In our time, we are witnessing an extraordinary phenomenon: the virtual wiping out of the church in a place it has existed for nearly 2,000 years. The plight of Iraq's Christian community reminds us that church expansion is not a constantly upward slope.
Second, Jenkins shows how and why churches in entire regions have died. Christianity Today's managing editor for special projects, Stan Guthrie, spoke with Jenkins.
What causes church death?
In no case that I can see does a church simply fade away through indifference. What kills a church is persecution. What kills a church is armed force, usually in the interest of another religion or an antireligious ideology, and sometimes that may mean the destruction or removal of a particular ethnic community that practices Christianity. So churches die by force. They are killed.
But what about the old saying, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church"?
That was said by Tertullian, who came from the church in North Africa, where the church vanished. If ...
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