to be practicing members of denominations even when they disagree with
certain doctrinal elements. Perhaps most notable are Catholics who support
the use of birth control and abortion rights against the doctrine of the church,
yet remain practicing Catholics.
Christianity and Islam have a long history of conflict: spiritually,
conversion-wise and sometimes physically. Jenkins predicts that this conflict
will continue in certain regions, including Europe where Islam might become
the predominant religion in the future. However, he also notes that immigrants
to the North from the South are bringing Christianity back to the North,
perhaps leading to a second wave of growth.
Jenkins notes that the Christian percentage of total population has
remained steady at about one-third for the past 100 years and is expected
to continue at that percentage; however, certain regions such as Africa are
expected to see an explosion from roughly nine percent in 1900 to a projected
50 percent in 2050. During this same period Islam has grown from roughly
12.5 to 22.5 percent and is expected to grow to 25 percent by 2050. One
wonders what the role of the Lord’s Divine Providence is in this trend, but that
is a topic for a different paper.
If Jenkins’ analysis is correct and Christianity continues to grow at even
a fraction of the rate he predicts, the Christian Church will remain a driving
religious force in the world for the foreseeable future. Last Judgment 72 provides
an expectation of how the Last Judgment affected the world in general, stating
that life on earth will go on as before and that there will still be “politics, peacetreaties, alliances and wars, and all the other general and particular features of
society.” The passage also states:
The future state of the church, however, will not be the same. It may seem
much the same in outward appearance, but inwardly it will be different. In
outward appearance the churches will be divided from one another as before,
their teachings will differ as before, and so will the religious systems of the
heathen. But people in the church will henceforward have more freedom in
thinking about matters of faith, and so about the spiritual matters which have
to do with heaven, because of the restoration of spiritual freedom.
From this passage we should expect that the Christian Church will remain
viable well into the future, as the Jewish and even some of the more ancient
religions have in the past and continue to this day. However, we can expect an
evolution in these religions to greater freedom in matters of faith. In fact, if we
look at the evolution of the Christian re ligions over the past few centuries we
can see greater freedom to read the Word in the Catholic Church and a move
toward not just having faith but also living a good life (i.e. marriage of faith
and charity) for the Protestant churches.
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