The Agora has a piece on the future of the Christian faith. There is rapid and astonishing growth in places like Africa and Asia. This is coupled by membership decline in more liberal churches in the west. One example is Nigeria where the Anglican Church with 17 million members has the largest active membership in the communion. One suspects that what Christianity may look like in the 21st century will be defined by the developing world.
But the future is something that I have some ambivalence about. Most of the growth is concentrated in those bodies which are stridently conservative, in ways which would likely make evangelicals in the US blush. I remember hearing a Nigerian church leader give a sermon at the last episcopal convention. It was loaded with terms like God's army and infidels. I won't go into his language about homosexuals, but Falwell is much more charitable.
If there was a way in which there could be learning from each other, north and south, liberal and conservative churches, I think something could come of this. But I worry that the forms of religion are so different, that they are going off in different directions. I'd like to think there was some space for a number of forms of Christian faith and that they'd be able to communicate, connect with one another. If not it's likely that a space for liberals forms within the faith will continue to shrink.
And here's a piece on the ongoing campaign by the Bush administration to marginalize the United Nation. It was written by Clare Short, who was the UK's International Development Secretary from 1997 to 2003. She writes that the UN is "the only system we have for taking co-ordinated action to enforce peace, respond to humanitarian crisis and reach environmental agreements" and she highlights the critical role the UN is playing in relief and the future reconstruction of areas in asia devestated by the tsunami.