Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 169:676 (Oct 2012)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Matthew S. DeMoss

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BSac 169:676 (October-December 2012) p. 491

Book Reviews

By The Faculty of Dallas Theological Seminary

Matthew S. DeMoss

Editor

Kingdom without Borders: The Untold Story of Global Christianity. By Miriam Adeney. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009. 294 pp. $18.00.

The explosion of the world Christian movement in the global south—Africa, Asia, and Latin America—has become a well-known phenomenon among many evangelical Christians. Miriam Adeney’s Kingdom without Borders is a welcome, enriching addition to the growing literature that describes that movement and will help North American believers understand it and appreciate it. Adeney is professor of global and urban ministries at Seattle Pacific University and teaching fellow at Regent College, and has wide experience with the worldwide church. Her book is a complement to a more academic work such as The Next Christendom, by Philip Jenkins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

Adeney’s chapters alternate between being geographically and thematically focused. Her introductory survey chapter presents global snapshots of the new face of the church around the world. Then chapter 2 looks at the church in China, emphasizing the Back to Jerusalem movement and unlikely conversion stories. In chapter 3 she shifts to her major theme, focusing on the Word and the importance of Bible translation and careful contextualization for the growth and maturity of the church worldwide. Chapter 4 returns to the geographic outline, looking at the “pulsating passion” of Latin American church growth. Adeney particularly traces the reasons for explosive growth of Latin American Pentecostalism and why it is so much more attractive than competing liberation theologies. In chapter 5 she again returns to a thematic emphasis, focusing on the Holy Spirit. Here she gives global examples of spiritual power in healing, wisdom given to untrained believers, endurance in the face of persecution, and response to the danger of serious syncretism.

Adeney will surprise some readers by seeing the Muslim world as an “Axis of Hope” (chap. 6). Here she shares amazing testimonies of Muslims coming to Christ, standing fast in the midst of persecution, and the challenge of appropriate contextualization in the Muslim context. In chapter 7 she asks how Jesus’ people should respond to the “catastrophes” of the systemic evils of racism, poverty, injustice, disease, and ecological disasters. Her advice on the best ways Western believers can be involved in development and aid projects should be heeded by many well-meaning but ill-informed Western churches and individuals.

The Hindu world is her subject in chapter 8 as she stresses the import...

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