4b. Migration and Immigration

Question 1

What are the three walls that Robeck uses to describe how human beings try to keep people out? How do people on each side view the wall?

Answer 1

Berlin Wall
U.S. Border Wall
Wall in Jerusalem

Question 2

According to the World Council of Churches, how many people are currently on the move?

Answer 2

214 million

Question 3

Why are there so many refugees in Africa?

Answer 3

Because of colonialism. No one bothered to draw the lines of countries where they should’ve. Little attention was paid to tribal, ethnic, and religious concerns. And, colonialism created intense political competition for resources and set the stage for open battle to gain them.

Question 4

In Asia, who is migrating?

Answer 4

Southern Asians from India and the Philippines who are looking for opportunity around the Pacific Rim.

Question 5

Where is the biggest Buddhist temples in the world located?

Answer 5

Hacienda Heights

Question 6

What brings people from Latin American to the United States?

Answer 6

Economic opportunity, civil unrest, the financial collapse of their countries, war.

Question 7

What has been the implication for the church of immigration from Latin America.

Answer 7

The huge growth of the Catholic and Pentecostal Churches in the Southwest.

Question 8

There is currently a mass exodus of Christians out of the MIddle East. What are the implications?

Answer 8

Those places will be left with no Christian witness. But Muslims are also moving. There are more Muslims in mosques in England than there are Christians in churches.

Question 9

What is new about the masses that are moving worldwide?

Answer 9

Nothing. We’ve seen this before. And, people have taken their religion with them. Just look at the Europeans and their migrations from 1492 on.

Question 10

When people move, they bring their religion with them. How have we seen this before?

Answer 10

Dutch brought Reformed Church, Spanish and Portuguese brought Catholic Church, etc. In the United States, different countries of origin brought different brands of Protestants.

Question 11

Early on, what was happening at racially integrated churches?

Answer 11

They had separate entrances, Whites were served communion and baptized first. Black sat in the back, or on the balcony

Question 12

Richard Allen

Answer 12

At a convention of Black Methodists, he was chosen as the Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME). After the civil war many blacks left the Methodist Episcopal Church and joined AME.

Question 13

Name two concerns White Christians had to Black Christians.

Answer 13

Polygamy and the reliance on private revelations.

Question 14

Africanism

Answer 14

The use of narrative, drums and rhythm, storytelling and testimony, call and response in black church. Often seen as syncretism by whites who don’t understand the culture.

Question 15

What are some forms of white syncretism?

Answer 15

Reason. The scientific method applied to theology. The belief that God only loves American, and that he is a Republican white male.

Question 16

cargo cults

Answer 16

New religions that are a mix between indigenous religion and Christianity. Its what happens when syncretism is allowed. Voodoo, Santeria, Candomble and Umbanda.

Question 17

What was the population of Christians in Iraq before the United States invaded in 2003 and what is it now?

Answer 17

800,000, and now it’s 350,000.

Question 18

What is the drop of Christians in Palestine?

Answer 18

From 20% to 2%. They are leaving because of economic opportunity, and because they are being pressured by Muslims.

Question 19

Where is church growth happening around the world?

Answer 19

In independent Pentecostal churches from Latin America and Africa.

• In Germany, where Pentecostals are going to places where the Reformed church has been for centuries.
• This is also happening in the Netherlands.

Question 20

Where is the largest church in Europe located?

Answer 20

Ukraine. It’s a 25,000 member Pentecostal church.

Question 21

When did Pentecostalism reach Europe?

Answer 21

In 1907, when a Norwegian pastor named Thoma Bell went back and started a revival in Norway.

Question 22

Essay Question: 1. Leaders in the Church Growth Movement have suggested a number of factors that they believe make it possible to predict, and therefore, to plan for or create the growth of a church. One of the guidelines that they have recommended for church planters to consider is that people like to worship with those who are most like them. In light of our discussion, please discuss the positive and the negative implications of this recommendation.

Answer 22

Positive: Explosive growth. People feel safe. Gospel in their own language. A home away from home.

Negative: we need to think of what it means for one ethnicity to reach other ethnicities.
-so many churches worldwide are ethnic specific, outsider don’t feel welcome, and they don’t do anything to be neighbor