The American Society of Missiology (ASM) will hold its 2024 annual meeting June 14–16 at St. Mary’s College, South Bend, IN with “Mission with Children, Youth, and Young Adults” as its theme. In a reflection on the gospel stories of Jesus inviting children into the circle of his disciples, Judith Gundry, a research scholar and adjunct professor of New Testament at Yale Divinity School, New Haven, CT, observes that the “Gospels teach the reign of God as a children’s world, where children are the measure . . . where the small are great and the great must become small. That is, the Gospel teaching calls the adult world radically into question” [“To Such as These Belongs the Reign of God’: Jesus and Children,” Theology Today 56, no. 4 (2000): 469–80.] The 2024 ASM meeting “seeks to explore this radical teaching for its missiological implications in multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary ways,” according to the online announcement. Plenary sessions will feature papers on suggested topics such as the meaning of childhood and youth in the Bible, the use of childhood metaphors in the Bible, and how these could be interpreted in a variety of missiological contexts today. The practice of establishing colleges and orphanages, the diversity of cultural views of childhood and young adulthood and their missiological implications, the anthropology of childhood, and theological reflections on international development, child sponsorship practices, and human trafficking are also topics that may amplify the theme. Korean-language papers and a variety of panel discussions are also being planned. The ASM President is Benjamin L. Hartley, Associate Professor of Mission and World Christianity in the School of Theology at Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, WA. For details, go online to https://www.asmweb.org/content/annual-meeting or email the conference coordinator at asmissiologyconference@gmail.com.
Beginning the day before the American Society of Missiology meeting and being held at the same college in South Bend, IN, and online, the Association of Professors of Mission (APM) and the Academy for Evangelism in Theological Education (AETE) will hold their 2024 annual meeting jointly, June 13–14, with “Trauma-Informed Witness: Transformation of the World in Light of the Gospel” as its theme. Plenary sessions and panel discussions “will explore the implications of a trauma-informed lens and ways we might participate in practices that more fully cooperate with God’s transformative agenda for our trauma-filled world. The two thousand years since Pentecost—both outside the church and within—have featured extraordinary, continuing trauma, emphatically including trauma caused by Christians, even Christians acting in the name of the church. Sexual abuse and misogyny, the acceptance of attacks and domination of racialized bodies, violence, and oppression outside the church and within, polarization and the pain of disunity, cannot be denied,” the conference announcement says. “What are the missiological implications of this trauma, including the trauma of denial? Failures of truth-telling at a collective level are failures of prophetic Gospel witness. At a personal level, trauma-informed ministry emphasizes safety, trust, peer support, collaboration, empowerment, and cultural awareness. Professors of mission and evangelism are called to participate in the transformation of the world in light of the Gospel. How can each of us, and the churches we serve, better practice trauma-informed witness?” the announcement asks. The APM President is Bryan Froehle, professor of sociology and religious studies at Palm Beach Atlantic University, West Palm Beach, FL. The AETE President is Beth Seversen, Associate Professor at LCC International University, Klaipėda, Lithuania. For details, go online to www.asmweb.org/apm.
Yale Divinity School, New Haven, CT, will host the 2024 annual meeting of the Yale-Edinburgh Group on World Christianity and the History of Mission June 26–28, with the theme “Spirit and the Spiritual: Ancestors, Deities and the Holy Spirit in Church, and Mission.” According to the conference announcement, “Missions from the West brought Christianity into worlds with a wide array of cosmologies. Recipient cultures embraced Christian faith while negotiating differing perspectives of spiritual realities. The subsequent transition from missionary Christianity to indigenous faith produced a range of responses to the notion of ‘spiritual beings.’ Through mission, Christianity encountered traditional religions which venerated ancestors, revered spiritual beings, and navigated intricate relationships between deities in a world far more complex than the typical Western experience.” These “multifaceted cosmologies continue to animate the Christian experience producing dynamic expressions of the faith. Movements of the Holy Spirit represent another dimension of Christianity. A wide range of pneumatic Christianities populate the long history of Christian expansion around the world,” the online statement noted. The conference is sponsored by the Centre for the Study of World Christianity at the University of Edinburgh and Yale Divinity School. For details, go online to https://divinity.yale.edu/faculty-research/programs-and-initiatives/yale-edinburgh-group-world-christianity-and-history-mission.
The Society of Asian Biblical Studies (SABS) will hold its biennial meeting July 10–15, 2024 at Yu-Shan Theological College and Seminary, Shoufeng Township, Hualien, Taiwan. Participants will explore the theme “Biblical Hermeneutics in Indigenous Perspectives.” Plenary sessions are being planned to include “reflections on, and engagements around, two critical questions: What does the Bible have to do with Indigenous matters, in Asia and beyond? [and] what could the Indigenous—peoples, cultures, civilizations, wisdoms, arts, concerns, struggles, prides, and other matters—in Asia and beyond, contribute to biblical studies?” according to the online announcement. Papers will be given that reflect on the theme of “Indigenous subjects (peoples, concerns, agendas, etc.) in biblical texts—both the obvious ones and the hidden, disguised, or erased ones,” the announcement notes. Papers that focus on other areas of biblical studies are also being considered “with special attention to Asia and the Asian diaspora.” The SABS President is Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon, Associate Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity, Parkville, Victoria, Australia. For details, go online to https://www.sabs-site.org/news/biennial-meeting-2024.
The Baptist Scholars International Roundtable (BSIR) will hold its nineteenth annual meeting at Christ Church, University of Oxford, August 4–7, 2024, with “Baptists and Global Mission” as its theme. Papers will be presented on topics “from a broad array of disciplines [that] consider how Baptists worldwide have thought about missions and engaged in missionary work—as well as how locals of different backgrounds appropriated, resisted, and/or disseminated the message and work of Baptist missionaries,” according to the conference announcement. Organizers are particularly interested in “approaches centered around Baptist groups outside the United States and Europe, even if such groups are studied in relation to Baptists in the West.” Plenary topics will consider themes such as the historical role of Western influences on Baptists in the Global South, geopolitical implications of Baptist Global missions, the impact of individual Baptist missionaries, rhetorical analysis of missionary writings, the contributions and complexities that Baptist missionaries introduced in the Global South via theological education, and qualitative or quantitative explorations from the social sciences related to Baptist missions. BSIR encourages participation by scholars from all career stages, especially junior scholars and doctoral candidates. While papers will pertain to the Baptist expression of Christianity, scholars from all faiths are welcome. BSIR’s Distinguished Fellow for the 2024 conference will be Loida I. Martell, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean at Lexington Seminary, Lexington, KY. For details, go online to https://religion.artsandsciences.baylor.edu/affiliated-programs/baptist-studies-center-research/baptist-scholars-international-roundtable-4.
