by Scott W. Sunquist
Baker Academic, Baylor, Texas. 213 pages
Early in this book the author writes, “Christianity as it has been practiced in the West for the past, well, at least for the past millennium, bears only slight resemblance to the life of the early Christians.” That observation came from a close reading of the book of Acts, after which the comment seems rather obvious.
Sunquist is the dean of the School of Intercultural Studies and professor of world Christianity at Fuller Theological Seminary. He is a careful scholar who tells the story of the great transformation of Christianity in the 20th century that was in fact a “great reversal.” The reversal is not the decline of Christianity but rather the radical relocation of the center. As the number of practicing Christians has declined dramatically in Europe and North America, they have surged across Africa, Asia and South America. This is no long news, but Sunquist is fine historian who tells the change with careful details through “five different lenses.”
If one wonders how Christianity will move forward after the great reversal or whether there is any hope for the tradition, this book is for you. The author tells the truth, yet he does so with the conviction that “the church is still the signpost and hope for a cynical and lonely world.”
