Died. Edith L. Blumhofer, 69, professor, author, and evangelical scholar, March 5, 2020, at home in Wheaton, IL. Blumhofer was a professor of history (1987–95 and 1999–2017) and director of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals (ISAE) at Wheaton College in Illinois. Blumhofer’s research focused on the history of Christianity in post–Civil War America and on the history of Protestant hymnody. As ISAE’s project director and then director (1999–2014), she and her colleagues studied the impact of the foreign missions movement on North America, the financing of American evangelicalism, evangelicals’ relationship to the mass media, and the legacy of evangelist Billy Graham. Previously, she was a religion grant officer for the Pew Charitable Trusts and an administrative director for the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion at the University of Chicago. She joined the OMSC Board of Trustees in December 2009 and was elected the board’s president in June 2014. She served as president until her death, encompassing a period of leadership and staff transitions at the ninety-eight-year-old ministry, which publishes the IBMR. By all accounts, she offered OMSC a steady hand during a period when the board had difficult decisions to make, including most recently to relocate the Center from New Haven to Princeton Theological Seminary. Tom Hastings, the OMSC executive director and IBMR editor, commented, “During an exceptionally difficult period of institutional transition, Edith stood in the gap as president of the OMSC trustees. Without her decisive leadership, faithful prayers, and unconditional support, we could never have made the strategic decisions needed to place OMSC onto the sustainable future trajectory we are now envisioning through our new partnership with Princeton Theological Seminary. Since starting as executive director in August 2016, I found Edith to be my strongest supporter and wisest counselor. I give thanks to God for her witness, fortitude, and integrity.” A Brooklyn native, Blumhofer also enjoyed cooking at a summer camp for inner city children in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. A consulting editor for Christianity Today and Christian Century, Blumhofer is author of Restoring the Faith: The Assemblies of God, Pentecostalism, and American Culture (1993), “Her Heart Can See”: The Life and Hymns of Fanny Crosby (2005), and many other titles. She is coeditor of Music in American Religious Experience (2005) and Sing Them Over Again to Me: Hymns and Hymnbooks in America (2006). Blumhofer’s many articles include “Revisiting Azusa Street: A Centennial Retrospect” (International Bulletin of Missionary Research 30, no. 2 [April 2006]: 59–64).
Christian and Muslim scholars, religious leaders, students, and invited guests gathered at the University of Ghana, Accra, February 26–29, 2020, to inaugurate The Sanneh Institute and participate in its first international conference, “Territoriality and Hospitality: Christians and Muslims Learning to Live Together.” The inaugural lectures were given by Rowan D. Williams, former archbishop of Canterbury, who is honorary professor of contemporary Christian thought, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge; and Farid Esack, a noted scholar of the Qur’an and of contemporary Islam from the University of Johannesburg, who is president of the International Qur’anic Studies Association. The conference and lectures “gave resounding witness to the extraordinary intellectual and spiritual legacy” of Lamin Sanneh, a leading expert on Christianity and Islam in Africa, in the words of invited guest Tom Hastings, the OMSC executive director and IBMR editor. A longtime OMSC Board of Trustees member and IBMR contributing editor until his death in January 2019, Sanneh was professor of missions and World Christianity at Yale Divinity School, which hosted a festive dinner at the conference for his family, friends, and associates. Sanneh’s son, Kelefa Sanneh, a staff writer for the New Yorker, addressed the crowd of more than 800 people on behalf of his family. Reflecting on his attendance at the inaugural, Hastings said, “The Sanneh Institute is poised to make a significant contribution to scholarship on ‘lived religion,’ which was Lamin’s lifelong existential interest and the North Star that guided his academic agenda.” The institute will publish the online, peer-reviewed Journal of Islamic and Christian Thought in Africa, house Sanneh’s library of 20,000 volumes, and host conferences, including a biannual Yale-Sanneh Lecture Series. For details, read Hastings’s comments online (www.omsc.org/news) and visit the institute’s web site (http://tsinet.org). John Azumah, the institute executive director (azumahj@tsinet.org) and an IBMR contributing editor, organized the inaugural events.
Died. Harold Vinson Synan, 85, American Pentecostal historian, ecumenist, educator, and author, March 15, 2020, in Oklahoma City, OK. He served as professor of Pentecostal and Charismatic history and director of the Holy Spirit Research Center at Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, OK. He was dean of the School of Divinity at Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA, before returning to Oral Roberts University as scholar-in-residence. He was general secretary and then assistant general superintendent of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church, cofounder of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, and chairman of the North American Renewal Service Committee, which organized four gatherings of the Congress on the Holy Spirit and World Evangelization. His 1967 PhD broke significant ground by establishing the historical roots of Pentecostalism in the Wesleyan tradition. Publication of The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in the United States (1971) established Synan as an authority in Pentecostal history and the Charismatic movement. As an ecumenical statesman, he frequently spoke at Catholic Charismatic Renewal meetings and participated in the Pentecostal-Catholic dialogue. Author of many books, he edited The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901–2001 (2001) and was coeditor of the four-volume series Global Renewal Christianity (2015–17). He wrote two personal memoirs, including Where He Leads Me: The Vinson Synan Story (2019). His latest global involvement was with Empowered21, since its inception in 2010.
—Wonsuk Ma
African Mission Healthcare (https://africanmissionhealthcare.org) announced in January 2020 that American surgeon Tom Catena will receive their 2019 Gerson L’Chaim Prize for “Outstanding Christian Medical Missionary Service.” The annual $500,000 award, sponsored by Jewish philanthropists Rabbi Erica and Mark Gerson, is said to be the world’s largest annual award dedicated to direct patient care. The recipient is selected by a panel of African clinical medicine leaders. Catena, a Catholic medical missionary from New York State, has served in Africa for twenty years and is the only surgeon for 1.3 million people. Since 2008 Catena, a graduate of Duke University Medical School and a former US Navy doctor, has been medical director at Mother of Mercy Hospital, Gidel, Sudan, a 435-bed Catholic hospital, the only hospital in the Nuba Mountains.
The twenty-fifth annual Global Missions Health Conference will be held November 12–14, 2020, at Southeast Christian Church, Louisville, KY. The speakers will include W. Philip Thornton, a consultant with Global Impact Missions, who was a missiology professor at Asbury University (1980–2008), and Mike Chupp, CEO of Christian Medical and Dental Associations, who was a missionary at World Gospel Mission’s Tenwek Mission Hospital, Bomet, Kenya. Christian Pharmacists Fellowship International leaders will meet at the same time. For details, go online to https://www.medicalmissions.com/events/gmhc-2020-25th-anniversary.
Organizers of the Eastern Fellowship of Professors of Mission plan to hold the 2020 annual meeting November 6–7 at the Maryknoll Mission Institute, Ossining, NY, with the theme “Missiological Perspectives on World Christianity.” “The plan is to reflect missiologically on some of the major trends identified in the third edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia,” said Daryl Ireland (dri@bu.edu), the contact for updates and details. He is associate director of the Center for Global Christianity and Mission, Boston University School of Theology. The speakers will include Lalsangkima Pachuau, professor of Christian mission and dean of advanced research programs, Asbury Theological Seminary; and Gina Zurlo, co-director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. An IBMR contributing editor, Zurlo was named one of BBC’s “100 inspiring and influential women from around the world for 2019.”
The United States Catholic Mission Association (https://uscatholicmission.org) will hold its 2020 national conference October 30–November 1 at the Wyndham Hotel, El Paso, TX, with the theme “Angels Unaware—Mission with People on the Move.” Before the conference, a “Border Awareness Experience” will be held at the Columban Mission Center, El Paso. “The latest revised projection is that there will be 405 million international migrants by 2050,” according to Donald R. McCrabb, the USCMA executive director. Conference attendees will be “in solidarity with the immigrant, the migrant, the refugee. Immigration will be a key issue in the 2020 elections. As missionary disciples, we do not see politics, we see people—sisters and brothers made in the image of God. Regardless of who wins, we want to welcome the stranger, be communities of peace, and be a collective voice for human dignity. This is a crucial moment for mission and the US Church,” he added.
