Contributions of Protestantism in the 21st century

Editor’s note: The following post arises from small group reflections from The Rise of Global Christianity, 1910–2010, taught by Dr. Todd Johnson at Boston University in the Fall of 2010. Lead by doctoral students, the small groups discussed lectures given by Christian scholars in various disciplines, including significant changes that have occurred in global Christianity over the past 100 years.

Dr. Rodney Petersen lectured us about Protestantism around world in terms of its history, denominations and contributions. According to him, Protestantism began by the protest movement against Catholicism in the 16th C, later divided and developed into diverse denominations such as the Lutheran tradition, Reformed tradition, and Anabaptist tradition. He emphasized that it is American denominationalism that contributed to the forming of the global presence of Protestantism. That is because American denominationalism, by his explanation, guaranteed the Christian identity irrespective of having no state church membership. In the 21st C, efforts to unite among the Protestant denominations result in the ecumenical movement which now contributes to the global unity and cooperation between different Christian traditions such as Orthodoxy and Catholicism as well as Protestantism. Based on Dr. Petersen’s lecture and the required reading, our group discussed several issues.

First, we discussed the contributions of Protestantism in the 21st century.

• Protestant churches have been willing to be conciliar, and conciliatory and willing to respect each other and dialog. Roman Catholic church after Vatican II appeared more open and more willing to have interreligious dialogue than "interfamily." Protestants also are getting together more to have interreligious dialogue, which is the contribution of 21st Cent. Protestant’s contribution to cooperate and collaborate. (Sam)
• Protestants are more flexible and more willing to allow freedom of thought and interpretation. They tend to hold the tolerance of different ways of doing things. (Amy)
• Father is Presbyterian pastor and he's a United Methodist. This is not a problem in Korean mainline Protestantism because the religious freedom is respected in Korea. (Earl)
• Question about missions in other places. How much the move to make other churches be independent or was it becoming independent on their own. Is it encouraged by post-colonial independence or were missionaries encouraging indigenization? (Edward)
• There is a criticism of foreign mission. Missionaries propagate their own denomination (and culture). Mission-founded and indigenous churches are two different categories. (Gun)
• One contribution of ecumenical movement was to elevate role of women in church and society. Protestants are more egalitarian than Catholicism. (Gun)

And second, we discussed on the growth of Protestantism and its major challenges.

• What are differences culturally that are leading to such a diversity of theologies? One challenge in particular—the ability of a richly-resourced culture to relate to the challenges facing Christians who are poor, politically oppressed, etc. Resource distribution is an issue. Jesus more a liberator and healer in the Global South, rather than an eschatological hope. (Sam)
• Coming to terms with resources and how to use them is important. (Edward)
• WCC website holds the huge body of work on issues of globalization, eco-justice, and neoliberal economics. These are the challenges. (Amy)
• WCC made decisions on how to deal with capitalism. Global North well developed compared to Global South, which has been excluded. There should be a difference between the views of the Church in the North and South. (Earl)
• I
  t is the time to develop the theology of reconciliation to deal with economic injustice which results in and from the expense of the human enslavement in the poor countries. (Gun)

Gun Cheol Kim, discussion moderator