Noteworthy

Pope Announces Centennial Celebration of Missionary Letter to Help Churches “grow in missionary and evangelizing zeal”

Reflecting on a missionary letter by Pope Benedict XV (1914–22), Pope Francis proclaimed November 30, 2019, as a centennial remembrance of the apostolic letter Maximum Illud: On the Propagation of the Faith throughout the World. In this letter, written in the aftermath of World War I, Benedict sought to give new impetus to the missionary task of proclaiming the Gospel. Benedict, who has been called the missionary pope, recognized the “need for a more evangelical approach to missionary work in the world, so that it would be purified of any colonial overtones and kept far away from the nationalistic and expansionistic aims that had proved so disastrous” (Francis, in a letter dated October 22, 2017). ¹

“In the light of this, accepting the proposal of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, I hereby call for an Extraordinary Missionary Month to be celebrated in October 2019, with the aim of fostering an increased awareness of the missio ad gentes and taking up again with renewed fervour the missionary transformation of the Church’s life and pastoral activity,” Francis wrote.

The Missionary Month, Francis added, “can serve as a good preparation for this celebration by enabling all the faithful to take to heart the proclamation of the Gospel and to help their communities grow in missionary and evangelizing zeal. May the love for the Church’s mission, which is ‘a passion for Jesus and a passion for his people,’ grow ever stronger!” he noted, quoting from his own apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium (chap. 5, sec. 268). ²

A new research institute for the advanced study of religion and society in Africa has been named for Lamin Sanneh, a naturalized US citizen of Gambian origin who is professor of missions and world Christianity at Yale Divinity School. An IBMR contributing editor and a member of the OMSC Board of Trustees, Sanneh accepted “with humility the naming of the institute after me but, more importantly,” affirms that “the tribute proudly belongs with the West African tradition of neighborliness and hospitality that is a welcome challenge for study and reflection.”

The multifaith and multidisciplinary Sanneh Institute will be headquartered at the University of Ghana, Legon, in Accra. A feasibility study titled “Engaging the Mosque and the Church in West Africa” is being led by John Azumah, professor of world Christianity and Islam at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA. As the institute’s founding director, Azumah will relocate to Ghana in June, and the institute will be formally inaugurated in early 2020.

Sanneh taught at the University of Ghana from 1975 to 1978. A distinguished scholar on the relationship of Islam and Christianity in Africa, his most recent book is Beyond Jihad: The Pacifist Tradition and West African Islam (Oxford University Press, 2016). The institute will offer opportunities for faculty and students to “interact with a wider range of international scholars toward the production of knowledge in the pursuit of peaceful coexistence of believers of different religions, especially Christianity and Islam in West Africa,” said Alhaji Mumuni Sulemana, head of the Department for the Study of Religions, University of Ghana, Legon.

Appointed. Missiologist and author Scott W. Sunquist, dean of the School of Intercultural Studies and professor of World Christianity at Fuller Theological Seminary. Pasadena, CA, as the seventh president of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, MA. He succeeds Dennis P. Hollinger, who will retire at the end of the 2018–19 academic year. Before joining the Fuller Seminary faculty in July 2012, Sunquist taught for seventeen years at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

An ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), Sunquist and his wife, Nancy, were missionaries in Singapore from 1987 to 1995, where he was the pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church and a lecturer in church history, ecumenics, and Asian Christianity at Trinity Theological College. Sunquist was the 2017 senior mission scholar in residence at OMSC and is an IBMR contributing editor.

Sunquist is the author of Explorations in Asian Christianity: History, Theology, and Mission (2017), The Unexpected Christian Century: The Reversal and Transformation of Global Christianity, 1900–2000 (2015), and Understanding Christian Mission: Participation in Suffering and Glory (2013). With Dale T. Irvin he coauthored the two-volume History of the World Christian Movement (2001–12).

“Diversity and Difference in Custom, Belief, and Practice in the History of Missions and World Christianity” is the theme for the 2019 meeting of the Yale-Edinburgh Group on the History of the Missionary Movement and World Christianity. Held June 27–29 this year at Yale Divinity School, New Haven, CT, the consultation is sponsored annually by the Centre for the Study of World Christianity at the University of Edinburgh, Yale Divinity School, and the Overseas Ministries Study Center. Details on the topic may be found in a statement by conveners Andrew Walls (Edinburgh), Lamin Sanneh (Yale), and Brian Stanley (Edinburgh), at http://divinity-adhoc.library.yale.edu/Yale-Edinburgh/2019theme.htm, or by sending an e-mail to coordinator Christopher Anderson (christopher.j.anderson@yale.edu), special collections librarian and curator of Yale’s Day Missions Collection.

The Dictionary of African Christian Biography (www.dacb.org) is a cowinner of the 2018 Conover-Porter Award for excellence in Africana bibliography or reference work, a recognition given every two years by the African Studies Association’s Africana Librarians Council. DACB associate director Michèle Sigg also announced the release of African Christian Biography (Pietermaritzburg: Cluster Publications, 2018), a volume edited by Dana L. Robert, an IBMR contributing editor, that celebrates the project’s twentieth anniversary. Sigg also reported that the DACB’s Journal of African Christian Biography now features interviews with living African theologians. OMSC executive director emeritus Jonathan Bonk started the online resource as an OMSC-funded project “to collect, preserve, and make freely accessible [African] biographical accounts and church histories.” The publications are now based at the Center for Global Christianity and Mission, Boston University School of Theology.

The 2019 School of Cartooning and Animation for Missions, a twenty-four-week Youth With A Mission class that is accredited with the University of the Nations, will commence March 25. Classes will meet in New Taipei City, Taiwan, and will be taught in English and Mandarin Chinese. “In many cultures, and especially within those in the 10/40 window, people prefer to receive information through pictures. Cartoons and animation can be powerful tools, particularly in Asia where people line up at stores to buy the latest comic book,” according to school leader Dave Hudson, director of Create International Taiwan. After the twelve-week lectures, students “will be directly involved in the production of a cross-cultural comic book or animated short film that shares the good news with an unreached people group,” he added. For details, go to www.createtaiwan.com or e-mail office@createtaiwan.com.

The US Catholic China Bureau changed its name to the US-China Catholic Association (USCCA), appointed a new leader, and announced its next international conference. The name change was made to avoid confusion with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (also USCCB) and because the word “bureau” “when translated into Chinese gave the impression we were a governmental organization,” said the new executive director, Michael Agliardo, SJ, a priest and sociologist. He succeeds Rob Carbonneau, CP, who directed the association for three years. Agliardo taught sociology at Loyola University, Chicago, and at the National Catholic Seminary, Beijing. He is also a research scholar at Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA, where his work focuses on the links between faith and ecology. USCCA will hold its 2019 international conference October 4–6 at Santa Clara University with the theme “China, Christianity, and the Dialogue of Civilizations.” Panelists will discuss Vatican attempts to engage the Chinese government on the naming of bishops and other issues that “affect the global common good,” he noted.