The BU Center for the Study of Asia, the BU Center for Global Christianity and Mission, and the Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs (CURA)

are very pleased to present

Dr. Paul S. Cha (University of Hong Kong)

Monday, February 13, 2023 from 4:00 to 5:30 pm

121 Bay State Road, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215

Discussant: Dana L. Robert

(William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor,
Director of the Center for Global Christianity and Mission, Boston University)

Abstract:

In 1935, the Japanese colonial government demanded that students at private schools operated by Protestant missionaries in P’yŏngyang bow at State Shinto shrine ceremonies. Neither the missionaries nor Korean Protestants uniformly rejected this order. Instead, their responses were multi-faceted, as the question of whether to bow at shrines was much more than a matter of religion or faith. Drawing from the speaker’s recently published book, Balancing Communities: Nation, State, and Protestantism in Korea, this talk will show how the shrine question laid bare long-standing tensions among missionaries, Koreans, and government officials over issues of church governance, political authority, and the boundaries of Christianity’s transnational message.

About the Speaker:

Paul S. Cha is an assistant professor of Korean studies in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Hong Kong.  He received his PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles and his MA from the University of Chicago. He specializes in modern Korean history, and his first book, Balancing Communities: Nation, State, and Protestant Christianity in Korea, 1884-1942, was published by the University of Hawai‘i Press in 2022. During 2022-2023, he is a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard-Yenching Institute, where he is writing a book on how the South Korean countryside became the nexus of a global religious Cold War after the outbreak of the Korean War.

About the Discussant:

Dr. Dana L. Robert is William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor, and Director of the Center for Global Christianity and Mission. Her research and teaching interests span mission history, World Christianity, and mission theology. An Editor of the journal Church History, during 2016-17 she was a Henry Luce III Fellow in Theology, and Senior Research Fellow at the Leibniz Institute of European History in Mainz, Germany. She is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2017, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Missiology. She has mentored over 80 doctoral students who serve in academic and ecclesial positions worldwide. Her books include Faithful Friendships: Embracing Diversity in Christian Community (2019); African Christian Biography: Stories, Lives, and Challenges (2018); Joy to the World!: Mission in the Age of Global Christianity (2010); Christian Mission: How Christianity Became a World Religion (2009, now in its twelfth printing); Converting Colonialism: Visions and Realities in Mission History, 1706-1914 (2008); Christianity: A Social and Cultural History (co-author, 1997), and the now classic American Women in Mission: A Social History of Their Thought and Practice (1997). She is on the Editorial Committee for the award-winning digital humanities project Dictionary of African Christian Biography and the Journal of African Christian Biography. An active lay United Methodist, in 2019 she spoke at the 150th anniversary of the United Methodist Women. In addition to STH, she is a faculty member in African Studies. Robert received her BA from Louisiana State University and her MA, MPhil, and PhD from Yale University.