Catholicism, Allen waves the white flag of surrender to 50 years of liturgical, doctrinal, and sacramental confusion dating from the proliferation of poorly applied teachings from the misunderstood Second Vatican Council. As Allen puts it, “The defining features of evangelical Catholicism are a clear embrace of traditional Catholic thought, speech, and practice, the usual word for which is ‘orthodoxy’; eagerness to proclaim one’s Catholic identity to the world, emphasizing its implication for culture, society, and politics; faith seen as a matter of personal choice rather than cultural inheritance.”
It’s a very interesting article.In short, what we are seeing is a dropping out of the lukewarm and “dissenters” from the visible Church in the face of resurgent, vital, orthodox Catholicism. One in 10 Americans is an ex-Catholic, one of the greatest mass apostasies in the history of the Church. The Church of the future will be evangelizing and self-confident – considerably smaller but much more powerful in its effect on American culture and society as mainline Protestantism continues its almost 500-year-long death march to oblivion, giving way before the mainly non-denominational freestanding mega-churches that rely on enthusiasm and private interpretation of the Bible.
DittoFrom the American Spectator:
It’s a very interesting article.