Contemporary Landscapes and New Horizons: The Changing Maps of World Christianity

Last year I spent the July 4th weekend in an unlikely spot—the small town of Freising near Munich, Germany. I had been invited as a North American participant at an international conference on the “Polycentric Structures in the History of World Christianity.” As a systematic theologian and a newcomer to the field of world Christianity, I did not know quite what to expect. Over the next 72 hours, I listened intently to more than 20 papers by scholars trained and teaching in different corners of the world—in Hong Kong, South Africa, Liverpool, Sierra Leone, Basel, and Chicago. Each presented in-depth case studies that illuminated the complex and diverse indigenization processes of Christianity, which have taken place over the past two centuries in the Global South. The subjects of these papers ranged from seventeenth-century religious martyrs in Japan shaping Catholic piety in the Philippines to nineteenth-century Indian indentured workers in British Guiana forging a distinctive ethnic and religious identity. Some of the scholars described how Christian communities were beset by unexpected political events. For example, one scholar recounted how the only Chinese parish in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) got caught in the crossfire of a brutal regime change when the ousted President and his brother took refuge within its walls only to be arrested and summarily assassinated. Others unearthed previously unsuspected transnational networks that connected distant mission contexts, such as those between China and Korea through the educational efforts of the YMCA movement, or between African Americans in Harlem, New York and South Africans through the founding of the African Orthodox Church in the 1920s and 1930s. Needless to say, there was much excitement in the air as the traditional Western version of the history of Christianity gave way to a more complex and indeed, “polycentric,” understanding of Christianity’s origins and developments. ¹

As a systematic theologian influenced by different strands of political and liberation theologies in Germany and the US, I am sympathetic to the desires of world Christianity scholars today: to give voice to those on the margins (or altogether overlooked) in Western historiographies and to present a more pluralistic account of the global spread of Christianity. Throughout the conference I found myself intrigued and energized by the ingenuity with which global communities had indigenized Christianity in their particular contexts. I left the conference at once sobered by the “dangerous memories” of Christianity’s colonial heritage, but also inspired about what this plurality of Christian traditions meant for my future theological work.

In the hope that Theology Today readers might catch some of this same enthusiasm, this issue is dedicated to introducing the rapidly emerging field of world Christianity. It highlights its cutting edge research and pressing theological agenda for the church today. The issue opens with three programmatic essays penned by international experts in the field, each of whom represents a different disciplinary approach, geographical location, and ecclesial affiliation. Notre Dame historian of religions and Roman Catholic priest Paul Kollman begins this global conversation. He heralds the “world Christian turn” in the study of Christianity for being as significant as the postmodern, hermeneutical, and linguistic turns in contemporary theology. An expert on East African Christianity, Kollman focuses on how social-scientific approaches, such as cultural anthropology, are transforming the field today. Besides giving us a richer picture of Christianity’s origins and developments, this paradigm shift means that highly charged terms such as “syncretism” or “conversion” are giving way to more value-neutral expressions such as “naturalization,” “indigenization,” and “creolization.” Kollman dons his theological hat at the close of his essay. He observes how “the world Christian turn” challenges Catholic theology today to negotiate anew between upholding the catholicity of the gospel’s claims and respecting the indigenization processes of Christianity worldwide.

Klaus Koschorke’s essay takes readers across the Atlantic, surveying the state of the discipline in the German-speaking context. Recently retired from the only chair of world Christianity in Germany at the Protestant faculty in Munich, Koschorke has been a leader in the field for more than 25 years. He observes that, in contrast to the North American scene, a major hurdle in his context is the outdated curricula for teaching church history. “New maps” are long overdue in the history of world Christianity, maps that decenter the Western tradition and recognize the polycentric character of Christianity’s beginnings and its subsequent developments. Helpful in drawing such new maps, Koschorke argues, are comparative studies that examine how diverse communities across the Global South responded to similar challenges. One example is a study of how African indigenous churches (AICs) and independent church movements in Korea and in India responded to colonial missionary efforts. Koschorke wraps up his essay with a sneak preview of his current research that traces the emergence of the local press among so-called “indigenous Christian elites” at the turn of the twentieth century. These journals were not only a “mouthpiece” for local Christians, but they helped form a “transregional indigenous-Christian public sphere” that contributed to the globalization process.

South Indian theologian Sathianathan Clarke, holder of the Bishop Sundo Kim Chair for World Christianity at Wesley Theological Seminary, gives us a quite different vantage point on world Christianity. Clarke examines two distinct if overlapping platforms in postcolonial missiology. He gives the motto “Evangelism of the World for Christianity without Colonization” to the first alliance, which stems from the Lausanne Movement, and he coins the phrase “Vivification of the World in God without Christianization” to describe the second platform represented by the World Council of Churches. While both alliances distance themselves from the colonial project, they have distinct theological agendas. Clarke highlights two points of theological contest between these alliances that will require future negotiation: adjudicating between the “Scandal of Christic Particularity” and the “Surprise of Trinitarian Plethora,” and the proper relationship between mission and evangelism.

The second group of contributors takes a different tack across the sea of world Christianity. These authors introduce us to new analytic frameworks that guide their current research in disparate regions of the Global South. Jehu Hanciles, Associate Professor of World Christianity at the Candler School of Theology, starts off this round by challenging certain assumptions about African Christianity that have been long-held in the field, in particular, the notion that African Christianity is in essence a “Western creation.” Expanding on Paul Gilroy’s analysis of the “Black Atlantic,” Hanciles shows how waves of post-emancipation migration of black Christians to Sierra Leone and Liberia were decisive for the rapid expansion of Christianity in Africa and beyond. Rather than a colonial import, African Christianity, argues Hanciles, testifies to the pioneering agency of Africans and black migrants in spreading the gospel message.

So, too, historian Arun Jones, Associate Professor of World Evangelism at the Candler School of Theology, casts a critical eye at the categories that have prevailed in earlier scholarship about Christianity in North India. He surveys the findings of the most thought-provoking recent studies of this region and demonstrates how they defy explanation in the customary categories of Western/non-Western, missionary/native, modern/traditional, and liberal/conservative.

The final essay stems from Korean Catholic theologian, Min-Ah Cho, assistant professor at St. Catherine University. Cho provides an eyewitness account of the evolution of Korean feminist theology, one of the liveliest women's movements in the Global South over the past 35 years. Dispelling the perception that Korean feminist theology has lost momentum today, Cho introduces a trio of women theologians who are charting a new course for the Korean feminist movement today, a course aimed at addressing the neo-liberal economic and gender challenges in their midst. This new generation seeks to bridge progressive and conservative women constituencies in their churches, while also joining in the widening feminist theological discourse around the world.

This whirlwind tour by no means covers the whole terrain of the study of world Christianity today. Indeed, readers need to “mind the gaps”—the diversity of Christian traditions in Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe are just a few of the major geographical pieces missing on this map. For those whose interest in world Christianity has now been piqued, American historian David King’s review essay suggests three excellent introductory texts that are suitable for use in the classroom or in church settings. As King rightly remarks, we need not only look to textbooks to learn more about the global reality of Christianity. A startling diversity of Christian traditions is already present in our classrooms, pews, and neighborhoods, and this diversity is rapidly transforming the contemporary landscape of North American Christianity.

In conclusion, let me offer a couple of my own observations about the significance of this field for contemporary theology today. First, one of the overwhelming impressions that I gained from reading different case studies in this field is the tremendous political impact—at times liberating and at other times quite repressive—that Christianity exerted in different historical and local circumstances. While Christian churches were often pioneers in educational reforms or in democracy movements, they were in other times and places willing accomplices to the economic exploitation and political oppression of indigenous populations. Given this checkered past, learning more about Christianity’s global expansion is not only critical in setting the historical record straight, but also should give churches today pause for thought. These “dangerous memories” of Christianity’s colonial heritage are a wake-up call to all those who express a naive optimism that the central beliefs of the Christian faith—be it the inviolability of the imago Dei in all persons or the liberating message and ministry of Jesus—can alone ensure concrete freedom or social progress in particular contexts. As the historical testimony suggests, the gospel proves far more unpredictable as it becomes intertwined in complex cultural and political circumstances.

And yet, I see enormous theological potential in exploring the polycentric nature of world Christianity. For one, it revolutionizes the notion of “tradition” as a source for doing constructive theological work. Whereas appeals to tradition in my discipline of systematic theology often signal a conservative return to a fixed Western deposit of faith, for those who “take the world Christian turn,” appeals to tradition mean acknowledging that plurality reaches all the way down to the earliest roots of the Christian witness. Simply put, tradition becomes a more fluid, heterogeneous, and politically inflected category for constructive theological work. To borrow an example from my own work, “taking the world Christian turn” as an Episcopalian theologian today means that I must look beyond the horizon of Anglo-American traditions and wrestle with the distinctive forms of Anglicanism in the African and Asian contexts as constitutive of my confessional identity. While this global turn certainly presents issues for theological dispute, it also opens new resources for creative reimagining of doctrines. To trade on the familiar terms from Vatican II, here the ressourcement of tradition may prove once again to become aggiornamento—an opening out to the world. In that spirit, I hope Theology Today readers are persuaded as I have been that “taking the world Christian turn” is not just the business of historians or academics, but is also the responsibility and the delightful work of churches worldwide.