{"id":5187,"date":"2009-06-22T00:05:38","date_gmt":"2009-06-22T00:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/world-christianity-and-america-4.html"},"modified":"2009-06-22T00:05:38","modified_gmt":"2009-06-22T00:05:38","slug":"world-christianity-and-america-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/world-christianity-and-america-4.html","title":{"rendered":"World Christianity and America 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Noll.jpg\"<\/span>Mark Noll, in his new and paradigm-challenging book, The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith<\/a>\"\"<\/strong><\/em>, argues that American Christianity’s influence in world Christianity cannot be explained adequately by the colonialism theory. Instead, he argues that it is the peculiar character of American, esp Protestant evangelical, Christianity that ties in with social trends<\/i><\/b> in other countries that makes American Christianity so influential.<\/p>\n

I cannot emphasize enough the significance of this thesis<\/b> — and every pastor, professor and anyone who speaks to the media about Christianity’s presence in the world needs to read this book. Especially chp. 7.<\/p>\n

So what are the peculiarities of American (Protestant, evangelical) Christianity<\/b>? (Let us remind ourselves that some need to hear that American Christianity is a version of Christianity.) Noll sums up the scholarship that leads to these characteristics and leanings:<\/p>\n


\n1. Individual self-fashioning<\/b> over communal identification
2. Language of choice and personal freedom<\/b>, alongside a language of given boundaries and personal responsiblity
3. Comfortable use of commerce<\/b> vs. cautious skepticism about commerce
4. Religious bodies as voluntary organizations organized for action vs. inherited institutions organized for holding fast<\/b>
5. Optimistic hope to create new institutions<\/b> vs. skepticism about innovation
6. Personal appropriation of sacred writings <\/b>vs. hierarchical inherited readings
7. Utilitarian attitude toward geography<\/b> vs. settled geographical identity
8. Mingling ethnic groups<\/b> vs. single ethnic groups
9. Innovative bourgeois middle classes<\/b> instead of deference to traditional elites.<\/p>\n

When these features emerge in other countries, this kind of Christianity will also emerge in it — and take on native characteristics.<\/p>\n

Noll concludes chp 7 with a sketch of Ogbu Kalu’s research on African Pentecostalism which pushes against the colonialist and American founding thesis and shows the significance of local variations and choice in how Pentecostalism has grown and developed (see his African Pentecostalism: An Introduction<\/a>\"\"
\n<\/strong><\/em>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Noll, in his new and paradigm-challenging book, The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith, argues that American Christianity’s influence in world Christianity cannot be explained adequately by the colonialism theory. Instead, he argues that it is the peculiar character of American, esp Protestant evangelical, Christianity that ties in with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity"],"yoast_head":"\nWorld Christianity and America 5 - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/world-christianity-and-america-4.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"World Christianity and America 5 - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mark Noll, in his new and paradigm-challenging book, The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith, argues that American Christianity’s influence in world Christianity cannot be explained adequately by the colonialism theory. Instead, he argues that it is the peculiar character of American, esp Protestant evangelical, Christianity that ties in with…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/world-christianity-and-america-4.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-22T00:05:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Noll.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"World Christianity and America 5 - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/world-christianity-and-america-4.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"World Christianity and America 5 - Jesus Creed","og_description":"Mark Noll, in his new and paradigm-challenging book, The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith, argues that American Christianity’s influence in world Christianity cannot be explained adequately by the colonialism theory. Instead, he argues that it is the peculiar character of American, esp Protestant evangelical, Christianity that ties in with…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/world-christianity-and-america-4.html","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2009-06-22T00:05:38+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Noll.jpg"}],"author":"Scot McKnight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/world-christianity-and-america-4.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/world-christianity-and-america-4.html","name":"World Christianity and America 5 - Jesus Creed","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/world-christianity-and-america-4.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/world-christianity-and-america-4.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Noll.jpg","datePublished":"2009-06-22T00:05:38+00:00","dateModified":"2009-06-22T00:05:38+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/19879975236b70da80f4cbea933c59d0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/world-christianity-and-america-4.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/world-christianity-and-america-4.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/world-christianity-and-america-4.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Noll.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Noll.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/world-christianity-and-america-4.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"World Christianity and America 5"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith for today","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/19879975236b70da80f4cbea933c59d0","name":"Scot McKnight","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c10\/c10b0226ed6cfd8319b2b8742ac4088ax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c10\/c10b0226ed6cfd8319b2b8742ac4088ax96.jpg","caption":"Scot McKnight"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/author\/smcknight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}