There is an un-stated belief among many conservative Christians: "As the West goes - so goes Christianity."

The idea is that Christianity and the West have been joined at the hip to such an extent that one depends on the other.

In the golden years of Christendom, as the European nations were developing economically, establishing imperial outposts, and the Church was busy with missionary endeavours, reaching the furthest corners of the globe, no one questioned the connection between the West and Christianity.

Ironically, now that Christianity is in decline here in the West, one would assume that the idea would be abandoned.

Not so.

Today, the idea "As the West goes - so goes Christianity" has taken on dark and pessimistic overtones.

What we now have is a belief that because Christianity is in decline, the history of the world is also in decline, because after all, the purposes of God and the timing of Christ's return are wrapped up with the rise and fall of the West. Or so some would have us believe.

The future indeed looks bleak to some, with the "end times" just around the corner. Secularism has virtually depleted the West of a Christian consciousness. It's as though the final great apostasy prophesied in the book of Revelation is unfolding before our very eyes.

We ask ourselves, "Oh Lord, how long?"

Dutifully we remind ourselves: It is a post-Christian era.

The paradigm "as the West goes, so goes Christianity" became popular among Evangelicals with Francis Schaefer. With the circulation of The God Who Is There, and especially Escape From Reason, Evangelicals began to view the twentieth century in terms of the final great reckoning. And the publishing houses exploded with books and lectures dedicated to the finality of history and our Christian heritage.

Titles like: The Late Great Plant Earth; 88 Reasons Why Christ Will Come Back In 88; and Are We Living In The End Times? all warned of the impending end of the West, the end of world history. The assumption is that if Christianity is in decline in the West, then that must mean that God is done with world history.

But are we correct?

Is Christianity in decline?

Is Christianity exclusively wrapped up with the West?

Philip Jenkins, author of The Next Christendom, says no.

The conventional picture of Christian origins is commonly illustrated by a graphic of the Mediterranean world and Europe, with Jerusalem at an eastern extreme. Christianity grows from its roots in Palestine, spreads through Asia Minor and Greece, and ultimately arrives in Italy, the center of the map and presumably of the world.

The idea is that God has providentially spread the gospel in a westerly direction, and the not so subtle suggestion is, well you know, "As the West goes - so goes Christianity."

John Mbiti, a Kenyan scholar and Christian stated: "It is utterly scandalous for so many Christian scholars in old Christendom [The Western Church] to know so much about heretical movements in the second and third centuries, when so few of them know anything about Christian movements in areas of the young Church [today]."

He made that statement in the 1970's.

Not much has changed.

We remain ignorant about the historical roots of Christianity in Africa and Asia, China and India and when we discuss the growth of Christianity in the Third World, in the twentieth century, our tendency is to view it as the illegitimate offspring of Western Imperialism.

The fact is, Christianity has established deep roots in the Third World, so deep and so entrenched as to blow the West's theory of the future of Christianity out of the water.

Christianity is thriving in the new world, growing exponentially (a fact, the liberal media deliberately ignored, until Fox News reported it a few years ago). Countries in the Southern hemisphere are literally exploding with life. Jenkins reports, "Many of the fastest growing countries in the world are either predominantly Christian or else have very sizable Christian minorities. Even if Christians just maintain their present share of the population in countries like Nigeria and Kenya, Mexico and Ethiopia, Brazil and the Philippines, there are soon going to be several hundred million more Christians from those nations alone." Even when the ravaging effects of AIDS are accounted for, the Third World will be established as the arbiter of Christendom in the 21st Century and beyond, notes Jenkins.

Christendom will arise again - but this time in the East.

Naturally, many Westerners will question the nature and soundness of the Third World Church.

But there are some points to ponder as we assess the Church in the East. The Christianity of the Third World is a vibrant and traditional expression of Christianity. The denominations that are spreading throughout the Southern hemisphere are, as Jenkins reports, "stalwartly traditional." They retain a very strong supernatural orientation and doctrine, and are far more interested in "personal salvation than in radical [liberationist] politics."

Third World Christianity is deeply committed to a moral view that is expressed in public life. In fact, most Western Christians would accuse Third World Christianity of legalism. This fact is born out by the World Wide Anglican Community and its decision to officially rebuke its Western Bishops over the sin of endorsing homosexual unions.

To anyone paying attention, it is clear that the Third World Church definitely beats a different drum despite the challenges it faces in this fallen world.

Granted Western Christianity is in trouble. But the idea that history has reached its climax with the apostasy of the West -- that we are living in a "post-Christian" era -- is an indication, not of how things actually are, but of how inflated our own sense of self-importance and geopolitical arrogance is.

There is providential irony in all of this.

While Western governments are desperately try to attract Third World immigrants to compensate for our population deficit, many of our new immigrants are actually Christians. The very Christians most Westerners have ignored for so long are coming to us to revitalize our Christianity.