World Christianity or global Christianity has been defined both as a term that attempts to convey the global nature of the Christian religion [1] [2] [3] and an academic field of study that encompasses analysis of the histories, practices, and discourses of Christianity as a world religion and its various forms as they are found on the six continents. [4] However, the term often focuses on "non-Western Christianity" which "comprises (usually the exotic) instances of Christian faith in 'the global South', in Asia, Africa, and Latin America." [5] It also includes Indigenous or diasporic forms of Christianity in the Caribbean, [6] South America, [6] Western Europe, [7] and North America. [7]
The term world Christianity can first be found in the writings of Francis John McConnell in 1929 and Henry P. Van Dusen in 1947. [10] [11] Van Dusen was also instrumental in establishing the Henry W. Luce Visiting Professorship in World Christianity at Union Theological Seminary in 1945, with Francis C. M. Wei invited as its first incumbent. [12] The term would likewise be used by the American historian and Baptist missionary Kenneth Scott Latourette, Professor of the History of Christianity at Yale Divinity School, to speak of the "World Christian Fellowship" and "World Christian Community". [13] [14] For these individuals, world Christianity was meant to promote the idea of Christian missions and ecumenical unity. However, after the end of World War II, as Christian missions ended in many countries, such as North Korea and China, and parts of Asia and Africa shifted due to decolonization and national independence, these aspects of world Christianity were largely lost. [15]
The current usage of the term puts much less emphasis in missions and ecumenism. [15] A number of historians have noted a twentieth-century "global shift" in Christianity, from a religion largely found in Europe and the Americas to one which is found in the Global South and Third World countries. [2] [3] [8] [9] [16] Hence, world Christianity has more recently been used to describe the diversity and the multiplicity of Christianity across its two-thousand-year history. [15]
Another term that is often used as analogous to world Christianity is the term global Christianity. However, scholars such as Lamin Sanneh have argued that global Christianity refers to a Eurocentric understanding of Christianity that emphasizes the replication of Christian forms and patterns in Europe, whereas world Christianity refers to the multiplicity of Indigenous responses to the Christian gospel. [17] Philip Jenkins and Graham Joseph Hill contend that Sanneh's distinction between world Christianity and global Christianity is artificial and unnecessary. [18] [19]
Some notable figures in the academic study of world Christianity include Andrew Walls, [20] Lamin Sanneh, [21] and Brian Stanley, [22] all three of whom are associated with the "Yale-Edinburgh Group on the History of the Missionary Movement and World Christianity". [23] More recently, Klaus Koschorke and the “Munich School” of World Christianity has been highlighted for its contribution in understanding the polycentric nature of world Christianity. [24]
In contrast to these historians, there is a growing number of theologians who have been engaging the field of world Christianity from the discipline of systematic theology, ecclesiology, and missiology. Some examples of this include the Pentecostal Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Catholic Peter C. Phan, and the Baptist Graham Joseph Hill. [25] [26] [27] [28]
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.4 billion followers representing one-third of the global population. Its adherents, known as Christians, are estimated to make up a majority of the population in 157 countries and territories, and believe that Jesus is the Son of God, whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible and chronicled in the New Testament.
The history of Christianity concerns the Christian religion, Christian countries, and the Christians with their various denominations, from the 1st century to the present. Christianity originated with the ministry of Jesus, a Jewish teacher and healer who proclaimed the imminent Kingdom of God and was crucified c. AD 30–33 in Jerusalem in the Roman province of Judea. His followers believe that, according to the Gospels, he was the Son of God and that he died for the forgiveness of sins and was raised from the dead and exalted by God, and will return soon at the inception of God's kingdom.
Missiology is the academic study of the Christian mission history and methodology. It began to be developed as an academic discipline in the 19th century.
The term Greek Orthodox Church has three meanings. The broader meaning designates "the entire body of Orthodox (Chalcedonian) Christianity, sometimes also called 'Eastern Orthodox,' 'Greek Catholic,' or generally 'the Greek Church'". The narrower meaning designates "any of several independent churches within the worldwide communion of (Eastern) Orthodox Christianity that retain the use of the Greek language in formal ecclesiastical settings". The third is the Church of Greece, the Eastern Orthodox church operating within the modern borders of Greece.
Christianization is a term for the specific type of change that occurs when someone or something has been or is being converted to Christianity. Christianization has, for the most part, spread through missions by individual conversions but has also, in some instances, been the result of coercion from governments or military leaders. Christianization is also the term used to designate the conversion of previously non-Christian practices, spaces and places to Christian uses and names. In a third manner, the term has been used to describe the changes that naturally emerge in a nation when sufficient numbers of individuals convert, or when secular leaders require those changes. Christianization of a nation is an ongoing process.
K. H. Ting, Ting Kuang-hsun or Ding Guangxun, was Chairperson emeritus of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and President emeritus of the China Christian Council, the government-approved Protestant church in China.
Black theology, or black liberation theology, refers to a theological perspective which originated among African-American seminarians and scholars, and in some black churches in the United States and later in other parts of the world. It contextualizes Christianity in an attempt to help those of African descent overcome oppression. It especially focuses on the injustices committed against African Americans and black South Africans during American segregation and apartheid, respectively.
Kenneth Scott Latourette was an American historian and professor, specialized in Chinese studies, Japanese studies, and the history of Christianity. His formative experiences as a Christian missionary and educator in early 20th-century Imperial China shaped his life's work. Although he did not learn the Chinese language, he became known for his study of the history of China, the history of Japan, his magisterial scholarly surveys on world Christianity, and of American relations with East Asia.
The concept of God in Abrahamic religions is centred on monotheism. The three major monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, alongside the Baháʼí Faith, Samaritanism, Druze, and Rastafari, are all regarded as Abrahamic religions due to their shared worship of the God that these traditions claim revealed himself to Abraham. Abrahamic religions share the same distinguishing features:
Christianity in Africa first arrived in Egypt in approximately 50 AD. By the end of the 2nd century it had reached the region around Carthage. In the 4th century, the Aksumite empire in modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea became one of the first regions in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion. The Nubian kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia followed two centuries later. From the late fifth and early sixth century, the region included several Christian Berber kingdoms. Important Africans who influenced the early development of Christianity and shaped the doctrines of Christianity include Tertullian, Perpetua, Felicity, Clement of Alexandria, Origen of Alexandria, Cyprian, Athanasius and Augustine of Hippo.
Church renewal is a term widely used by church leaders to express hope for revitalization of the Church in light of the decline of Christianity in many western countries. The idea of a post-Christian era has made church renewal a popular topic of study among many commentators.
The phrase false god is a derogatory term used in Abrahamic religions to indicate cult images or deities of non-Abrahamic Pagan religions, as well as other competing entities or objects to which particular importance is attributed. Conversely, followers of animistic and polytheistic religions may regard the gods of various monotheistic religions as "false gods", because they do not believe that any real deity possesses the properties ascribed by monotheists to their sole deity. Atheists, who do not believe in any deities, do not usually use the term false god even though that would encompass all deities from the atheist viewpoint. Usage of this term is generally limited to theists, who choose to worship some deity or deities, but not others.
Postchristianity is the situation in which Christianity is no longer the dominant civil religion of a society but has gradually assumed values, culture, and worldviews that are not necessarily Christian. Post-Christian tends to refer to the loss of Christianity's monopoly in historically Christian societies to atheism or secularism. It does not include formerly Christian-majority societies that now follow other religions such as Islam.
Lamin Sanneh was the D. Willis James Professor of Missions and World Christianity at Yale Divinity School and Professor of History at Yale University.
Christianity and colonialism are often closely associated with each other due to the service of Christianity, in its various sects, as the state religion of the historical European colonial powers, in which Christians likewise made up the majority. Through a variety of methods, Christian missionaries acted as the "religious arms" of the imperialist powers of Europe. According to Edward E. Andrews, Associate Professor of Providence College Christian missionaries were initially portrayed as "visible saints, exemplars of ideal piety in a sea of persistent savagery". However, by the time the colonial era drew to a close in the later half of the 20th century, missionaries were viewed as "ideological shock troops for colonial invasion whose zealotry blinded them", colonialism's "agent, scribe and moral alibi".
Andrew Finlay Walls was a British historian of missions, best known for his pioneering studies of the history of the African church and a pioneer in the academic field of World Christianity.
The Centre for the Study of World Christianity (CSWC) is a research centre based in New College, the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh. It was founded in the University of Aberdeen by Andrew F. Walls as the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World in 1982, but later moved by Walls to the University of Edinburgh in 1986. Its current name was adopted in 2009. The centre is currently directed by Alexander Chow and Emma Wild-Wood.
Harold A. Netland, is a missionary educator turned academic. He is the author or editor of nine books and many journal articles on the topic of religion and philosophy.
TheYale-Edinburgh Group on World Christianityand the History of Mission founded in 1992 is an annual conference about world Christianity, which holds alternatively at Yale Divinity School or New College, University of Edinburgh.
Christian doctrines, ideologies and beliefs have influenced the manner in which human interactions with land, soil, and plants are manifested, both as a historical interplay between Christianity and land, and more contemporary movements where diverse sets of biblical readings, theological interpretations and Christian ethics are manifested in Christian approaches to food production.