Prospects for a new millennium are difficult to predict. 50 years is a long time to predict. It is easier to point to competing trends.

We can look back at the last century and notice trends:
 

In the world at large:

- globalisation contrasts with the divisions apparent in the emergence of many more independent nation states: the were 47 independent states in the world in 1900 and nearly 200 members of the United nations in 2000.
- There have been tremendous technical advances, with some parts of the world going backwards in the past 40 years.
- There is the division between unprecedented wealth and growing poverty.
- There is a growing awareness of our need to care for our environment, alongside unprecedented exploitation of natural resources and horrifying environmental degradation.
- Unprecedented technological advances outstrip our ability to cope with the moral and spiritual (say `human' if you like) implications.
 

On the religious scene we see:

- on one hand, a deepening of spiritual awareness and faiths and churches growing closer as they approach their roots and on the other, a revived fundamentalism.
- tension between an awareness that every faith statement has to be `both . . . and . . .' and movements that insist on `either . . . or . . . ' which means a defensive slinging to past structures and dogmas. - a phenomenal expansion of both Christianity and Islam in the South, especially Africa, but many questions about the depth of the penetration of these faiths.
- a globalisation of all the world religions
 

On both planes, the problem is related to attitudes that have been considered masculine in the dominant patriarchal culture of the past 500 years. Solutions must take on board much more of what was considered specifically feminine - and relegated to the kitchen. If this amounts to a call to listen more to the movements of the heart and of the spirit, it is still not anti-intellectual. If our technology, and our inability to control it, is a major part of the problem, science is realising that our intellect cannot be the sole guide and arbiter.

In the realms of the very small and the very large, the subatomic and the intergalactic, science is facing up to the fact that `the universe is not only much stranger than we had imagined; it is much stranger than we could possibly imagine.' Science can help us to learn what it means to be, not masters of creation (the post-Renaissance western European interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis), but custodians of that corner of the universe where we live. A deeper feeling for the whole breadth and depth of what it is to be human is essential for our survival. This can only lead to effective action if it is informed by an understanding of how our world works and an appreciation of the limits of our understanding. We have stretched or ignored these limits in the past five centuries, most disastrously so in the past five decades.
 

Reducing science to technology has produced:

Physics that gave us nuclear weapons, threatening the survival of all life on earth and supporting the domination of the planet by a military-industrial complex which fed on ideological polarisation and is currently engaged in a paranoid search for a new polarisation to justify its continuing hegemony.

Chemistry that gave us a temporary illusion of control: of disease through `wonder drugs' and antibiotics, of agriculture through artificial fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides - and we are already facing nature's backlash against all of these.

Biology that gave us the `green revolution', genetic engineering, cloning etc. - and nature's backlash against these is already building up.

Economics and sociology that provide an ideological underpinning of the present world disorder based on stretching `science' far beyond its natural limits - the backlash against this is on the verge of an eruption that could engulf us all.

Signs of this are apparent in the increasingly violent anti-capitalist protests accompanying every conference to advance the dominant economic agenda, in the instability of the economy that agenda produces, divorced from the roots of economy in production, in terrorist movements feeding on the frustrations of the excluded and guided by no clear analysis, in the growing revolt of the impoverished masses increasingly allied with or used by local elites who see their power base eroding (a local example is the spate of occupations of land and factories in Zimbabwe, which threatens to engulf southern Africa, and, as I write, our state media are making much of an alleged appeal from the Australian aborigines for Mugabe to help them solve their land claims) - the list could go on.

The challenge to the church is to grasp the nettle, the thorny message of the gospel.
 

The prospects are different in different parts of the world:

In Europe and, with some differences of emphasis, in North America, the prospect is for a decline in religion, in church membership, a replacement of religious faith with the worship of Mammon, the mechanism of the market, the unrestrained consumer society. At the same time, the remaining believers are already being forced to deepen their faith and spirituality - a positive development. There is more need for this as the secular gospel of economic growth hits the limits imposed by our living on one small planet.

In Africa, we have seen the greatest expansion in history in the number of church members and growth in church institutions, both Christian and Islamic. In the Catholic church in particular, the numbers of members have outstripped the capacity of the clergy to serve them at the level that would be considered normal elsewhere. The result is that many lay people are involved in church activities, associations, Bible reading, singing, etc., but sacramental life is weak. Church practice centres around external observance of the rules rather than seeking spiritual depth. The future of such a church is problematic. It is possible that foreign money will continue to prop it up, but this would be to maintain it as a support of the status quo, a tool of neo-colonial influence and of subjection to the world rule of Mammon through the international financial institutions. Deepening of faith and spirituality, on the other hand, will only affect a small number and will probably call them to live dangerously, as witness sees to a counter-culture. For those who stand out against the dominant powers, martyrdom will become common, as it already has done in Latin America.

In Asia, both kinds of church and both spiritualities exist. Spiritual deepening, drawing often on the traditional riches of Asia's great religions, is very evident. With it often comes social action challenging the powers-that-be and putting believers on the front line in a battle for justice and human dignity. On the other hand, a church that sets out to peddle `a cheap kind of spiritual vodka' to the poor and certainly provides a comfort to the rich, exists alongside this, and advertises its foreignness as if it were praiseworthy. It has become the badge of membership of the comprador class. In Asia, both trends can be expected to continue.

Latin America has seen the rise and apparent fall of liberation theology. The fall has been accompanied by a great growth of fundamentalist religion. The weakness of much liberation theology was its dependence on a European, academic, ideological underpinning. There are signs that surviving liberation theologians, such as Gustavo Gutierrez, are returning to their own roots and there is hope in this, but the outcome is problematic. I see more hope for this movement in Asia.

Overall, there will be much more call in the short term for a prophetic church, which takes the Lord's call seriously to:

Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Anyone who takes up this challenge can expect a fair share of affliction. As the institutions of politics and economics retreat further from the 20^th century ideals of democracy and human rights under the direction of unaccountable and therefore irresponsible organisations like the IMF, World Bank and WTO, the call will be for believers to re-assert the dignity of every human being as a child of God and member of Christ. This will lead to conflict with the power structures of the world, which are trying to reduce the human person to an instrument on economic policy.

Before this century is halfway through, there will be a great shift in the power base of the dominant economic order as the world's oil reserves become visibly depleted. There are two most likely scenarios:

1. a collapse of the economic and political order that depends on the oil economy, or
2. the power structures find other ways of preserving their position. This would probably mean concentrating the remaining energy sources more completely in the hands of those who hold the power now, a great increase in the inequality between those who benefit from access to these limited resources and the majority who are excluded, and a resultant increase in popular protest and violent repression.

Both possibilities present major challenges for believers. To meet these challenges, believers will have to draw closer to each other than they have done in the past. Close co-operation will be essential in all areas on which there is agreement between all whose spirituality respects human dignity (including non-theistic `religionists' such as Buddhists). There will be no room at this level for sectarianism, but, on the other hand, the nature of ecclesiastical establishments is such that I do not foresee corporate unity of all Christian churches, or even of the Roman Catholic church with any other major churches, Orthodox, Anglican or Lutheran. If union with any of these is unlikely, then it is even less likely with any others.

By the end of the 21st century, the environment of the whole planet will be dramatically different. Whether the average global temperature in the year 2100 is 6¸C higher than it is today or only 3¸ may depend on our action now, but either way the planet will be hotter than it has been since the emergence of aerobic organisms. If the human race survives . . .

On the other hand, there will remain, as there always have been, churches that serve the interests of the politico-economic establishment. They may even fill their churches with the well-fed oppressors or with dupes, but spiritual life is not to be sought there.
 

Where is life to be sought?

- in the interaction between different religious traditions. I am concerned mainly with Christians, so I emphasise that we can learn much about contemplation for action from Buddhists, and about social justice concerns from radical Islam, as represented by Ayatollah Khomeni and those who continue his tradition. The modernisers in the style of Muammar Gaddafi are not to be written off, even if he is a `loose cannon'.
- in the radical identification with the poor and the excluded which we find in e.g. the Catholic Worker movement. There are examples in some parts of the world of how this also brings the major religious traditions closer to each other.

It is interesting to note that growth comes where people do relate to their roots: in Asia, where Christianity relates creatively and often actively in social concerns, with the ancient religions of Asia, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism: in Africa, where African tradition is respected and allowed to grow while interacting with revealed Christianity: in Europe, the movements that point to growth are those which engage people across religious divisions in social action and those which draw on cultural roots, e.g. the renewal of Celtic spirituality. Aloisius Pieris sj, a professor of Buddhist scriptures in a Buddhist university in Sri Lanka and inevitably involved in social action, has pointed out that religious traditions (what he says applies most directly to Christianity and Buddhism) meet where the voluntary poverty of the vowed religious meets the involuntary poverty of the workers and peasants.
 

So what do I see in the next fifty years?

- environmental upheavals, causing unprecedented social upheaval.
- increasing divisions and conflict.
- increasing conflicts which those presently in power probably believe they can win in their own terms. The poor will grow hungrier. A hungry person is an angry person, and anger is not a good guide to effective action.
- growth of the spiritual deepening where religious traditions meet. Mahatma Gandhi is another good example of this. Whether this growth will be sufficient to head off a collapse into chaos is problematic. It will be necessary if anyone is to survive whatever emerges.