In order to discuss and raise awareness of the gender gaps prevalent in World Christianity today, the Nagel Institute at Calvin teamed up with Harvard scholar Dr. Gina Zurlo, for an on-campus lecture on Oct. 1 titled “Gender Gaps in World Christianity: Membership, Participation & Leadership.”

Zurlo, a historian and social scientist of World Christianity, is currently in charge of both the World Christian Database and the World Religion Database. These databases, she explained, are “the largest, most comprehensive quantitative tools to study membership affiliation in every country in the world.” Zurlo’s work ties in closely with the work of the Nagel Institute, which “exists to promote the study of World Christianity,” according to Dr. Daramis Parsitau, director of the Nagel Institute.

To understand Christianity from a global perspective, we must first understand where the focal point of Christianity lies today. Parsitau explained that “we simply think that the picture of World Christianity is Western-centered, and yet there has been a shift — an absolute shift — of the center of World Christianity to the Global South.” 

According to Zurlo, in 1900, 82% of Christians lived in the Global North, and 18% of Christians lived in the Global South, while today, those numbers look very different: only 31% of Christians live in the Global North, while 69% live in the Global South. This, then, paints a picture of a “fundamentally different Christianity” than what Christianity may have looked like a century ago, explained Zurlo. 

Due to this shift of Christianity towards the Global South, “Christianity is no longer a white, western religion, and we should not be asking white, western questions anymore,” Zurlo continued. 

To be global Christians, we should learn from one another — both Zurlo and Partisau emphasized the importance of a shared exportation of Christian ideas cross-culturally. 

Along with this notable shift in Christianity towards the Global South, there has also been a larger recognition of the role of women in Christianity; women were a main contributor towards that shift, as explained in Zurlo’s presentation. Parsitau says that “women are at the heart of Christianity, and we study that. And in our studies, we realized that even though they form the bulk of membership, they are very unrepresented.” A large part of this underrepresentation of women in World Christianity is a result of “a chronic lack of data on gender,” according to Zurlo. Up until Zurlo’s work on World Christianity, there had not been any data collected on the gender of members of World Christianity.

Yet, despite this lack of data, the majority of Christians throughout the world are women, and “on every continent, church affiliation is more female than the general population,” explained Zurlo. 

Although women make up the bulk of World Christianity, very few hold lead pastoral positions in their churches, according to the Gender and Congregational Life Survey conducted by Zurlo in 2019. While women are not permitted to hold pastoral positions across many churches throughout different denominations, all churches across the globe allow men to hold pastoral positions, Zurlo explained. Ultimately, the issue that Zurlo sees with the leadership gap is that women should be able to fulfill their callings in the same way that men can fulfill their callings.

As reported on by Zurlo, the United Nations Human Development 2019 Report states that “nowhere in the world have women attained complete equality with men. . . if current progress continues, it will take 202 years for women to be fully equal.” Not only does this gender gap exist within the Global Church, but it exists within the world at large. 

In terms of what Zurlo hoped for the audience to take from her presentation, she “would love for people to have a greater awareness of the challenges and the opportunities that women face in Christian communities worldwide.”

Zurlo also hopes that Gen Z might take what they can learn about things like World Christianity and gender gaps and take action. “Student movements are extremely powerful. . . take ownership of the world that you are going to inherit when you leave university.”