Call for Papers: Chinese Christianities

For the AAR 2018 meeting in Denver, CO, the call for papers has gone out, with a deadline of March 1. You can see the full listing of program units on their website: https://papers.aarweb.org/program_units. Certain program units may be of interest, such as the World Christianity Unit. In particular, I would like to draw your attention to the Chinese Christianities Seminar, which I chair:

This seminar provides a collaborative forum for scholars of different disciplines to engage in an academic discourse about the field of Chinese Christianities. Christianity is the fastest growing religion in mainland China today, and arguably the religion of choice for a growing number of diasporic Chinese. “Chinese” is an expansive term, including mainland China proper as well as a large, linguistically, and culturally diverse diaspora, and encompassing more than a fifth of the world’s population; the Han Chinese people are sometimes described as the world’s largest ethnic group. Hence, with the increasing critical mass of Chinese Christians, there has likewise been a growing academic interest in various instantiations of Chinese Christianities, as understood across geographies (e.g., mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, North America, etc.) and groupings (e.g., house and state-sanctioned churches, Catholic, Pentecostal, etc.).Chinese Christianities both transcend and hinder a number of regional, social, religious, etc. boundaries. Over the course of these five years, this seminar will offer a unique opportunity for scholars to engage and to debate the implications of the multiplicity of Chinese Christianities with regards to the boundaries they engage.

Developing the overarching theme of “Chinese Christianities” and building on the first three years, this fourth year of the seminar will focus on various ecclesiological boundaries. We welcome papers in the following or related areas:

• The relationship between various Chinese Christian groups (e.g., house church vs. TSPM, underground vs. CCPA, Catholic vs. Protestant).
• The rejection and resurgence of denominational/confessional identities (e.g., the local church, the post-denominational era, cultural Christians, Chinese American churches).
• Church unions and schisms, ecumenism and independency (e.g., Church of Christ in China, Lausanne/WCC, Sino-Vatican relations).
• Transnational and transregional networks (e.g., Cantonese or Wenzhou networks, house church networks).

I am happy to field any informal enquiries about the Chinese Christianities Seminar. Otherwise, please submit proposals through the online system.

Kind regards,