The Global Church - Bridging the Translation Gap

I ended last week's post with this quote from Philip Jenkins:

“Christianity will enjoy a worldwide boom in the new century but the vast majority of believers will be neither white nor European, nor Euro-American.”

Here's Michael Gerson, former Bush speechwriter making a similar point in a 2006 Newsweek article:

"The center of gravity of the Christian world is now arguably in central Africa, with more than a third of a billion Christians on that continent."

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Apparently, the center of Christian world isn't just shifting...it has already shifted.

Yet, the vast majority of evangelical Christian materials are published in English and not accessible to most of these believers due to a language barrier. While church growth in these emerging regions is impressive, the lack of sound doctrine is a concern for many churches and Christian organizations operating in those regions. The lack of supplemental materials to train and encourage new converts in the basic doctrines of Christianity is a substantial problem. If left unaddressed, this deficit in biblically rich, gospel centered materials will have a detrimental effect on the church worldwide.

The need for bible translations have long been accepted but it is also important to translate secondary, supporting materials to strengthen the doctrinal foundations of the church. In the history of the Christian church, there is a tradition of building upon knowledge and works of prior generations. However, in the case of this rapidly developing church in Africa, Asia and Latin America, this progression is impeded by the translation gap.

Translating gospel centered materials into various languages is a vitally important need.

Over the years, there has been substantial time and resources poured into enabling translation of books and articles into other languages. However, despite the fine efforts of many publishers, the problem remains largely unsolved due the enormous challenge of translating into numerous languages and the cost of undertaking a translation project.

The fundamental issue is that the existing model for translation and distribution of Christian content is both limited and expensive. Publishers often have to decide whether to undertake translation projects based on economic/financial parameters. In practical terms, this means that books that do not sell well in the popular US market are not likely candidates for translation. Unfortunately, this also means that many (most?) doctrinally sound, gospel centered books fail to make the cut. This is no critique of Christian publishing but rather a statement of the economic realities they have to operate under.

The other challenge with the current model is the cost of distribution. Today, distributing Christian materials to other non-English speaking countries means printing and distributing a physical, hard copy book in the hands of the reader. The cost for doing so relative to the number of Christians in these nations makes it non-scalable and economically infeasible. Furthermore, the price point of the books that are translated, printed and distributed overseas would typically make it prohibitive for the average Christian in many of these nations.

In today's digital Web 2.0 economy with its social networking, virtual communities, blogs, wikis, etc... might there be a way to tackle this challenge? I think so.

My next post will propose a strategic approach - and you won't have to wait a week to hear about it. ;-)