Scholars

Dana L. Robert
BA Louisiana State University
PhD Yale University

Professor Dana Robert, Truman Collins Professor of World Christianity and Mission History at Boston University, co-directs the Center. Widely regarded as a leading mission historian, she has conducted extensive research on the contributions of missionary women and on many aspects of mission history. Her students have become professors or mission-minded pastors in Korea, Kenya, Albania, Estonia, Brazil, China, the Philippines, Mozambique, Taiwan, India, and the U.S.

Marthinus L. Daneel
BA (Hons) University of Stellenbosch, South Africa
ThD Free University, Amsterdam

Professor Marthinus Daneel, emeritus professor of missiology at the University of South Africa, and now a professor at the School of Theology, co-directs the Center, directs the African Field Education program in Zimbabwe, and edits the African Initiatives in Christian Mission series from UNISA Press with Professor Robert. Over thirty years of ministry and research in Zimbabwe have made him the world's leading expert on African Independent Churches in southern Africa and have enabled him to establish deep, grassroots networks among African Christian and traditionalist communities. These networks have informed Professor Daneel's pathbreaking research into African religion and continue to provide unparalleled opportunities for theological outreach and investigation.

Fellow of the Center for Global Christianity and Mission

Jon Kirby, SVD
PhD Cambridge University

Dr. Jon Kirby is a visiting Lecturer at Boston University and is a fellow with the Center.

Glen Alton Messer, II
BFA Eastern Michigan University
MDiv Boston University
ThD Boston University

Dr. Glen Messer is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Boston University and is a fellow with the Center.

Faculty in Related Fields with Interest in Global Christianity

Betty S. Anderson, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of History
Middle East and World History

Linda M. Heywood, PhD
Professor, Department of History
African History and African Diaspora

Eugenio Menegon, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of History
Chinese History, Chinese-Western Relations in the Late Imperial Period

John Thornton, PhD
Professor, Department of History
African, Atlantic, and World History

Advisory Board

Jack Ammerman
BA Southwest Baptist College
MDiv The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
MLn Emory University
DMin Princeton Theological Seminary

Dr. Ammerman is head librarian at the Boston University School of Theology. He oversees the collection of works on mission studies and world Christianity, and the scanning of resources in the history of missiology. The School of Theology library has collected systematically the microform works of the western mission societies, material pertaining to the history of the ecumenical movement, microform journals of women's missionary organizations, and other material vital to research in global Christianity and mission studies. Within the library, the Bible collection of the Massachusetts Bible Society and major hymnological collections also provide rich resources for researching the social history of the world Christian movement.

David Hempton
BA Queen's University Belfast
PhD St. Andrews University, Scotland

Dr. Hempton is the Alonzo L. McDonald Family Professor of Evangelical Theological Studies at the Divinity School at Harvard University. He is the eminent author of award-winning works on the social history of Methodism, including: Methodism and Politics in British Society 1750-1850 (Stanford University Press, 1984), winner of the Whitfield prize of the Royal Historical Society; ‘Methodism in Irish Society 1770-1830’ proxime accessit for the Alexander Medal of the Royal Historical Society (1986); Evangelical Protestantism in Ulster Society 1740-1890 (Routledge, 1992), chosen by the Epworth Review’s millennium edition as one of the five best books written on the Methodist tradition; Religion and Political Culture in Britain and Ireland: From the Glorious Revolution to the Decline of Empire (Cambridge University Press, 1996), short listed for the Ewart-Biggs Memorial prize; The Religion of the People: Methodism and Popular Religion c. 1750-1900 (Routledge, 1996); and ‘Faith and Enlightenment’ in the New Oxford History of the British Isles (2002). His forthcoming book An Empire of the Spirit: The Rise of Methodism in a New World Order 1730-1880 (Yale University Press, 2004) has been awarded the Jesse Lee Prize. Dr. Hempton's skill as a social historian is a valuable resource for understanding the spread of Christianity as a global movement.

James Pritchett
BA Ohio State University
AM, PhD Harvard University

Dr. Pritchett, Director of the African Studies Center at Boston University, is an expert on traditional social organization in Zambia. With the second-oldest African studies program in the United States, Boston University supports a major African studies library, and significant faculty resources in African languages, history, anthropology, archeology, and regions. Christianity is growing faster in Africa than any other part of the world. Resources in African Studies are thus an important complement to the Center for Global Christianity and Mission.

Students

The Center for Global Christianity and Mission is educating professors of mission and world Christianity, both for the growing network of theological schools in the nonwestern world, and for American seminaries and Bible colleges. We seek add two graduate fellowships a year. This is a priority for the Center because many of our graduate students in mission studies are either missionaries or international students with too few resources to meet the prohibitive cost of living in the Boston area. Contributions for the support of doctoral and research students is gratefully accepted.