As I recall, this headline once appeared on the front page of the Beijing People’s Daily during the reign of Chairman Mao. The idea was that many nations were in political turmoil and that this augured well for the ultimate triumph of world revolution.

Many Christian fundamentalists and Pentecostals seem to view current events in a similar way. The world around us is downright awful and deteriorating rapidly but humanity’s dreadful, sinful and hopeless condition is itself a sure sign of Christ’s imminent return.

The (Pentecostal) Australian Prayer Network [APN] Newsletter of 3 April 2006 lets us have it with both barrels. One article is headed ‘Statistics reveal the extent of the spiritual battle for Britain and Ireland’, wherein we read that ‘100,000 children a year run away from broken homes’; ‘41% of all children born in the UK are to unmarried couples’; ‘the UK has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe’; ‘over the last 35 years, an average of one abortion every three minutes has been carried out legally in the UK, 80% funded by the National Health Service’; ‘British Telecom blocks 20,000 attempts per day of people trying to watch pornographic acts with children on the internet’; ’sex scenes on British television have increased 300% in the last five years’. And just in case you’re sick of the sexual peccadilloes, ‘24 million anti-depressant prescription items are issued each year and our society is a TRILLION pounds in debt’.

These statistics may or may not be accurate. I have learnt never to quote information deriving from a conservative Christian source without first checking it right back to its origin. The point here, however, is that the UK - ‘Judaeo-Christian tradition’ and all - is in a parlous moral state and quite beyond hope of recovery, at least in human terms.

So is there a silver lining? Most certainly, says another item in the selfsame APN newsletter. This article bears the upbeat title ‘Five encouraging developments worldwide’. Joel News International has compiled this list which includes: ‘an unprecedented growth of the prayer movement worldwide’; ‘God’s Spirit being poured out in many places, marked by conversion and miracles’; ‘many new partnerships and networks are being formed on a city, nation[al], and even continental level, linking prayer, saturation church planting and frontline missions’; ‘more and more Christians, churches and ministries are engaging in a transformational process to bring godly change to their societies’; and finally, ‘radically simple and innovative forms of church are springing up in many places, reaching the unreached’.

Students of weasel words and business bumph will instantly recognise Joel’s ‘encouraging developments’ for what they are - a sorry collection of cloudy phrases and wishful thinking. More prayer? So what? More conversions? Where, and how ‘deep’? Miracles? Don’t think so. Networks - yawn. Transformational processes - double yawn. Innovative church forms - good night.

I don’t trust those UK stats but I’ll bet they give us a much truer picture of Christianity’s long-term future.

Filed in: Fundamentalism, Pentecostalism