Philip Jenkins writes, “we need to realize that such incidents of decline and disappearance [like the decline of Christianity he recounts in his book] are quite frequent, however little they are studied or discussed. Dechristianization is one of the least studied aspects of Christian history.” In a footnote, he notes that there have been studies of the erasure of Christianity in Japan (given fictional form in Endo’s Silence ), but finds only a few, dated studies of the decline of Christianity in other areas.
Among other things, research into the history of Dechristianization could give some insight into the challenges facing the churches of the dechristianized West. It would give historical models to churches that once possessed but have now lost cultural hegemony.
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