Not getting into GD here. Just looking for facts. My understanding of this phrase, that is common in Christian circles, is that there are billions of people who have never been introduced to the concept of Jesus and Christianity. It is not that they’ve not converted to Christianity and “come to know Jesus” in the biblical sense, but they’ve never had the chance to convert as they have never had the privilege of encountering the concept.
I am little skeptical that in the 21st century, with pretty widespread public education there over 2 billion people who have literally never heard the word Jesus.
Your typical modern Chinese or Indian peasant has had a public education (one of under-reported the ways the human condition has improved greatly in the last few decades) which I would assume include basic world history and religion. Not to mention of course any Muslims would be introduced to the concept of Jesus via their religious upbringing.
My back of the envelope calculation is that this fact is incorrect. Anyone have better statistics for this?
A quick Googling suggests that it’s not so much haven’t heard “of” Jesus but haven’t “heard” Jesus. As in haven’t heard the Gospel or been preached at or there’s no major center of Christianity in the area.
Maybe they include those who’ve already passed the Great Divide. And all those born BC naturally had less chance of Christianity, just as no-one born before 500 AD would hear of Mohammed. And the introduction ( no compulsion ) of christian life led to the Boxer Rising because the Chinese peasant thought it devilry ( other than those who were involved with the Taipings 40 years earlier — which, like it’s contemporary Mormonism, had some differences to orthodox Christianity ).
Even in the new capitalist road China ( where there are a lot of people as poor as 200 years ago ) I doubt if there’s a lot of Religious Education in school.
And with all that, just hearing the name does not include even slight knowledge: most people have heard of Zoroaster, but only 1 in 10 could mention any doctrine. And what do we know of the Falun Gong or the Aum Shinrikyo ?
[Chick Tract]“Who is this Jesus guy you’re talking about?”[/CT] This site claims that there are 16,600 “distinct people groups” that haven’t heard about Jesus, and this page from the same site puts the number of “unreached” at 3,157,288,000.
The typical Indian peasant is more likely to have learnt about Jesus by the continued relentless campaigns conducted by the Christian evangelists/missionaries. The second source would be TV - since there are short snippets of all religions transmitted from time to time. Most TV stations will greet people on important holidays like Diwali, Id, Christmas,etc. The third would be mobile phones which are ubiquitous.
Although India has a Christian population of about 20 million, most Hindus convert to gain better economic advantage and not due to some religious conviction (IMHO). Muslims in India rarely convert.
I am not sure what makes you so sure of this. Only 17% of Americanscan find Afghanistan on the world map. Philosophy departments in major International Schools of repute implies western Philosophy.
Just trying to emphasize that vast majority of people in the world are engaged on surviving and tend to learn/remember what gives them a survival advantage.
Their definition of unreached is :smack:
“Few evangelicals and few who identify as Christians. Little, if any, history of Christianity. : Evangelicals <= 2%, Professing Christians <= 5%”
Seems like they can easily label any place that has rejected Christianity as “Unreached”. I am not sure you can use statistics from this site for GQ.
In terms of content I can’t say for sure (hence why I asked this question). Public education may not be identical all cultures, but the fact is education the world over is still heavily based on western models (doubly so in former British colonies like India). So I would be incredibly surprised if the kind of things that feature heavily in history lessons in the west (Roman Empire, adoption of Christianity, reformation, etc.) were not mentioned, even if (rightly) Indian or Chinese regional history features more heavily.
I suspect the statement MAY have been true 50 years. if you lived in a rural region with no adherents to the any of the Abrahamic religions, and never went to school of any kind, you may not have heard of Jesus or Christianity.
While not as much as former European colonies, their 21st century education system still very heavily influenced by the west (you earn doctorates or bachelors degrees at university, you go to secondary school). I would be really surprised if the basic facts of the Abrahamic traditions, as they related to world (and Chinese) history were not taught at secondary school (through the lens of communist party doctrine I am sure, but taught nonetheless).
If someone has a cite showing I am wrong, and they aren’t taught at all I’d be interested to see it.
China probably, but there are a lot of peasants in India, mostly women, who have never been to school. I also don’t know what the Indian curriculum consists of. There are a significant number of Christians in India, about 3%, but they tend to be geographically concerntrated so there’s probably a lot of people who don’t know any personally.
There are also a lot of nominal Christians out there who know very little about their own religion (in a lot of the world, like much of Eastern Europe the church you belong to is as much an ethnic signifier as a religious one).
That being said, yea I’m almost certain there are very few people there who haven’t heard of Jesus is. Africans in particular have overwhelmingly converted to either Christianity or Islam in the last half-century, both of which talk about Jesus.
In the case of India, it was not influence but a deliberate forced conversion. It was/is called Macaulayism.
Quote from Wikipedia - “Macaulayism is the conscious policy of liquidating indigenous culture through the planned substitution of the alien culture of a colonizing power via the education system …”
You seem to be implying that Jesus died in the year 1 BC. Christian tradition claims that Jesus was BORN in the year 1 CE and died in the year 34 CE, which is only 1,983 years ago. I can let it slide that you clipped running coach’s quote in the middle and totally mischaracterized what he was saying, but using incorrect numbers… well that’s just a crime against history and/or math.
Why would they be? They’re not part of the required education at any levels in multiple European countries. Assuming that they’d be required in China seems to me as absurd as expecting Italian to be a popular second language for Japanese students.