Where is the Christian centre?

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1390868,00.html

Many people use Timbuktu to express distance and suggest something beyond a person's experience. I was a teenager before I discovered Timbuktu was in west Africa. In 2000, the city was once more a place of world importance. This time, it was because it had become the statistical centre of Christianity.

In AD 33, a possible date of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the statistical centre of Christianity was, not surprisingly, Jerusalem. As the Christian religion spread so its centre shifted. For the first 500 years, it moved around the Mediterranean region. Then, from AD 600 it began a journey north-westwards in a consistent trajectory. By 1000, the centre was near to Constantinople (today's Istanbul), thus coinciding with one of Christianity's great ecclesiastical and spiritual centres. By 1500, the statistical centre reached its northernmost point ever, in Budapest, at which it began a movement south that has continued to this day. In 1600, Zagreb in Croatia hosted the centre; by 1900 it arrived in Madrid, Spain, on its way to Africa. By 1970, the centre was in Morocco; 30 years later it had turned up in Timbuktu.

By 2100, it is predicted that the vast majority - almost 80% of Christians - will live in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania, and that the statistical centre will be even further south, in the northern Nigerian city of Sokoto.

The Christian faith teaches that not only did God become a human being in a specific time (about 2000 years ago) and place (Bethlehem), but that every person can have an individual relationship with God. So, in one sense, every Christian is the centre of God's dealings with the world, and all those who claim to follow Christ should, in their own geographical locations, be centres - to quote St Paul - of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self-control. That may not be statistics, but it surely is sense.

[xchrom]

1. the christian faith has a serious cancer

called conservative christianity.
there can be no ''center christianity'' until this is dealt with -- conservatives are perverting the faith.
christians who aren't conservative -- can only be not ''them''.
and like democrats -- they can only argue from a defensive position.
until an assault is made on the hill occupied by conservative christians -- it's hard to make up meaningful definitions.

[cornermouse]

2. About conservative christianity

Sometimes we forget that the rest of the world exists.

"Conservative christianity", at least as we think of it, is pretty much an American invention. Christians in other countries, as a whole, are not as foolish as our neo-con christians.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

13. I'm pretty sure

that a lot of African christians have a lot in common with American conservatives - certainly the anti-homosexual onslaught in the Anglican religion has been lead by the Nigerians, I believe.

And a lot of Catholics around the world are just as conservative as American fundamentalists and evangelicals, aren't they?

[aquart]

4. Christianity isn't the only one with that problem.

Judaism and Islam have a pantsload of it. For all I know, all the other religions do, too. It is a vile human impulse to which we must not surrender.

[orpupilofnature57]

3. Conservatives speak for Christ, like shrub speaks for America

oxymoronically.

[T_i_B]

6. Has anyone on this thread

actually bothered to read the article, or are you all just leaping to assumptions from the headline?

[saltpoint]

5. We are now in a decidedly post-Christian world.

And that's just fine with me.

[trotsky]

7. I understand the article's point

but I disagree with it.

There are so many varieties of Christianity - including some that would discount everything the author of this piece said. (Which would include a lot of the ultra-conservative sects people mentioned above.)

Now of course I can hear the cries of, "But they're not REAL Christians!" Well, they're going to say the same thing about you, so as a neutral observer, how am I to tell the difference?

To say the true Christians try to live Christ-like means nothing - which Jesus are you trying to emulate?

The one that said, "Blessed are the peacemakers"...

Or the one that said, "I come not to bring peace, but a sword"?

[T_i_B]

8. This is what the article actually said

Where, for example, is the statistical centre of correct Christian faith, as opposed to heresy?

However, whereas Christianity's statistical centre is measured by objective data, right belief is much more slippery.

Old and new theologies have often clashed; that trend is likely to increase as Christianity continues to move across cultural borders and new believers begin to express their faith using the language, imagery and symbolism of their own cultures.

There are other statistical centres - secular as well as religious - that we might measure. Where, for example, are the global statistical centres for hatred and violence, or generosity, kindness, democracy, justice and peace?

[trotsky]

9. I thought he ended up putting the "centre" in each believer.

:shrug:

[T_i_B]

10. Which goes to show

why it often helps to click on the link and read the article in full before posting! We all post without paying attention on DU sometimes but to have a thread like this where not one person replying seems to have got any further then the headline is a bit disheartening.

[trotsky]

11. Explain, please.

You quoted the summary paragraph of the article initially - but in particular, this one sentence:

So, in one sense, every Christian is the centre of God's dealings with the world, and all those who claim to follow Christ should, in their own geographical locations, be centres - to quote St Paul - of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self-control.

I read the article as illustrating the folly of pointing out a geographical center of Christianity, but instead saying that the best one can do is say that every believer is a center him/herself, by following what the author claims are the true Christ-like virtues.

And so I pointed out that when Christians can't even agree on what are Christ-like virtues, how can you even say that each believer is a center?

[T_i_B]

12. Actually, the Bible spells that out

In St Paul's letter to the Galatians 5 v22-23

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/index.php?search=galatians%205&version=31

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness and selfcontrol. Against such things there is no law.

That's what the Author was quoting. Click on the link and re-read the article and remember, the overwhelming majority of Christians can actually agree on what St Paul was saying here!

[Igel]

14. "One the one hand" implies a second hand, and

"in one sense" implies yet another.

Engineer?