Song of the bell
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 25 July 2023
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The world's most followed religion is changing rapidly. Hannah Ajala explores how church bells travelling from Italy to Nigeria herald Africa's new role as the beating heart of Christianity. The Marinelli family in Italy have been making church bells for nearly 1,000 years. But in recent decades demand from Italy has fallen as faith dwindles, whilst orders from sub-Saharan Africa have grown dramatically. Hannah Ajala follows the journey of the Marinelli bells to Nigeria where she interviews one of the country's most famous pastors, Dr Paul Enenche, about the rapid rise of Pentecostalism.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | World Football at the Women's World Cup is the podcast bringing you all the action from the tournament in Australia and New Zealand. |
| 0:07.0 | Listen now by searching for World Football from the BBC World Service, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. |
| 0:15.0 | Our bills are like the thermometer of the faith. Because through our trade we can immediately understand where the faith is most alive and where it is waiting. |
| 0:37.0 | We currently have orders from Tanzania, Nigeria, Congo, Ecuador, Guinea, Eritrea and Egypt. |
| 0:45.0 | So we can really tell that whereas faith here in Italy is a bit up and down. It is thriving and happening. |
| 0:55.0 | Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service with me, Hanajala. |
| 1:01.0 | In Song of the Bell, we'll explore how the journey of church bells around the world heralds the changing face of global Christianity. |
| 1:09.0 | We believe the reorganization of the earth is going to happen from sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria in particular. |
| 1:16.0 | We were once in Mission Field but Europe, America, they had become in Mission Field as well, needed Missionary. |
| 1:23.0 | So we believe that a revival is coming where Nigeria will be central to the Gospel globally. |
| 1:40.0 | Less than 10 million Christians lived in Africa at the turn of the 20th century. |
| 1:45.0 | But now, according to the Centre for the Study of Global Christianity, there are more Christians in Africa than any other continent, over 650 million. |
| 1:56.0 | Christianity is evolving. I was raised in churches with Nigerian congregations in the United Kingdom. |
| 2:02.0 | So any movement of the heart of Christianity towards sub-Saharan Africa feels very close to home. |
| 2:16.0 | The Roman Catholic Church and its traditions, for 2000 years, the focal point for millions of Christians across the world, but in Italy and Western Europe more generally, things are changing fast. |
| 2:31.0 | Christians over here, they were relaxed over the years, they are armchair Christians. They just go to church on a Sunday, then go home and forget about being Christian. |
| 2:45.0 | While the number of people coming to church are declining, the quality of faith is still strong here. |
| 2:53.0 | It's not that Christianity is dying out in Western Europe. The Pew Research Centre says the majority of Western European adults still consider themselves Christians, even if most rarely go to church. |
| 3:06.0 | And the immigration of Christian communities from outside Western Europe has kept bombs on pews, but something is changing. |
| 3:19.0 | Dr Nimi Worry Booker is professor of social ethics at Boston University and he's published books on global Christianity. |
| 3:28.0 | Christianity in the Western European say is in decline, because if he go back and look at 19.00, 68% of Christians were in Europe at that time, but last year by 2022, the proportion of Europeans in Christianity is 22.7, and that is projected to go down to 14.8 or so in the year 2050. |
| 3:51.0 | Would you say the decline reflects modern Western European philosophical and cultural values? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

