2023 Wesleyan Theological Society Annual Meeting & Call for Papers
Wesleyan Theological Society Annual Meeting
March 2-4, 2023
Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky
To Spread Through All the Earth Abroad: Wesleyan-Holiness Theology and Global Christianity
Plenary Session Speaker:
Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu
Baeta-Grau Professor of African Christianity and Pentecostal Theology
President, Trinity Theological Seminary, Legon, Ghana
Paper proposals are invited on a wide range of topics that might enable Wesleyan-Holiness theology to intersect with the “global south” where much of the vibrancy of Christianity can be found today. Questions might include (but are not limited to): In what ways can Wesleyan soteriology and other theological distinctives help inform the growing theological activity in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania? How can it be global? How can they be contextualized in ways that celebrate the uniqueness of various cultures or national identities while remaining distinctively Wesleyan? What can North American Wesleyan-Holiness theologians learn from their counterparts in the southern hemisphere? How can Christian spirituality and praxis in those regions of the world help revitalize the Wesleyan tradition in North America and help us rethink Wesleyan theology? In what ways do non-Western Christians in diaspora reshape North American churches in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition? How was the Wesleyan-Holiness revival, along with its core teachings, transmitted and appropriated in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania? In what ways did it ride on the coattails of colonialism? How did it contribute to social transformation? What were its connections to the growth of global Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity?
Papers from scholars from all academic disciplines focusing on these intersections are encouraged. Here are some examples:
- Biblical Studies: Explore passages pertaining to cross-cultural missions, inculturation, cross-inter-cultural intersections, or Jewish-Gentile interactions in the early Christian communities.
- Historical Studies: Tell stories of how Wesleyan, Methodist, or Holiness missions developed in countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, or Oceania. Think how the Wesleyan revival, with its core doctrines, was transmitted and appropriated in these regions. How did it contribute to social change? How did it intersect with global Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity?
- Intercultural Studies: Examine how can Wesleyan soteriology and other theological distinctives help inform the growing theological activity in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania. Investigate how non-Western Christians in diaspora are reshaping North American churches in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition.
- Moral Theology: Contemplate how might Wesleyan-Holiness theology’s intersection with global Christianity be brought to bear on contemporary understandings of justice in its various dimensions.
- Practical Theology/Christian Formation: Examine non-Western Wesleyan spirituality and identify best practices for the revitalization of the Wesleyan-Holiness churches in the West.
- Systematic Theology: Formulate a Wesleyan theology of missions or intercultural relations.
- Theology and Pop Culture: Examine American popular Christian culture (eg. books, music, movies) and its impact among Christians in the southern hemisphere. Investigate non-Western pop culture phenomena in the West (eg. K-Pop, etc.) and their implications for Western and non-Western Christian relations.
- Theology and Preaching: Rethink the preaching of missions by taking into account the shift of Christianity’s vitality to the southern hemisphere.
- Women’s Studies: Examine the role of prominent indigenous women leaders or pioneers and their contributions. Demonstrate how the Wesleyan-Holiness traditions’ contact with the non-Western cultures empowered women in those cultures and those from the West.
Submit 2023 Paper proposals to the link below: (Due October 1st, 2022)
https://forms.gle/jMzqHaNMFnzzzGVRA
For information on membership renewals and annual meeting registration, click on this link or visit WTSociety.com/annual-meeting.