From Times Square to Timbuktu: The Post-Christian West Meets the Non-Western Church

by Wesley Granberg-Michaelson

In the last century, amazingly, world Christianity's center of gravity has effectively moved from Europe to a point near Timbuktu in Africa. Never in the history of Christianity has there been such a rapid and dramatic shift in where Christians are located in the world.

Wesley Granberg-Michaelson explores the consequences of this shift for congregations in North America, specifically for the efforts to build Christian unity in the face of new and challenging divisions. Centers of religious power, money, and theological capital remain entrenched in the global, secularized North while the Christian majority thrives and rapidly grows in the global South. World Christianity's most decisive twenty-first-century challenge, Granberg-Michaelson argues, is to build meaningful bridges between faithful churches in the global North and the spiritually exuberant churches of the global South.

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189 pages, Paperback

First published August 31, 2013

Reviews

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book on the new challenges to global Christian unity created by the rapid growth of the church in the Global South over the past few decades. The author is a veteran denominational leader and passionate ecumenist with extensive involvement in the World Council of Churches. Highlights some problems of which I was not aware, but it was - on balance - an unsatisfactory read. It has the tone of a polemic but somehow fails to really make a point or argument (unless it finally got around to it in the last two chapters, which I skipped... but if he left it that late, then my point still stands: it was meandering). Also a glaring omission that any book discussing evangelical involvement in global Christian unity can fail to make even a single passing reference to the Lausanne Movement. The author is likeabley sincere (earning him a bonus star) and perhaps if you were writing a book or paper on the topic of world church unity it would be a good text to peruse, but it felt like a relief to finally put it back on the shelf.

[John Medendorp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Granberg-Michaelson offers a powerful wake up call to the Western church, calling us to recognize the shifting cultural centre of global Christianity from the Northern and Western Hemispheres to the South and East, noting the explosive growth of Christianity in Africa and Asia in particular. The book is well-researched and draws from Granberg-Michaelson's considerable life experience working with ecumenical organizations like the World Council of Churches and other similar global agencies. The book sometimes delves too deeply into the inner political and structural life of these organizations, with which the author is very familiar, and can sometimes fall into "insider-language," but the power of his call to Christian unity across borders, cultures, and denominations comes through in a very powerful way.

[Peter DeHaan · Rating 5 out of 5]

What does the future of the Christian church look like? The answer may surprise you. While Christianity is languishing in the United States and Western Europe, it's growing in the rest of the world, especially the global south. In From Times Square to Timbuktu, Wesley Granberg-Michaelson confirms this trend with well-crafted research that is both credible and accessible. The future of faith is indeed bright.

[Robert Frank · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoughtfully written study of the changing face of Christianity in the world. The author has used his past experience with the World Council of Churches and his recent studies at the Library of Congress to help us see the importance of Christian unity and the challenges that are being created by the dramatic growth of Christianity in new territories in the world and the migration of some of those new Christians back to Europe and the Americas where Christianity was once concentrated.

[Poetdoll · Rating 2 out of 5]

it seemed like this book was written for people not familiar with the history and current trends of missions today and those with a very narrow North American western culture view of Christianity. Because I don't fit into these two categories of people, I found the themes and principles to be staying the obvious and not really offering any new insight.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

A capable review of the changes underway in the global church, mixing reporting and personal experiences. The theology is a little light (what does this mean for the church of the North?); also missing is a discussion of how churches of the North will or perhaps should react.