00:00Evangelicalism is a global South phenomenon. And even though it began in the Anglosphere
00:08a few centuries ago, it is no longer the case. And in fact, it has not been the case
00:16since probably sometime around 1979, 1980. Now, I'm unfortunately old enough to think that 1980
00:25was just a few years ago, but the reality is that that was 45 years ago. Could you click
00:31forward once, Mark? Because it's important for us to remember that in the world today,
00:36the median age of the human population is just under 31 years old. So what that means is that
00:45nearly 70% of the world's population has been born into a world where evangelicalism is a global South
00:53movement. And that's really essential to note. This is not something that happened last year
00:59or five years ago, or even 25 years ago. For the entire existence of most people alive today,
01:08evangelicalism has been a global South majority. So thanks. You can take the slide off. And when we
01:15talk about the diversity of evangelicalism because of its global nature, what that means is that
01:23evangelicals are certain things. There's that family resemblance that Gina just mentioned. It also
01:29means that evangelicals are not certain specific things. So evangelicals are not, or at least not
01:37primarily, white, Western, English-speaking, male, older, or conservative, for that matter. Although, again,
01:51they emerged from Wesleyan revivals and the Great Awakening, which, by the way, was profoundly
01:57involved in social activism, in the abolition movement, the support for women preachers, ministering
02:03to the poor. It was actually 30 years ago that the theologian Millard Erickson was writing in his own
02:11short book called The Evangelical Left about post-conservative evangelicalism. So that's not some outcome of the
02:18deconstruction that we see happening in the last three or four years. That's something that scholars
02:23were writing about in the previous millennium. And so this is something that we have to recognize, that
02:30all of the characteristics that perhaps outsiders tend to label the evangelical movements with,
02:38they are demonstrably not the case. They maybe were the case a lifetime ago, but they are certainly no
02:47longer primarily the case anymore. And I think that's something to celebrate. We know that the body of
02:54Christ is incredibly diverse. It's the most diverse subset of humanity probably in existence, and
03:00evangelicalism is equally representative in its geographic diversity, in some of its theological diversity,
03:07in its ethnic diversity, in its orthopraxy as well. So I think that is a thing to celebrate, and I embrace it with
03:18great enthusiasm.
03:20My hope and dream is that we would really welcome the diversity that we are talking about. I think we talk a lot about
03:30diversity, but then when it comes down to it, we let theology and ideology get in the way of relationships. And I've seen this over and over again in
03:41Christianity within my own country, Christianity worldwide, that we let what we believe get in the way of relationship with each other. And we let, you know, the way we practice the faith get in the way with relationship with each other. And really, my hope and dream is that
03:56world Christianity really would be united in faith in Jesus Christ, no matter how that faith looks on the ground, and that we can be in relationship with each other, despite
04:07differences of history and politics and theology and biblical interpretation and all of these things. It seems like kind of a low bar, like essentially, I'm just saying, can we all just get along? But I think we need it more and more today. So that's my hope. But one thing I'd like you to remember is that global evangelicalism, however defined, is more diverse than you think it is.
04:33And yet, and yet, we can all find our place in it, no matter what you look like, or what you believe, you can find your place in it. And I think that's its strength, not its weakness.
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