A long Saturday article in the Wall Street Journal caught my attention with this headline:

The Competition for Believers in Africa Is Transforming Christianity and Islam

The article opens with a description of a Pentecostal-type service except…

…the participants weren’t Christians. They were Muslims, practicing an ecstatic style of worship that has developed in response to the challenge posed by Pentecostalism.

If you’re interested, you can read the long article in its entirety. The authors were an interesting mix: one religion reporter and two reporters who cover Africa:

Francis X. Rocca covers the Vatican and global religion for The Wall Street Journal. Nicholas Bariyo is a reporter for The Journal’s Africa bureau. Gbenga Akingbule is The Journal’s Nigeria correspondent.

What struck me was this phrase, which is so Wall Street Journal in its orientation:

Owing to population growth and the intensity of their religiosity, Africans are now one of the more important constituencies of both Islam and Christianity worldwide, and sub-Saharan Africa is one of the world’s most active and contested religious markets. The region was 59% Christian and 30% Muslim in 2020, according to the World Religion Database. “There is a new scramble for Africa,” said Sheikh Ibrahim Lethome of Jamia Mosque in Nairobi, Kenya, drawing an analogy with the colonization of the continent in the late 19th century. “Christianity is growing, Islam is growing, and there is competition.” (emphasis mine)

Leave it to the Journal to see the region as “one of the world’s most active and contested religious markets.”

My first thought is that Jesus is not after “market share,” he wants it all!

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2.9 -11, ESV)

Then I read Jesus’ commission to the twelve as recorded in Mark 6:

And He summoned the twelve and began to send them out in pairs, and was giving them authority over the unclean spirits; and He instructed them that they should take nothing for their journey, except a staff only—no bread, no bag, no money in their belt— but to wear sandals; and He added, “Do not put on two tunics.” And He was saying to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave town. And any place that does not receive you or listen to you, as you go out from there, shake the dust off the soles of your feet for a testimony against them.” And they went out and preached that men should repent. And they were casting out many demons and were anointing with oil many sick people and healing them. Mark 6.7 – 13, LSB)

The twelve go out, preaching, healing, and casting out demons, but there was no guarantee of success: “Any place that does not receive you or listen to you…”

So we live in the in-between where, I suppose, “market share” matters – but not just of “fans,” but “followers.”

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. (Philippians 2.12 – 16, ESV – the “therefore” immediately after the “Jesus is Lord” section.