News of the extended network of faculty, alumni, students, visiting researchers, and mission partners is regularly updated, and some of the big ideas or major events in Global Christianity are covered in the CGCM News.
Author Event: Dr. Jonathan Calvillo to Speak on “The Saints of Santa Ana”
On March 31 at 8pm EST, Dr. Jonathan Calvillo will speak on his recent book, The Saints of Santa Ana: Faith and Ethnicity in a Mexican Majority City. Please feel free to share the attached flyers with others who might be interested! The flyers are available in both English and Spanish.
The Zoom link is: https://zoom.us/j/98359237208?pwd=ekYxNVBPOFo2UU1PRHgzTmpzY3c2QT09
You can also listen to an interview with Dr. Calvillo in which he describes the surprises he encountered along the way in his research.
Boston Area Ministers to Speak on “Mission in a Time of Pandemic”
On Friday, March 19, a panel of Boston area ministers will discuss mission and ministry in the United States during a time of pandemic. The speakers will be the Rev. Tyler Sit, the planter of New City Church; Dominic J.S. Mejia, outgoing Director of University Student and Young Adult at Harvard-Epworth UMC; and the Rev. Britta Meiers Carlson, founder of Iglesia Nuevo Amanecer. Learn more about the speakers in the event flier.
The event will take place from 9:30am-10:45am. The event is open to all; if you would like to join, email Rev. Carlson (bmcarlso@bu.edu) to request the Zoom link.
2021 Orlando E. Costas Consultation
On March 12, 1pm-4pm, the Boston Theological Interreligious Consortium will host the annual Orlando E. Costas Consultation. This year's theme is "Mission Spiritualities in a Time of Global Trauma." The event is open to all, and the link for registration is available in the event flier.
You can direct any questions to info@globalchristianity.org.
CGCM Associate Director to Speak at China Christianity Studies Group
The 2021 annual meeting of the China Christianity Studies Group will be held virtually on Friday, March 26 – 7:30-9:15PM Eastern Time (US), in parallel with the Association for Asian Studies' 2021 virtual conference. Dr. Daryl Ireland, CGCM Associate Director, and Dr. Eugenio Menegon, CGCM faculty associate, are among the speakers at this meeting.
- Daryl Ireland (Boston University)- Eugenio Menegon (Boston University)- Naomi Thurston (Chinese University of Hong Kong)- Stephanie M. Wong (Valparaiso University)- Xiaoxin Wu (Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History)
Documentaries on Faith Community Responses to Pandemic in a North Carolina City
BU alumnus Dr. Kendal Mobley (’04), Associate Professor of Religion and Coordinator of the Spiritual Life Center at Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU), is leading the effort to create a series of documentary videos called Crisis and Compassion, showing how diverse religious communities in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg region of North Carolina are responding to the pandemic by working with local service providers, local government, and other faith communities to meet the needs. Each episode is accompanied by a study guide. Three episodes have been released, with at least three more in the pipeline.
Mobley’s team includes JCSU students Exodus Moon and Iyanla Parsanlal, along with LeDayne McLeese Polaski, Executive Director of Mecklenburg Metropolitan Interfaith Network (MeckMIN). “Leading the Crisis and Compassion project has been exciting and rewarding,” said Mobley. “I’ve been honored to bear witness to the courage and devotion of people and organizations from diverse religious perspectives, and to offer them the chance to tell their own stories. In a very dark time, they offer an example that is enlightening, empowering, and hopeful. They show us the virtues and values that will carry us through this crisis: compassion, respect for human dignity, sacrificial love, humility, unity, and
cooperation.”
Crisis and Compassion is part of a larger project called Bridge Builders Charlotte. Led by Queens University's Belk Chapel and funded by Interfaith Youth Core and the Gambrell Foundation, campus teams from Central Piedmont Community College, Davidson College, JCSU, University of North Carolina Charlotte, Queens University, and Wingate University are strengthening local efforts to help the Charlotte community recover from and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Journal Organizes Special Issue on “Research with Religio-Cultural Heritage in Africa”
Papers may be submitted from now until 31 December 2021 as papers will be published on an ongoing basis. Submitted papers should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere. We also encourage authors to send a short abstract or tentative title to the Editorial Office in advance (david.ren@mdpi.com).
Guest Editors
Chammah J. Kaunda
The United Graduate School of Theology, Yonsei University
ckaunda@yonsei.ac.kr
Tinyiko S. Maluleke
of Pretoria
China Historical Christian Database Receives Generous Challenge Grant
China Historical Christian Database (CHCD)
The Center for Global Christianity and Mission has launched a project that is using the power of computing to record where every Christian church, school, hospital, publishing house, and the like, were located in China between 1550 and 1950. The database also documents who worked inside those buildings, both foreign and Chinese. Using the database, all those interested in the history of Christianity in China can see networks of connections between Christian workers and institutions and observe the spread not only of Christianity, but also of other social trends, such as female education or the use of biomedicine.
This ambitious bi-lingual project (functioning in English and Chinese) has international appeal. In 2020, 266 scholars from 28 countries participated in a workshop on the CHCD. In order to accommodate the demands to input new research and improve the end-user's experience, though, the CHCD needs financial resources.
Recently, an anonymous donor gave a $50,000 challenge grant: any donation given to the CHCD over the next five years will be matched, dollar-for-dollar, up to $50,000. This is the time to make a gift or a pledge and transform the way we think about modern China and Chinese Christianity!
Read more about this new opportunity for the CHCD here.
Seminar: “Jesuits, Women and the Domestic Christianity in Early Modern China”
The University of Oxford China Centre is hosting a seminar on Thursday, February 18, at 5pm. Dr. Nadine Amsler, a Fellow of Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, will give a presentation entitled "Jesuits, Women and the Domestic Christianity in Early Modern China."
This talk will discuss the connections between Jesuits, women and domestic worship in seventeenth-century China. Women have long played a marginal role in narratives of the Jesuit China mission. Following Jesuit narratives, historians have focused their attention mainly on activities based in the semi-public spaces of Jesuit residencies and churches when investigating early modern Chinese Christianity. However, in order to gain insights into Christian women’s devotional lives in China, it is necessary to shift the attention to the spaces that Chinese Confucian thinking associated with the female gender: the household. The talk will start with a review of the Jesuits’ view of Chinese women. It will show how the missionaries’ accommodation strategy had important – and probably unintended – side-effects for their masculinity, and how this prompted them to adjust their behaviour towards women. It will then turn to the household as a devotional space and argue that it was an important site of female religiosity and worship. Finally, the talk will examine Christian women’s domestic religiosity. It will focus on one particular case, namely the home of the eminent Xu family of Shanghai, to show how genteel Christian women in Jiangnan organized their religious life in seventeenth-century China.
If you would like to attend, please register here.
The event will take place via Microsoft Teams. Any questions may be directed to giulia.falato@orinst.ox.ac.uk.
Symposium on Sino-Christian Architecture
On April 19-21, 2021, the history department at Whitworth University (Washington, USA) will host a symposium on Sino-Christian Architecture. The events are open to the public, and the Zoom link can be found in the event flier. The schedule will be as follows:
Monday, 19 April (USA, Pacific Time)Introduction: 8:00-8:05 am - Dr. Amanda C. R. Clark (Whitworth University)Talk 1: 8:05-9:15 am - Dr. Anthony E. Clark (Whitworth University)Talk 2: 9:30-10:45 am - Dr. Thomas Coomans (University of Leuven)Talk 3: 11:00 am-12:15 pm - Dr. Stephanie Wong (Valparaiso University)Tuesday, 20 April (USA, Pacific Time)Talk 1: 8:00-9:15 am - Dr. David Wang (Washington State University)Talk 2: 9:30-10:45 am - Dr. Joseph W. Ho (Albion College)Talk 3: 11:00 am-12:15 pm - Dr. Robert Carbonneau (University of Scranton)Wednesday, 21 April (USA, Pacific Time)Keynote and Colloquy: 8:00-9:30 am - Dr. Nancy Steinhardt (University of Pennsylvania)
Dana Robert to Speak on “Constructing World Fellowship” at Knox College, Toronto
On March 3, CGCM Director Dr. Dana Robert will give a public lecture entitled "Constructing World Fellowship: Christian Practices and Insights from a Century Ago" at Knox College, one of the member colleges of the Toronto School of Theology. The event will take place from 4:00-5:30pm EST. The event is free, but registration is required by February 26.
Professor Glen Taylor will offer a response to Dr. Robert's speech, and Professor Esther Acolatse will be the moderator of the event. She is also a member of the editorial board of the Dictionary of African Christian Biography, one of the digital projects of the CGCM.