Understanding World Christianity
World Christianity is notoriously difficult to define. In my understanding of World Christianity I draw upon my experience as an Anglican. A decade ago, as a young priest I traveled to Kenya for a seminar on HIV/AIDS. On a Sunday morning I attended a worship service at St. Paul’s Anglican Cathedral in Kampala. I was delighted to see so many people and a bishop in attendance. While most parts of the worship were familiar, I was shocked when the service ended without communion. Back home, such a thing would never have happened. One of the main duties of the bishop is to preside at communion and given this was a cathedral it was hard to make sense of what was going on. I was later told that they communion was once a month. Two years later, I was visiting Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, England. I felt like a pilgrim visiting a holy site. Here, at this most historic place in England and Anglican history, I witnessed for the first time in my life the work of ordained women. My church back home did not admit women to the ministry and so it was particularly refreshing as it was eye opening to see women and men working in shared ministry. Two months after my visit in England, I came to the United States for graduate school. Here I found that this branch of Anglicanism called the Episcopal Church, in addition to a decade’s long history of admitting women to ministry, it was also admitting LGBTQ persons and working on blessing same sex marriages.
My experiences in Kenya, England and USA shattered the image I had about what a proper Anglican looked like. Moreover, I discovered that the Anglican family was not as peaceful as I once thought it to be. Disputes about admitting LGBTQ persons were especially dividing the church and part of the struggle was a deep desire to claim an authentic Anglican identity however elusive it proves to be. History and culture have ensured that profound complexities and differences exist within Anglicanism that do not readily render themselves to simple explanations.
Anglicanism is just one denomination. I often use my transcontinental, transcultural Anglican experience to understand World Christianity. Anglicanism is not World Christianity, but a part of it. From my perspective then, World Christianity is like Anglicanism on steroids: World Christianity eludes definition and its constituent parts are products of history, culture and local agency. Consequently, a temptation arises to determine who is included and who is excluded. To define World Christianity, we have to look into particular contexts and how Christians in those contexts live out their faith. What we find on the ground will define World Christianity.
Derrick M. Muwina
PhD Student in Theology and Ethics, School of Theology