Survival or Growth?

Abstract

"We are living in an era of phenomenal Church growth throughout the world. There are amazing developments taking place in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union among our fellow Baptists.In areas in the Far East, and Africa and South America the growth in the number of Christians is out-stripping. population explosion, so that whilst in 1800 Christianity was largely confined to Europe and North America, since 1914 it has spread to almost all the countries in the world. Statistics indicate that the growth has been more in the last 100 years than in the preceeding 1800 put together. It has been thought that material prosperity causes a decline of religious belief. But in the world's richest country there has been the most flourishing development in Church membership, particularly in the last SO years, and it has been spearheaded by members of our own Baptist family in the Southern Baptist Convention. This is, the fascinating background against which we must measure the decline in organised religion in Western Europe and in our own denomination in Britain in particular. Far from shrinkage being the inevitable rule for the Gospel in a secular age, quite literally it is the last thing in the world which we should expect. In this article I want to touch on some of the causes for decline , not elaborated on in recent articles in the B.T. and suggest some further curative steps"