World Christianity

Africa and Africans are playing an increasingly important role within World Christianity. Not only is what happens in Africa Christianity more and more representative of Christianity as a whole (as Andrew F. Walls began to prophetically observe even in the 1980s) — just as was the case with Euro-American Christianity between the Reformation Era and the mid-twentieth century — but the African Diaspora is playing an ever larger role in planting and leading churches within the old strongholds of Christendom where Christianity has receded. This is a selection of important scholarship studying these stories.

[latest revision, 10 November 2023]

Pour un cinquième de l’Église mondiale, le leadership s’exerce dans un contexte de persécution. Si la persécution et le leadership suscitent l’un et l’autre un intérêt croissant tant parmi les érudits que chez un public plus profane, il a été jusqu’ici mené peu de recherches au carrefour de ces deux domaines d’études, qui portent sur l’expérience du leadership face à la persécution. Cet article en appelle à une étude consciente et approfondie du leadership chrétien dans ce dernier contexte, qui prenne en compte les défis du témoignage à Jésus-Christ en pareilles circonstances, des perspectives bibliques, de la pertinence des théories du leadership et des profits à en retirer pour l’Église mondiale, notamment pour les communautés persécutées, pour les missionnaires et pour ceux jouissant d’un degré plus important de liberté religieuse. La théorie du leadership de Robert E. Quinn est un exemple de modèle de recherche prometteur, testé dans le cadre de l’étude du leadership de l’église Meserete Kristos, en Éthiopie, entre 1974 et 1991.

Kristendommen er i rask endring og kommer til uttrykk på nye måter både sosialt og politisk. På få tiår er tyngdepunktet flyttet fra det globale nord til det globale sør.

I Vest-Europa blir kirker nedlagt eller solgt. Samtidig fylles megakirker i kristendommens nye bastioner utenfor Europa. Kirkene i Midtøsten taper medlemmer når kristne forlater regionen, mens den ortodokse kirken i Russland knytter seg tettere til staten. Den største veksten av kristne skjer i Afrika. Men også i Kina og flere andre asiatiske land vokser antallet kristne, og i USA spiller kristen tro fortsatt en viktig rolle i politikken.

Samtidig er katolisismen i Latin-Amerika under press fra en raskt voksende pinsebevegelse som forsterker forskyvningen av kristendommens tyngdepunkt fra nord til sør, så vel som fra de gamle etablerte kirkene til nye menigheter.

Med hovedvekt på de mest folkerike landene på hvert kontinent viser forfatterne av «Global kristendom. En samtidshistorie» fram de siste tiårs endringer og diskuterer hvordan kristendom i dag kommer til uttrykk i nye politiske og sosiale sammenhenger.

Medforfattere: Gina Lende, Vebjørn Horsfjord og Ole Jakob Løland

It is March in Beijing. Many local friends tell me that it is the loveliest month here, as one can see, smell, and feel the change of seasons coming after a long smoggy winter: The day is warm and the golden sunlight streams brilliantly on a blue sky -so blue that it seems as if it had been washed by the Dragon King, the deity for water and weather in Chinese folk beliefs. Plum and apricot blossoms and willows glow with life. Indeed, the divide between all the four seasons is more distinct here in the north than in Jiangnan, the southern region by the Yangtze River where I grew up, echoing loudly the 24 solar terms. After the Rain Water (yushui 雨水) reaches Equinox, then it arrives Clear and Bright (qingming 清明), the day when people sweep the graves of their ancestors. Ancient solar terms such as these gure centrally in Ian Johnson's new book, Souls of China, which includes sections named for them, one of the rst things that intrigued me about his approach to the topic of the revival of religion in the PRC. TING GUO: This is really a fascinating book. I particularly enjoyed how each chapter corresponds with a seasonal note, a beautiful way to weave the threads together. Did you choose certain religions to go with certain seasons? Was this done intentionally or did it INTERVIEWS ESSAYS EVENTS BLARB A READER-SUPPORTED MAGAZINE INTERVIEWS, THE CHINA BLOG AWAKENING, RETURNING, AND LOOKING FORWARD: AN INTERVIEW WITH IAN JOHNSON MARCH 29, 2017 | LARB BLOG | LEAVE A COMMENT

This paper analyzes the growth of Buloba over the years using the Revitalization movement theory. It’s believed that in the formative years, Buloba was a “dark place” to stay in. There were no roads connecting to the city of Kampala. The paper begins by exploring revitalization movement theory then later analyzes Buloba using this theory.

which the church -rightly or wrongly -has tried to develop criteria for articulating the content and forms of divine revelation, presence and grace in this universe. Brown pays no attention to the theological struggle with such criteria in thinkers, as for instance, Lessing, Schleiermacher, Otto, Eliade, Tillich, Ricoeur and Tracy These thinkers share Brown's conviction of the necessity of some sort of correlation between an interpretation of wider human experience, on the one hand, and a dynamic interpretation of Christian faith in the context of the larger religious landscape, on the other hand. But, unlike Brown, these thinkers have attempted to reflect on the nature of such an approach and on its hermeneutical conditions and limitations. Moreover, they have demonstrated that such critical and engaged thinking need not end up with exclusive lists of criteria; rather it may advance the dynamic and critical attention to possible instances of revelation, however within a properly discussed framework of religious praxis.

Christians have not been a major part of the mainstream debates in studies on Chinese diaspora and transnationalism. This chapter attempts to move Christianity into the centre of such conversations through the theme of identity. Specifically, it proposes that the diasporic Chinese Protestants were an integral part of the transnational Chinese communities that settled across the globe from the late nineteenth century to the present day by demonstrating how they synthesized their faith and various types of Chinese identities in order to form three dominant global Chinese Christian identities: evangelical identity, religious nationalism and religious ethnocentrism. In terms of evangelical identity, the chapter demonstrates how Protestants were motivated by their particular historical circumstances to appropriate evangelicalism as the primary means for shaping their respective diasporic cultures. For religious nationalism, I show how Protestant communities became transnational participants in China’s national salvation discourse. Such participation was seen by synthesizing their evangelical faith with nationalism and delimiting the projections of their identity within the bounds of the modern Chinese nation. Lastly, the study outlines the process of synthesis between faith and ethnic concern after World War II. It shows how different independent Chinese Protestant organizations constructed ethno-religious discourses as part of the process of forming the global Chinese Christian industry. These discourses include the unique ‘chosen’ status of Chinese Christians and their special concern for evangelizing the transnational Chinese communities. In all, the study suggests that the multiplicity of global Chinese Christianity affirms mainstream calls to examine the Chinese diaspora in all its diversity.

The intention expressed by the Busan assembly of the World Council of Churches to embark on a Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace throughout the next decade invites one to imagine what such a pilgrimage might look like. Of course, in its message, the WCC outlined a number of characteristics of such a pilgrimage, but nonetheless, in order to "ground" all of this in the reality of the church, some imaginative work still needs to be done in order to go beyond general formulations, such as the following: 5. We live in a time of global crises. Economic, ecological, socio-political and spiritual challenges confront us. In darkness and in the shadow of death, in suffering and persecution, how precious is the gift of hope from the Risen Lord! By the flame of the Spirit in our hearts, we pray to Christ to brighten the world: for his light to turn our whole beings to caring for the whole of creation and to affirm that all people are created in God's image. Listening to voices that often come from the margins, let us all share lessons of hope and perseverance. Let us recommit ourselves to work for liberation and to act in solidarity. May the illuminating Word of God guide us on our journey. 6. We intend to move together. Challenged by our experiences in Busan, we challenge all people of good will to engage their God-given gifts in transforming actions. 1

Edward Smither’s recent offering is a welcome contribution for those interested in a short over- view of the history of Christian missions from the perspective of World Christianity.

DOI: 10.1111/irom.12346

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/irom.12346

Many church leaders conclude that immigrant churches are not engaged in missions, based on a limited view of the geographic scope of missions. The "going principle" assumes that mission activity involves cross-cultural engagement, while the "staying principle" refers to embracing the local neighborhood where the church is located. While useful, both principles limit our vision of missional engagement. It is helpful to employ the theory of transnationalism to expand the notion of place and geography, allowing us to capture the full scope of missional engagement by many immigrant churches. The article concludes with a case study of Kerala Pentecostal churches. Many mission thinkers have considered diaspora churches not to be missional, since "they are not reaching their own communities and neighborhoods." Similarly, it is common to hear that such churches reach only their own people and that, unless they send cross-cultural missionaries, they are a missional failure. These sentiments are widely popular among leaders of dominant-culture churches and, unfortunately, shape the posture and tone for their engagement with immigrant churches. In assessing mission involvement, it would be better to set aside our prescriptive views of

Links to reviews below!
An examination of Christianity in contemporary Russia. It begins with an overview of Orthodox Christianity before focusing on the distinctive aspects of Russian Orthodoxy and Russian Christianity. Explores different manifestations according to geographical variation; provides an overview of the history of Christianity in Russia; explores the history of the past century through the biographies of Russian Christians; the trajectory of Russian theology; and socio-political dimensions of Christianity since the collapse of communism.
Reviews:
https://brill.com/view/journals/jecs/74/3-4/article-p347_17.xml
https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=58133
https://readingreligion.org/9781451472509/understanding-world-christianity-russia/

The 1890s saw a rapid expansion of mission schools in China, among which a number of theological seminaries were established or enlarged in order to provide Chinese Christian workers with a systematic education, rather than traditional short-term training courses. This article uses the Theological Institute of the London Missionary Society (LMS) in Tianjin 天津養正聖經學院 (which developed into the Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College 天津新學書院 (TACC) in 1902) as a case study, examining the shift in its educational intentions, perspectives and approaches from 1863 to 1902, in order to explore the factors that caused this shift and the possible impact it had on the students and the nature of mission education, as well as on the evolution of Christianity in China during this period.

The University of Shanghai (滬江大學) was founded in 1906 as a co-operative effort between the Southern Baptist Convention [SBC] and the American Baptist Missionary Union [ABMU]. Herman C. E. Liu (劉湛恩) was appointed its first Chinese president in 1928 and had been highly esteemed in both Christian and Chinese educational circles. Although this article focuses on the history of the University of Shanghai during the period of 1928-1938, it firstly gives a brief account of the early history of the university, as well as the nationwide Anti-Christian Movement (1922-27), which resulted in the transition of the university leadership from foreign to Chinese. This article then examines how the university, under Liu’s leadership from 1928 to 1938, attempted to achieve the goal of ‘more Christian, more Chinese, and more efficient.’ It aims to explore the complexity of the interaction between a Christian institute and Chinese society, particularly in the face of fierce nationalist tensions. The history of the University of Shanghai reflects the trend of the evolution of a Christian establishment from its denominational (Baptist) background to a more general and diverse character, and from western to Chinese. This article argues that it was a natural step during the course of the growth of the ‘selfhood’ of Christianity in early twentieth-century China; meanwhile, however, it reveals an obliged response to a politically hostile environment. In addition, this paper argues that, while making itself more indigenous and relevant to Chinese society, the university was quite exceptional by keeping and emphasising its Christian essence. This owed much to Herman Liu’s own vision and practice in Christian education in China, which reflects a contextual understanding of the Christian message and its social application.

In Christian Circulations, Jean DeBernardi offers a meticulous take on the “history of the globalization of Christianity and the local church” (p. 358). She does this by paying attention to the Brethren movement in Singapore and Penang, which is remarkable for two reasons. The first is that in Singapore and Malaysia the Brethren, alongside other denominations, is a religion “of heritage for many” (p. 2). And yet scholarship about them has been limited. The second is that her work foregrounds the significant role of the Brethren in the globalization of Christianity, whose contemporary narrative is predisposed to Pentecostalism. In many parts of Asia, Christianity has a much longer tradition.

A bibliography of responses of American Indians / Native Americans / First Nations peoples in North America to Christianity.  This includes missionary perspectives, colonial perspectives, non-Christian academic perspectives, critical academic perspectives from Christians, and — most importantly — the voices of both Christian and non-Christian American Indians themselves.

(last updated 20 November 2024)

محققان و عموم به هر دو موضوع جفا و رهبری، گفتگوهای اندکی بین این دو حیطه یا تحقیق روی تجربۀ
رهبران جفادیده صورت گرفته است. هدف این مقاله این است که لزوم مطالعۀ هدفمند و پایدار رهبری
مسیحی تحت جفا را نشان داده و چالشهایی که شاهدان امین عیسی مسیح تحت این شرایط تجربه میکند،
دیدگاههای کتابمقدسی، ربط داشتن نظریۀ رهبری، و مزایای آن برای کلیسای جهانی را در نظر گیرد- از
جمله جوامع جفادیده، و میسیونرها و آنانی که از آزادی مذهبی چشمگیری برخوردارند. نظریۀ رهبری رابرت رهبری برای یکپنجم کلیسای جهانی در بافتها و محیطهای جفا صورت میگیرد. با وجود توجه
ای. کوین یک نمونه از مدلهای تحقیق نویدبخشی است که در رابطه با مورد رهبری کلیسای
در اتیوپی )از ۱۹۷۴ تا ۱۹۹۱ ( آزمایش شده است. Meserete Kristos روزافزون

Klaus Koschorke, «"'Dialectics of the Three Selves": The ideal of a "self-governing" native church -from a missionary concept to an emancipatory slogan of Asian and African Christians in the 19th and early 20th centuries», in "InternationaIising Higher Education: From South Africa to England via New Zealand: Essays in honour of Professor Gerald Pillay", eds. Hoffie (J W) Hofmeyr and John Stenhouse (Centurion, South Africa: Mediakor, 2018): 127-142.

This article appeared in the Winter-Spring 2018 issue of Missio Dei Journal (missiodeijournal.com) in an issue dedicated to "engaging the classics" of missionary literature. In this article I explore the continuing significance of Andrew Walls's collection of essays, The Missionary Movement in Christian History, for the study of World Christianity and Christian History.

Chapter 15 in African Christian Biography: Stories, Lives, and Challenges, ed. Dana L. Robert (Pietermaritzburg, South Africa: Cluster Publications, 2018) (275-294).


Biographical essay on Catherine Zimmermann, born Geveh in Angola, enslaved in Jamaica, twice married (first to a Liberian, then to a German), missionary in Ghana with Switzerland's Basel Mission, mother and grandmother.

移民與海外宣教：真耶穌教會近期的全球拓展 葉先秦(政治大学)、蔡彥仁(政治大学) 摘要：二十世紀中葉後殖民時期全球南方基督教人數的大幅增長，已然轉變過 往對宣教的西方主導以及文化帝國主義認知。這些急速崛起的南方教會，無論 是前殖民時期留下的宗派或者新興的獨立教會，也開始進行海外宣教工作。 1917 年創立於北京的真耶穌教會從 1920 年代以降就已運用海外移民網絡從事 宣教，可謂非西方教會「反向宣教」的先驅。在「國際聯合總會」成立後更是 強化在世界各地的拓展，非華裔信徒亦日益增加，逐漸擺脫原本華人族裔傾向 的特徵。而宗教與跨國移動的討論，也成為近來宗教研究關注的議題之一，本 文將從此一框架回顧並討論真耶穌教會跨國移動和宣教的過程與相關議題，並 常識與台灣抑或其他華人宗教團體的境外拓展進行比較。 關鍵詞：宣教，真耶穌教會，移民，跨國移動，中國基督教，世界基督教，全 球南方，全球化 前言 真耶穌教會是一在二十世紀上半葉中國教會自立風潮激盪之下興起的本土 教會，且擁抱某種時而明顯時而隱晦的國族意識，該會透過國族性的神學修辭，

Drawing on extensive research on the Christian understanding of the Spirit in both Asian and Western contexts, Kirsteen Kim explains how different cosmologies have shaped Christian pneumatology. The contrast between belief in one universal Spirit and many spirits is then related to the experiences of modernity and post-modernity, contemporary interest in 'spirituality'and the theological reflection and mission practice of both charismatic and liberation theology.

Proverbs is a poetic book full of images and metaphors, many of which are often obscure and enigmatic. In this volume, Rotasperti offers a contribution to the understanding of figurative language in Proverbs by looking at the grammatical and social contexts in which many of the book’s metaphors appear. The brief introduction explains the process and methodological assumptions used for identifying metaphors. The study then continues with a lexical review of four semantic categories: the body, urban fabric, nature and animals. The result of this survey is a deep analysis of several key metaphors that looks at their composition, structure, and interpretation.

This opening article offfers an introduction to the theme of this special issue of Exchange: Jesus traditions and masculinities in world Christianity. Highlighting the historical trajectory of feminist
theological debates on the maleness of Jesus Christ and its implications for confijigurations of gender (read: the position of women) in Christian traditions, the article particularly explores two
recent developments: first, the critical discussion in academic, theological and ecumenical circles of men and masculinities in contemporary Christian contexts, and second, the growing body of scholarship on the masculinity (or better, masculinities) of Jesus Christ in the New Testament in relation to masculinities in the early Christian era. Building on these debates and this scholarship, the article identifijies a new and critical fijield of inquiry that explores the complex and productive relationships between the ambiguous and unstable masculinity/ies of Jesus Christ and the multiple and changing masculinities that are found today in the local contexts of an increasingly diverse global Christianity.

Klaus Koschorke, "Asia in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries",  ch. 9 of "History of Global Christianity", vol. 3: "History of Christianity in the 19th century", eds. Jens Holger Schjørring and Norman A. Hjelm (Leiden - Boston: Brill, 2017): 267-300.

As part of a larger project, this paper serves as an overview that examines how “ai” 愛 (love) as an affective concept made its way into the Chinese vocabulary, how it gained popularity at specific junctures in modern Chinese history, and the ways in which it has been adapted as a marker of modernity and a political discourse in Republican (1911–49) an  Communist China (1949–) in distinct ways. Although literary scholars have noted the significance of the shaping of love as an affective concept for the project of Chinese modernity, they mainly focus on the conceptions and interpretations of love in the literature, and with a time frame from late imperial (1368–1911) to Maoist China (1949–76). The few studies about love in post-Mao era usually attribute the sources of such affect to Christianity. My paper makes a fresh contribution in three aspects. First, I take a longer historical perspective, from the 1910s to the 2010s, and dedicate, secondly, a large part of my study to the decisive impact from revolutionary radicalism to popular religions on the formation of the discourse of state propaganda and everyday politics, rather than manifestations in the literature and sources from Christianity. Third, I study some of the most controversial political figures in modern China, including Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), Mao Zedong (1893–1976), and Xi Jinping (1953–), rather than intellectuals and writers only.

This chapter uses the Chinese Home Missionary Society (CHMS) – the first nationwide native evangelistic missionary society – as a case study. By examining the process in which mainline Chinese Protestant churches and individuals endeavoured to realise native evangelism and an indigenised Christianity through the CHMS and its mission work, this chapter intends to explore how the conviction of Chinese Christians towards an indigenised and interdenominational Christianity was applied in the specific local context, as well as the legacy and lessons of the CHMS, which reflected during the course of its missionary movement and church indigenisation. It argues that the indigenous and interdenominational features of the CHMS revealed what is a two-fold theme throughout the history of Chinese Christianity during the twentieth century, that is, the pursuit of church indigeneity and unity. On the other hand, the case of the CHMS discloses the common challenges that emerged during the cross-cultural process when global Christianity encounters indigenous societies.

The church in Africa needs to develop enough leaders to serve the needs produced by its rapid growth. One significant aspect of leadership development is theological education. Theological education in countries like Kenya has grown vastly in the last thirty years. Scott Cunningham outlines this growth, pointing out that there now many universities that provide graduate theological education at the Masters and Doctoral levels. Jurgens Hendricks argues that quality theological education serves as the antidote to the problems arising out of the lack of training on the continent. The question we ask in this paper is how church pastors, particularly church planters, perceive the importance of theological training in light of their responsibilities. This paper examines existing literature on the subject and includes findings from interviews with from church planters from Mavuno church. This paper finds that though theological education is viewed highly both by educators and pastors several factors stand in the way of its effectiveness. This paper agrees with Kagema Nkonge who recommends a thorough re-examination of the training system. Further more, the recommends creative exploration and deployment of new models of engagement between churches and theological institutions to secure the future of African Christianity.

This doctoral dissertation is a historiographical examination of the missionary encounter in Ottoman Syria (modern Syria and Lebanon) during the late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Nahda, or Arab renaissance. It begins in 1870, when the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions transferred its Syria Mission to the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. It ends in 1915 with the escalating effects of World War I in the Ottoman Arab provinces. Building upon Middle East mission historiographies, studies in world Christianity, and postcolonial critiques of missions, this study approaches the story of Syrian Protestantism as an enmeshed history in which Syrian and American lives became inextricably entwined. Moving beyond the traditional narrative, which presents American missionary men as the primary actors, this research points to the complex relationship of Syrians with American, British, and other missionaries in Ottoman Syria. It uses rare Arabic publications from the late Ottoman period and archival sources from the US, UK, and Lebanon to underline the agency of Syrian Protestant women and men who built the Syrian Evangelical Church and contributed to the socio-cultural currents of the Nahda alongside other Syrian Christians and Muslims.
This dissertation demonstrates that Syrian Protestants challenged missionary authority in subtle and overt ways, while at the same time employing the resources of mission schools and the American Mission Press in Beirut to engage in the Arabic production of the Nahda. It argues that Syrian Protestant women played a significant, yet largely unrecognized, role in church and society as journalists, novelists, public speakers, and evangelistic preachers. Chapter 1 compares Syrian Protestant conversion narratives to missionary accounts of evangelical conversion. Chapter 2 investigates the American-Syrian Protestant relationship in light of a major schism within the Beirut Protestant community in the 1890s. Chapters 3 and 4 use Arabic books, periodicals, and pamphlets published at the American Mission Press to demonstrate the depth of Syrian Protestant participation in the cultural and religious discussions of the Nahda. Chapter 5 pieces together the stories of Syrian Biblewomen who worked as evangelists for American missionaries and for the female-led British Syrian Mission.