When many Americans think of Italy, they assume that it is a Christian nation that has already received and responded to the gospel message. With the strong emphasis of mission methodology placed on “unreached people groups” throughout the world, there are those who have difficulty understanding how Italy could be considered an “unreached people group” for present and/or future evangelistic efforts.
Without going into a theological debate on what the Italians have received concerning God’s message of love, grace and salvation from the Roman Catholic Church, let us re-examine this nation of people who, generally speaking, are Roman Catholic in name only. We feel that one can begin to understand better the true spiritual needs of the Italian people as an “unreached people group” by looking at a few revealing statistics given by the Roman Catholic Church about their own situation.
Italy is officially 78.4% Roman Catholic, down from the 98.6% in 1981. This figure is misleading, since almost all Italians are traditionally baptized in the Catholic Church as babies and are thereby recorded in church records as Roman Catholic. What these babies decide to do upon growing to maturity is revealed by statistics that evidence their dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church. In 1981, the Roman Catholic Church reported that only 26% of the 98.6% met the bare minimum requirements of being considered “practicing” Roman Catholics. These “bare minimum requirements” set by the Church consisted of attending mass and going to confession at least once a year! Since 1984, Roman Catholicism is no longer the State Religion and the statistics continue to indicate a downward trend that manifests a continuing dissatisfaction with the Roman Church.
Although Italy is officially 78.4% Roman Catholic, today only 15% of the population meet the bare minimum requirement to be considered a practicing Roman Catholic. Only 6% consider themselves to be devout, practicing Roman Catholics. Since these statistics show a reversal of what Americans normally consider the typical Italian religious situation to be, certainly the Italians’ spiritual needs become more apparent.
Apart from the above statistics, we consider Italy as an “unreached people group” since the Protestant movement in Italy represents only 0.82% of the Italian population and all evangelicals together number 0.6% of the population. Definitions in our American churches for an “unreached people group” will vary from one group to another, but many will agree that if the evangelical Christians in a given geographical area are less than 2 -5% of the total population, that area is to be considered an “unreached people group.” Since only 0.6% of nearly 58 million Italians are considered evangelical Christians, we fervently believe that the Italians’ spiritual need is not only evident, but also a matter of concern and prayer, and especially in urgent need of concrete Christian intervention.
Because the Christian Church/Church of Christ’s present mission efforts in Italy are as previously described, the needs of the various people groups of Italy will not be met adequately by the present congregations and missionary personnel.
The assessment by those reporting to Operation World is generally correct, which we can endorse with a little revision:
- 1. Persecution of Protestants persisted for nearly 800 years. The last four decades of religious freedom have been met with indifference. Occultism is widespread, and there are reckoned to be 100,000 full-time consulting magicians — three times the number of Catholic priests. Satanism is strong in the north, the city of Turin being one of the global centers for its activities, which include praying for the removal of all evangelical missionaries from the country. The controlling spiritual powers in Italy have never been fully routed in 2,000 years.
- 2. The long-powerful Roman Catholic Church has lost over ten million members in this generation. Its influence and the number of priests have declined dramatically. Many Italians despise and ignore the Church, nevertheless its traditions and mindset still permeate every aspect of national life, and church attendance remains one of the highest in Europe, yet is due to tradition not out of a relationship with Jesus Christ. In their disillusionment, many have turned to New Age thinking, cults, the occult, materialistic secularism and drugs.
- 3. The infamous Sicilian Mafia and Neapolitan Camorra have infiltrated every level of society. Their power and influence is such that every legal and judicial attempt to tame this monster has failed. Government officials and leaders, and Church authorities, even in the Vatican itself, have been subverted and the attitudes of the general population poisoned by this evil system. Murder and extortion are commonplace — the latter netting an estimated 23 billion dollars annually. This money and that gained from the lucrative global trade in drugs is used to buy politicians, influence and even industries.
- 4. The most unreached sectors of the population:
a) Only 1,500 of Italy’s 33,500 communities have an established evangelical witness. The other 31,000 communities are untouched by any evangelical group.
b) The northeastern Veneto Region with the cities of Verona, Venice, Padova and Vicenza has 4,437,000 people but maybe no more than 38 churches and 2,000 evangelical Christians — mainly Assembly of God, Church of the Brethren and three congregations related to European Christian Mission.
c) The materialistic northern cities of Milan, Turin, Bologna, Verona and Venice have few churches. Many cities and towns have no evangelical witness at all. The northern provinces of Umbria, Trentino, Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna have less than 0.1% Evangelicals. The province of Veneto has an incredible low of 0.045% Evangelicals.
e) The 1,600,000 students in 48 major universities are a needy mission field. There are only around 100 students linked to the Gruppi Biblici Universitari (International Fellowship of Evangelical Students) in eight cities and a few others with Campus Crusade for Christ (CCCI). Occassional outreaches by Operation Moblization and Youth With A Mission (YWAM) teams reach others. The second largest student body (117,000 in Milan) has no evangelical campus group.
f) An estimated 400,000 heroin addicts, with an increasing incidence of HIV+ infection, pose a desperate and demanding challenge only beginning to be met by Evangelicals (Betel, in 5 centers; Teen Challenge 2; Assembly of God 1). Italy is a gateway for illegal drug trafficking (from the CIA world factbook, found under transnational issues).
5. Unreached minorities do exist; however, they are not a direct approach to reaching the Italian people.
6. The Protestant Church is weak and divided, and evidences little cooperative or strategic thinking among leaders, though there are those seeking to change this. Churches tend to be small, introspective and largely ignorant of the biblical challenge to missions. Yet a slow and steady growth is evident — particularly in the Assemblies of God, independent Pentecostal churches and the Church of the Brethren. Protestantism is still generally perceived as a foreign sect, despite the existence of the indigenous Waldensian Church, the world’s oldest Protestant denomination. This latter is now in federal union with the Methodists and some Baptists and sadly, influenced by deadening liberal theology.
7. The insufficient number of mature Italian Christian leaders in Protestant churches at both the national and pastoral level is crippling the advance of the gospel. Internal conflicts and scandals due to pride, money, and power-seeking have harmed the witness.
8. Italy needs missionaries — but of the right caliber. The casualty rate has been unacceptably high in the past, with but 10% on average returning for a second term. Pressures from spiritual forces and entrenched opposition to his message expose any personal inadequacies in a missionary. All mission groups especially the interdenominational, have had traumatic histories. Ministries most needed are in discipleship and planting balanced, Bible-based churches.
9. Literature and Bible distribution, as a missionary method, have not had a wide impact due to the reluctance of the Italians to read.
10. Christian radio and TV has become a fruitful ministry since government controls on local broadcasting were relaxed. There are now hundreds of TV and radio stations and fibre-optic cable networks. Many international radio agencies (Trans World Radio), churches and agencies (Back to the Bible, European Christian Mission, GMV and WT) use both cable and local FM radio. TWR reaches 1.5 million daily; Back to the Bible is one of the largest media ministries in Italy.
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