‘If you become a Christian, you will travel’
BRANSON, MO. — From now on, whenever I write a story for The Christian Chronicle, I need to ask myself, “How will this sound in Mandarin?”
That’s one of my many takeaways from the recent Evangelical Press Association convention. And no, I haven’t the foggiest notion of how to speak or think in Mandarin, Cantonese or any other language spoken in China. I’m still struggling with Spanish.
I’d better learn quick, because Spanish is now the dominant language of Christianity, said Sam George, director of the Billy Graham Center Global Diaspora Institute at Wheaton College in Illinois. “You can hear so much Spanish in the Vatican now,” he said — including from the lips of the new, Chicago-born pope.
The shift isn’t confined to Catholicism. The largest Lutheran church in the world is in Ethiopia, George said. The largest Assemblies of God church is in Brazil. Arguably the biggest megachurch on the planet is in South Korea. And church attendance in China, a communist nation of more than 1 billion souls, soon will surpass that of the U.S., if it hasn’t already.
Unlike belief systems that are tied to a specific place, Christianity is a “transportable and translatable faith,” said George, who delivered a keynote and taught a breakout class during the convention.
When a faith becomes confined to or defined by a place, “it becomes a religion,” George said as he shared a quote from Presbyterian minister and theologian Richard C. Halverson that really drove the point home: “In the beginning, Christianity was a fellowship of men and women centered on the living Christ. Then Christianity moved to Greece, where it became philosophy. Then it moved to Rome, where it became an institution. Next, it moved to Europe, where it became a culture. And finally, when Christianity came to America, it became a business.”
“In the beginning, Christianity was a fellowship of men and women centered on the living Christ. Then Christianity moved to Greece, where it became philosophy. … And finally, when Christianity came to America, it became a business.”
Halverston, by the way, once was chaplain of the U.S. Senate.
Diaspora — the dispersion of people from their homeland, often as a result of persecution — is the norm for Christians. The book of Acts bears this out. The more the Romans persecuted the first century church, the more it grew. George mentioned the church in Antioch, where Barnabas and Paul spent an entire year, where believers first were called Christians. The Antioch church thrived, George said, “because it was an outward-looking church.”
Nearly 2,000 years later, the Baxter Institute in Honduras prepares Spanish-speaking teams to plant churches across Latin America. Venezuelans fleeing the turmoil in their homeland are revitalizing Churches of Christ and planting new ones in nations from Uruguay to Spain.
Sam George presents a class on “Global Migration and World Christianity” during the Evangelical Press Association convention.
We have Vietnamese and Laotian Churches of Christ meeting in Texas and Brazilian and Haitian congregations in Florida. I have worshiped with Ghanaian Churches of Christ in Amsterdam, Brussels and the Maryland suburbs of our nation’s capital. I’ve sung hymns in German in an apartment in Vienna, Austria, next to brothers and sisters who read from Farsi-language Bibles. Across Europe, Christians from the Middle East and Ukraine are bringing new waves of refugees into the faith.
“If you become a Christian, you will travel,” George said. “If you travel, you will become a Christian.” Believers from the developing world are moving to the West “to save us from our narrow, parochial, nationalistic interpretation of Christianity.” The result is a multinational, multicultural fellowship that reflects the “new heaven and new earth” described in Revelation 21. “The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.”
What does this mean for faith-based publications? “See your readership far beyond the American republic.” George said. I think about our friends in Toluca, Mexico, who produce Crónica Cristiana, a Spanish-language publication that translates some of the Chronicle’s content. Perhaps we need a renewed focus on Christian news consumers in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.
Our nation seems so divided now. But another speaker at the convention, Nicole Massie Martin, encouraged us to stay the course.
Nicole Massie Martin
Our drive “is not to get more money or awards,” said Martin, chief operating officer for Christianity Today. She deftly used examples from the life of the prophet Jeremiah to demonstrate “divine drive,” adding, “We will continue to publish until God says so.”
I hope that all of this doesn’t come across as America-bashing. I love this country and am thrilled to see the legacy of our mission-minded forbearers in U.S. Churches of Christ yielding fruit around the globe.
And God still is very much at work here.
Another presenter was John Plake of the American Bible Society. Each year the society produces its State of the Bible USA report, tracking trends among Bible sales and usage. In recent years, the report showed an alarming decline in U.S. Bible engagement using the parameters they define for the study. But the 2025 report shows a significant uptick in sales — and increased interest among young adults (millennials) and men.
John Plake, left, and Jennifer Holloran
“Why this renewed curiosity about the Bible?” asked Jennifer Holloran, the society’s president and CEO. “One possible reason is the Bible’s growing presence in public discourse. With such wide access to Scripture in the U.S., many are choosing to look past others’ portrayals of the Bible and discover what the Bible actually says for themselves.”
You hear that? The increasing misuse of Scripture in the public sphere could be prompting more people to delve into Scripture in search of truth.
That’s news to celebrate — in English, Spanish, even Mandarin.
ERIK TRYGGESTAD is President and CEO of The Christian Chronicle. Contact [email protected].
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