The Next One Thousand Years Of Christianity

by Kevin Kelly

The problem with Christianity is that for the past 1,000 years it has permitted itself only one scenario of the future: the end of the world in our lifetime. In fact, make that 2,000 years. The first generations of Christians believed the future was short lived, and that it would end in their lifetimes. And the 25 lifetime-generations since then have also believed that the future was short and the world would end in their lifetime. Every generation has legitimately seen signs and wonders indicating an immediate end of the world. The scenario was plausible in every century. It might still happen today, in our lifetime.

The end of the world in our lifetime is a scenario that cannot be rejected. It is as plausible as it has ever been. But in order to fashion a Christianity ready for the next 1000 years, this generation of Christianity must begin to create alternative future scenarios in order to fill out the space of possibilities. By relying on a single scenario of the future for the last 2,000 years, in particular a single scenario that was constantly and decisively wrong, Christianity left the invention and control of the actual future to those outside the church. Relatively few scientists are Christians, and almost no futurists are. By retreating to this unwavering single wrong prediction Christianity has surrendered the future to non-believers.

In a fast-paced time when the future overruns the present every day, when the young spend more time inhabiting what is coming than what is happening, when every corporation and secular institution has a future strategy, the only large entity lacking alternatives for the future is the Christian church. It is still surrendering the future to science fiction authors, corporations, new agers, technologists, and all who understand that we make the future by inventing it. The most dangerous aspect of the single scenario the Christian church clings to is that it denies all other scenarios of the future, in effect denying that it has a future of any sort. Even one alternative scenario to the mono-scenario would break this confinement, and open up the future for Christianity.

Incremental forecasts
The story of the next 1,000 years of Christianity cannot usefully be written just by disclosing the ending – by revealing some picture of life in the year 3000. It has to be written in increments, starting with Act 1, advancing in stages, with the knowledge that the story has a long narrative arc that is played out in many scenes along the way. Our generation’s job is not to write the ending, but to begin the story, and lay out some possible themes. The details in Act 2 and Act 3 will have to be completed by generations yet born.

MIDWAY: 2040

We might begin Act I of Christianity’s future a mere half generation away, in the year 2040. The year 2040 is a particularly interesting year because a number of disruptive global trends converge about then:

In the year 2040 most of the world’s baby boomers will have died. Baby boomers are a global phenomenon that have inflated the world’s population in almost every country and dominated the culture wherever they lived. Their absence will leave open many jobs, but also will remove a huge market for consumables.

In the year 2040 the world’s population numbers will reach its peak (about 8 billion). Shortly after this, the total population on this planet will start to drop and drop and drop. There is no bottom limit and no discernable counter force to prevent this decline. Few countries will have a rising or even stable population. (The US is expected to be the lone exception, due to immigration.) Throughout history we have never seen rising living standards and falling population, so economic disruption of some sort seems likely.

By the year 2040 the global decrease in population will be accompanied by a rising age wave as the average age of the living increases dramatically. An average age of 50 or even 60 may not be unusual for some areas. This wide-scale aging will burden medical services and overtax the young. But it will also make scarce young people very precious.

By the year 2040, 80% of humans will live in cities. As recently as 100 years ago only 2% of earthlings lived in cities. This new urban majority means that many villages around the world will be abandoned, or designated as semi-living museums, and culture will be essentially totally urban.

By the year 2040 China will overtake the US as the world’s largest economy. It will have the largest educational system in the world, the most out-bound tourists, the most churches. It will very likely also become a cultural leader.

By the year 2040 nearly 90% of all humans will be connected via phone and internet to all other humans. In theory anyone can send any other inhabitant on the earth an email or instant message. The web/internet/phone system will be one large machine.

Extrapolating from current increases in computing power, a true artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to be possible by the year 2040. A workable AI would shift work patterns, immigration patterns, and would lead to theological and cultural disruptions. By some computer scientist’s calculations once an AI has been made it would be recruited to invent smarter AIs, which would then make yet smarter AIs in an ever escalating race to extreme intelligence, forever changing the face of society.

THE FUTURE OF CHRISTIANITY

What do these trends mean for Christianity? How will the church fit into this future? Since we can’t know for sure, I offer six plausible scenarios, six thought experiments.

1. THE CENTER OF CHRISTIANITY WILL SHIFT WEST
One hundred years ago there were almost no Christians in Korea. Now 50% of South Koreans identify themselves as Christians. A century ago the percent of Christians in China was unnoticeable. According to David Aikman, author of Jesus in Beijing, we can expect 30% of the population of China to be Christian by 2040. Brother Bakht Singh, a missionary who planted thousands of churches in India, died in 2000. Over 600,000 people attended his funeral. No one in the west has ever heard of him.

On the other hand everyday in Europe an old church is decommissioned. Today African churches send more missionaries to the west than the west sends to Africa. The center of gravity for the global Christian church is shifting quickly.

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Comments

Jay Gary

Nice piece for Q-Ideas. My wish list for future pieces. How about a roadmap of the next five years, even benchmarks in terms of technological breakthroughs, economic eras, and social innovations?

Also, it would be nice to do pieces that show convergence of trend projections a 50-100 years out, rather than just list them. Maybe some force field analysis on trends, issues, leading into some uncertainty/importance charts of driving forces. The World Economic Forum has some good papers that do this for various sectors, http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/Scenarios/index.htm

Dr. Todd Johnson, a colleague of mine has done some good quantitative forecasting work, two centuries out on the future of Christianity, offering a baseline demographic-conversions scenario for 2200, along with two additional scenarios, Muslim Rennaisance and Non-Religious Resurgence (2nd Enlightenment). Of course, that is not multi-fold trend based, like Kelly's, but it raises the bar.

We also need more questions. IFTF.org has done some good work for the Endowed Episcopal Congregations, see my summary article of 15 provocations off of a workbook they did: http://conversation.lausanne.org/en/conversations/detail/10088

Thanks again for including Kelly's piece. I gotta give a lecture on scenarios of global Christianity for 2100 next week.

David Doty

It would be helpful if the church were more engaged in future visioneering that could be articulated with a coherent biblical explication of eschatological expectations. This is an area it seems most of the church is afraid to venture into but needs sound exploration. I believe we can forecast a great deal about the future of the church and the world through interpetation of the Bible through an historic lens.

Steve Florman

It's actually the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as the LDS Church. And it's hardly on the "fringes" of Christianity - it has 14 million members, of whom about 5-6 million are in the US. More than the ELCA, and the Presbyterians, and the Assemblies of God.

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