Alumni
BU Alum’s Editorial Work Highlights Christian Growth in Nepal
Dr. George Harper (GRS '92), editor of the Journal of Asian Evangelical Theology (JAET), has recently co-edited a joint issue of JAET and the Journal of Asian Mission (JAM), which is edited by his wife, Dr. Anne Harper. The joint issue documents the history of Catholic and Protestant Christianity in Nepal and describes current initiatives in mission. As Anne Harper notes in her introduction to the issue, this country is experiencing tremendous Christian growth at this time. The journal can be accessed through the ATLA Religion Database, EBSCOhost, and ProQuest.
George and Anne Harper have spent their lives serving as missionary academics. George has spent the majority of his teaching career in the Philippines, where he taught at first at Alliance Biblical Seminary and subsequently at the Asia Graduate School of Theology, where he continues in his faculty position to this day. You can read Dr. Harper's full greetings to the CGCM community, as well as the details of his and Anne's work, in this letter.
New Books on Methodist Mission from Dr. David W. Scott
CGCM alumnus David W. Scott has just co-authored Methodist Mission at 200: Serving Faithfully amid the Tensions (Abingdon Press, 2021) with Thomas Kemper. Dr. Scott is the Director of Mission Theology for the Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church. He is also the co-author of a forthcoming book entitled The Practice of Mission in Global Methodism: Emerging Trends from Everywhere to Everywhere, with Darryl W. Stephens. Congratulations to Dr. Scott for his work on these exciting new volumes!
Alumnus Appointed Executive Coordinator of Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission
Dr. Bruce Yoder ('16) has recently been appointed one of the two Executive Coordinators of Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission (AIMM), alongside John Fumana of the Mennonite Bretheren Church of the Congo. Presently a member of Listowel Mennonite Church in Ontario, Yoder has spent 26 years in mission work in West Africa and Latin America, most recently serving as a missiologist in seminaries in Burkina Faso and Benin. He will begin to take up this new work for AIMM in January 2021.
In response to his appointment, Yoder says, “With over a century of missionary engagement, AIMM’s work has been instrumental in the development of multiple African Mennonite/Anabaptist churches; intercultural relationships between African, North American, and European partners; and transnational Anabaptist networks. Time and again I am amazed and inspired by the vitality and resilience of the African Church and am pleased for the opportunity to engage partners on the continent and around the world to advance their collaborative mission initiatives. I’m humbled and honored to be able to contribute to this tradition of mission engagement in Africa and beyond."
Read the full report from Twila Albrecht, AIMM Search Committee Secretary, here.
New Book: Making Christ Present in China
Congratulations to Dr. Michel Chambon, who has just published Making Christ Present in China: Actor Network Theory and the Anthropology of Christianity with Palgrave Macmillan. The work focuses on material culture and uses actor-network theory to investigate the development of Christianity in Nanping, China. Dr. Chambon, who graduated with a PhD in anthropology, was an affiliate of the CGCM while studying at BU.
Alumnae Receive Grant to Study “The Christian Home” in Global Protestant Thought
Alumna Dr. Ruth Padilla DeBorst to Speak at Mission Conference
During October 15-17, Missão ALEF will be holding a virtual conference entitled "Igreja e Cidade: Vocação e Missão." One of the featured speakers is Dr. Ruth Padilla DeBorst ('16), CGCM alumna, presenting alongside other featured speakers--Mac Pier, Ed Stetzer, Samuel Escobar, and Viv Grigg.
See the conference promotional video below, and click here to register!
Former Missionary in Residence Laments Severe Flooding in Niger
Joel Gray, a former Missionary in Residence with the CGCM, describes devastating flooding in Niamey, Niger. Joel and his wife Karen evacuated their home at the end of August, and had to evacuate again at the beginning of September. They write,
Thousands of people in Niamey have lost their houses and their food. Our places of ministry, Sahel Academy and ESPriT Bible School, are completely under water. Some city streets are impassable and traffic for many people has become an increasing challenge....For two weeks we worked in teams to salvage furniture and equipment. Teams wadded into sometimes neck-high water...other teams drive the furniture and school equipment to dry places around town to wash, dry, and fight back mold.
Jesudas Athyal on Christian Proselytization and Question of “Success” in India
Dr. Jesudas Athyal, Acquiring Editor in World Christianity for Fortress Press and former CGCM visiting researcher, is engaging in public debate about the role of proselytization in Indian Christianity. His recent article, "Christianity Hasn't Failed in India. Conversion Isn't Its Only Goal," published in The Print, argues that Christianity's success in India today cannot be measured by statistics alone. He argues that conversion was in many cases not the explicit goal of missionaries, many of whom wanted to live alongside people, support work for social improvement, and witness to their faith through strategies of "permeation" rather than proselytization. Athyal also points to the ways that persecution and multiple religious belonging can skew demographic data on religion.
Dr. Athyal closes his article noting the inconsistency of those who would blame Christianity for making little headway in India but who would agree with anti-conversion laws that violate religious freedom. He ends by saying, "A propaganda has been unleashed on several levels to present Indian Christianity as a failed project. However, the arguments that could convince the faithful may not stand scholarly scrutiny."
Phillip Jenkins recently highlighted Athyal's arguments in an article on the blog The Anxious Bench, where he urges greater recognition of the pressures faced by Christians in India today.
Dr. Athyal is also a co-author of Understanding World Christianity: India (Fortress, 2016), with Dyron B. Daughrity, as well as many articles in the field of World Christianity.
Michele Sigg Named DACB Executive Director
Congratulations to Dr. Michèle Sigg, who has recently been appointed the Executive Director of the Dictionary of African Christian Biography (DACB). Formerly, she had been serving as Associate Director of the DACB, and she also serves as Editor of the Journal of African Christian Biography (JACB).
Dr. Sigg has written several articles on women in African Christianity. She is also contributing a chapter on women’s spirituality in Sixteenth-Century Mission: Global Mission in the Age of Reformations (2021), and an entry on “Christianity in Lesotho” in the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2020). She is also working on a monograph on French Protestant women and mission (2021).
Read her full biography here, and visit the DACB to see some of the most recent stories, which include biographies of several Angolan Protestant ministers, the Ghanaian oral theologian Afua Kuma, and the Catholic theologian Charles Nyamiti.
Alumnus Named Director of Practical Theology and Mission at Westcott House
The Rev. Dr. Julian Gotobed ('3, '11) has been named Director of Practical Theology and Mission at Westcott House, an Anglican theological college in Cambridge, England. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Gotobed served as Senior Lecturer at the University of Roehampton.
Gotobed completed his PhD dissertation, "Living with Jesus: Practical Christologies in Two Boston American Baptist Churches," in 2011 under the direction of Dean Bryan Stone and Dr. Nancy Ammerman.
Congratulations to Dr. Gotobed for taking on this new position!