Strong CGCM Presence at the American Society of Missiology and the Yale-Edinburgh Group Meetings
This year, the American Society of Missiology held its conference from June 18 to June 21. The theme was “Missio-logoi: The Many Languages of Mission,” and it focused on the way that words, images, and other forms of human expression relate to Christian mission. CGCM student Laura Chevalier presented her paper, “Mission Spirituality: Trends and Developments Since 1980.”
The CGCM also made a number of contributions at the Yale-Edinburgh Group’s meeting from June 25 to June 27. The theme of the meeting was Religion and Religions in the History of Missions and World Christianity, and several students associated with the CGCM presented papers (Soojin Chung, “Shamanism’s Impact on Korean Christianity”; Michèle Sigg, “The Contribution of Maurice Leenhardt (1878-1954), Missionary-Anthropologist, to the Founding and Growth of French Protestant Missiology”; Stephen Lloyd, “A Bridge to Heathendom? M.L. Daneel, Afrikaans Missiology, and Traditional African Religion”; and Eva Pascal, “Christian Friars and Buddhist Monks: The Making of Buddhism as a Rival ‘Religion’”).
The conference also included a section announcing new resources for the study of missions and world Christianity. Michèle Sigg updated listeners on the “African Dictionary of Christian Biography,” Gina Zurlo announced exciting changes to the forthcoming new edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia, while Eva Pascal and Stephen Lloyd previewed the “Old and New in Shona Religion” web project.
Both the ASM and Yale-Edinburgh meetings provided time for networking among the leading scholars and institutions focused on promoting the academic study of world Christianity and missions. They were successful events that promise to yield a good deal of fruit.
