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10 to 40 degrees north of the equator From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 10/40 Window is a term coined by Christian missionary strategist and Partners International CEO Luis Bush in 1990 to refer to those regions of the eastern hemisphere, plus the European and African part of the western hemisphere, located between 10 and 40 degrees north of the equator, a general area that was purported to have the highest level of socioeconomic challenges[1][2] and least access to the Christian message and Christian resources[a][3][4] on the planet.
The concept behind the 10/40 Window highlights these three elements (as of data available in 1990): an area of the world with great poverty and low quality of life, combined with lack of access to Christian resources and unreached non-Christians. The Window forms a band encompassing Saharan and Northern Africa, as well as almost all of Asia (West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, East Asia and much of Southeast Asia). Roughly two-thirds of the world population lives in the 10/40 Window, and it is predominantly Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, animist, or atheist. Many governments in the 10/40 Window are officially or unofficially opposed to Christian missionary work of any kind within their borders.[1][3][4]
This region of the world was previously known to Christians as the "resistant belt", as noted by Luis Bush at the 1989 Lausanne II Conference in Manila.[5] In 1990, Bush's research led to a meeting with Pete Holzmann, a leader of the team developing the first PC-based geographic information system (GIS) software.[6][7][8] They analyzed the region using a box between 10 and 40 degrees north latitude and called it the 10/40 box. A few weeks later, Bush and his wife Doris were inspired to rename it the 10/40 Window, stating that this region ought to be seen as a "window of opportunity".[6] The analysis and concept was a generalization that focuses on a region, not a sharp boundary defining what is a priority, and what is not. For this reason, many missiologists prefer to use the phrase 10/40 Window region.[citation needed]
Before being called the "resistant belt", the Islamic portions of this region, as well as selected unreached Buddhist and Hindu areas, were referred to as the "unoccupied fields" by Samuel Zwemer, in his book by that same title, published in 1911.[9][10]
The concept was first published in the AD2000 magazine in 1990.[11]
Some researchers have objected to such a broad-brush term which seems to imply a unifying characteristic of the 10/40 Window when in fact no large area of the planet is completely homogenous in cultural attributes.[12]
The 1990 research data states:
This research deals in overall population characteristics. The 10/40 Window is a term that helps people visualize the general area of the analysis, where the above characteristics are generally true, but with exceptions proving it is only a generalization. Some examples of the exceptions:
To address these concerns the list of 10/40 countries has been amended in recent years to omit Greece, Portugal and the Philippines.
Additionally, the concept has been critiqued as "[reflecting] a US Evangelical worldview" which may not be shared by other Christians.[12]
Over the years, the 10/40 Window has evolved from a specialist term used by Christian missiologists to assumed vocabulary for Christians in the West.[18][19][20] It is an emerging term in the secular press[7] and can be found in press style glossaries.[21] Non-western writers and organizations also refer to the 10/40 Window.[22][23][24] In addition, those opposed to the idea of evangelism make use of the term.[25][26][27]
The concept has also been a part of spiritual warfare theology. It is linked to spiritual mapping[28][12] of territorial spirits (demons believed to control regions of the globe and prevent Christian conversion), as promoted by C. Peter Wagner, founder of the New Apostolic Reformation.[29] Ted Haggard's New Life Church was at the vanguard of the spiritual mapping movement through its close ties to and support of Wagner and Bush. It helped initiate the Prayer Through the Window events in the 1990s, which had tens of millions of participants.[30] New Life Church's spiritual warfare center, the World Prayer Center, opened in 1998 and primarily focused on the 10/40 window.[31]
The original 1990 GIS 10/40 Window analysis produced several insights, among them showing that the nations of the 10/40 Window represented (as of the research date):
The GIS analysis utilized country-level data from the Operation World[3] almanac, the World Christian Encyclopedia,[4] and The World Factbook.[1]
The first edition GIS analysis maps highlighted the three major religious blocks in the 10/40 Window, specifically the majority Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist nations. Population estimates at the time for the year 2000 (from Operation World) were given as:
Later updates have been based more on census data and other estimates rather than forward-looking population estimates. The cited reference provides the following estimate of "unreached" non-Christian populations in the 10/40 Window:
The 10/40 Window originally encompassed the following 54 countries.
These were all Old World nations (mostly in the eastern hemisphere) with at least 50 percent of their land area falling within 10 to 40 degrees latitude as of 1990. (The list also included Gibraltar and Macau, which are not independent nations.)
The terms 40/70 window, referring to Europe and Russia, and 4/14 window, referring to the ages between 4 and 14 for child evangelism, were also coined based on the 10/40 window concept.[38]
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