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.
Evangelical Missiological Society Conference
John Wang of the Evangelical Missiological Society (EMS) sent out the following message about the EMS Northeast Regional Conference:
The schedule of presentations and registration information for the regional conference of the northeast region of the Evangelical Missiological Society is attached. This information will also be posted online at http://www.emsweb.org/regions/
The topic for the conference is Controversies in Mission. This year, we have eight papers and a presentation forum. Topics include immigration, historical evaluation, insider movements in both Muslim and Jewish contexts, contextualization, Western mission, theology of mission, and African Christianity. We hope it would be an enriching experience for all the participants.
The date is Saturday, March 28, and the location of the conference will be at First Baptist Church of Flushing in Flushing, New York. See the attached files for schedule and registration information.
Hye Jin Lee’s Televised Lectures
CGCM doctoral student Hye Jin Lee will be delivering lectures on the history of Christianity on television in the Atlanta area. He is giving the lectures on behalf of the Atlanta Bible School, and they are being produced by the Korean-language Christian Broadcasting Service (CBS). The lectures air on Wednesday and Saturday in the Atlanta area, but can be accessed online through CBS's website, atlantacbs.com. To see his first lecture, click here!
‘In the Midst’: a multimedia autobiography of a missionary life
The CGCM offers its resources, materials, and personnel to support a variety of unique and interesting websites. In conjunction with an international network of libraries, universities, and interested individuals, the center gathers hard-to-find materials and makes them easily accessible.
Among its newest projects, the center is now hosting CGCM Visiting Researcher Catherine Corman’s “In the Midst.” This project is the result of several years of interviews Corman conducted with Barbara Beach Alter—an American Presbyterian missionary to northern India. Alter and her husband James rejected conversion as central to missionary activity in favor of service to the surrounding population. The multimedia site was launched in a celebratory gathering attended by over 40 people, including family and friends commemorating Barbara Alter's extraordinary life as a missionary. CGCM doctoral students Daryl Ireland and Eva Pascal helped design the website to feature Corman’s innovative audio autobiography, which allow listeners to hear Alter’s stories by theme in her own voice. The story can also be explored by place and by time. Corman has also created a podcast that is now available on the website.
Call for Papers: 5th International Conference on Peace and Reconciliation, Who is My Neighbour?
5th International Conference on Peace and Reconciliation Who is My Neighbour? Crossing Boundaries of Prejudice and Distrust
22-24 June 2015, York St John University
Many of the conflicts between various groups of people and of the difficulties of restoring relationships between people are due to the lack of understating and accepting others. When Jesus reminded his audience to 'love your neighbour as yourself' quoting the Book of Leviticus (19.8), a man who was an expert in law asked Jesus this question, 'who is my neighbour?' Jesus replied by telling him the story of a Good Samaritan (Luke 10.29-37), and told him, 'Go and do likewise'. The story inspired generations of people, regardless of their religious affiliation or none, to care for strangers who are in need or in trouble. For those who are interested in peace and reconciliation, this story illustrates the importance of crossing boundaries of prejudice and distrust between the people. The question 'Who is my neighbour?' challenges the way we see ourselves as well as the way we see others. This is especially the case in situations where we find ourselves between the conflicting interests of keeping self-identity and pursuing common identity with wider society. There are examples of such situations in several regions of the world. In Europe, this is because of the increased success of far right political parties in the European Parliamentary election, the on-going issue of migration to Western Europe from the rest of the world, and the tensions between religious communities and wider society in the areas of education, socio-cultural integration, and the relationship between religion and the state. In Asia, increasing tensions between China, Japan, the two Koreas and other countries, which escalate military build-up for self-determination, are causing the rise of militant nationalism. In the Middle East, Arab-Israeli conflicts continue in the midst of efforts for peace-building both initiated from within the region and from the wider world, and this conflict remains a bone of contention in wider political world.
What is the role of religion in all this? The relationship between religion and peace-making is ambivalent: religion has contributed to both conflicts and peace, and scholars and practitioners are in agreement that religious resources have to be examined and utilised both in order to prevent conflict and in order to make a sustainable peace in a post-conflict situation. This approach is particularly important since religions and religious communities possess unique capacities. For example: (1) peace-making is integral to the faith and practice of most religions and religious motivation for peace-making is a powerful tool in dealing with conflict situations; (2) religion offers critical understanding of the process of peace-making, since religious traditions provide some of the fundamental explanations for and insights into both war and peace, so utilising these resources for peace is vital for peace making; (3) religious traditions possess unique authority and capacity among the followers of the particular religion to deal with conflicts, particularly by preventing conflict and making sustainable peace; (4) and religious traditions can be effective in practical ways, particularly in reconciliation, by taking practical steps such as naming and exposing sectarian dynamics, breaking the cycle of antagonised division and developing a vision of reconciled community (see 'Introduction' in Peace and Reconciliation: In Search of Shared Identity (2008), pp. 1-6).
In this 5th International Conference on Peace and Reconciliation, we would like to explore the role of religion in peace-building with special reference to crossing boundaries of prejudice and distrust. The aim of the conference is to examine resources and methodology for religions and religious communities to engage in peace-making and to participate in the public life of the wider society.
Individuals are invited to submit papers in one of the following areas:
• Theories and practices of crossing boundaries of prejudice and distrust in peace-making from the perspectives of theology and religious studies.
• Critical assessment of sources and methodology to address one of the four examples of the relationship between religion and peace-building mentioned above.
• Case studies of theory and practice to challenge prejudice and distrust in a particular conflict situation.
If you would like to present a paper please e-mail the title of your paper and a 200-250 word abstract by 28th February to: icpr@yorksj.ac.uk<mailto:icpr@
Plenary Speakers include:
• Fr. Dr Jamal Khader, Rector of the Latin Patriarch Seminary in Beit Jala, Bethlehem and Cardinal Hume and Cardinal de Furstenberg Endowed Chair in Religious Studies, Department of Religious Studies, University of Bethlehem
• Prof. Pan-Chiu Lai, Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong and Chairman of Academic Committee, Institute of Sino-Christian Studies, Hong Kong, China
• Prof. Kanan Kitani, School of Theology, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan
• Prof. Young-Sang Ro, President, Honam Theological University & Seminary, Gwangju, South Korea
• Dr George Wilkes, Director of the Project on Religion and Ethics in the Making of War and Peace and Research Fellow, School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh
• Prof. Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Emeritus Professor of Judaism University of Wales
• Prof. Mary Grey, Emeritus Professor of Theology, University of Wales
For more information about the conference please see our website www.yorksj.ac.uk/icpr
Professor Sebastian Kim, FRAS
Chair in Theology and Public Life
Faculty of Education and Theology
York St John University
Lord Mayor's Walk
York YO31 7EX, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1904 876439
Email: s.kim@yorksj.ac.uk
Editor
International Journal of Public Theology
Call for Papers: Religion and Religions in the History of Missions
The Yale-Edinburgh Group on the History of the Missionary Movement and World Christianity is calling for papers for a conference at Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut on June 25 – 27, 2015.
Offers of short papers are welcome on any aspect of the conference theme: Religion and Religions in the History of Missions and World Christianity. Please submit your paper proposal with brief abstract via email to Martha Smalley (martha.smalley@yale.edu) by March 1. If your proposal is accepted, you will be notified by March 15. Our pattern has been to have each oral presentation limited to 20-25 minutes, followed by discussion. Full papers are welcomed in advance and, if received by June 24, will be available for download by conference participants.
Preliminary information about the meeting is available at http://divinity-adhoc.library.yale.edu/Yale-Edinburgh/2015y-einfo.htm , including a link to the pre-registration/accommodations form. If you plan to attend the conference, please submit the pre-registration form at your earliest convenience so that we can get a sense of how many to expect. If you need a letter of invitation in order to obtain a visa or institutional funding, please indicate this on the registration form. The registration deadline is April 30th.
Participation in the meeting is limited to members of the Yale-Edinburgh Group, which consists de facto of the members of the “Missions” listserv. If you or someone you know are interested in participating in the conference but are not members of the listserv, please contact Martha Smalley (martha.smalley@yale.edu).
Information about a small number of fellowships sponsored by the Yale Divinity Library’s David M. Stowe Fund for Mission Research will be forthcoming in the next few days. These fellowships are available to cover travel and accommodations expenses of younger scholars who wish to attend the conference and spend some time at the Library doing research.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
On behalf of our esteemed conveners, Lamin Sanneh, Andrew Walls, and Brian Stanley,
Martha L. Smalley
Special Collections Librarian & Curator of the Day Missions Collection
Yale Divinity School Library
409 Prospect Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Phone: (203) 432-5289
Mega Churches in the Global South
The evidence continues to mount that the current center of the Christian faith is neither in North America or in Europe, but in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific. Most recently, Jonathan James of Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia, edited a book, A Moving Faith: Mega Churches Go South that documents the rise of mega churches in the global south. Jesudas Athyal, a Visiting Researcher at the Center for Global Christianity & Mission, contributed the chapter, "Southern Christianity: Key Considerations and Characteristics."Essay Competition: Christianity in Asia
The CCCW essay writing competition on Christianity
in East Asia
The Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide (CCCW) invites students of post-graduate degrees and those who have recently completed (MA, PhD and equivalents) to enter an essay writing competition of between 5,000 and 6,000 words on any aspect of Christianity in East Asia. Submissions from the fields of theology, history and the social sciences are all welcome.
The winning entry will be considered for possible publication by the editor of the peer-reviewed journal, Studies in World Christianity (Edinburgh University Press). The writer of the winning entry will also receive a prize of £500. S/he and two runners up will also receive a year’s subscription to Studies in World Christianity.
The closing date for this year’s competition is 31st July 2015.
Submissions should made electronically and should be sent to Mrs Polly Keen, CCCW administrator, pk262@cam.ac.uk.
The CCCW is grateful to Dr Victor Chua and anonymous donors for making possible the awarding of this prize.
Details:
5,000-6,000 words not including footnotes.
Please supply a front cover with the title of essay, your name, and institution/affiliation and separately write a short paragraph of bio data. This will not be seen by the judges until after a decision has been made. Do not imbed personal information into your essay (eg in footnotes).
The CCCW shall administer the award. The competition will be judged by the editor and members of the editorial board of SWC. The editor may decide to publish more than one essay.
There are no restrictions in terms of style etc. for the prize submission. However, should the paper be published, adherence to the style, format reference apparatus of the publisher will be required [seehttp://www.euppublishing.com/page/swc/submissions for more details].
The prize will be paid in pounds sterling. The CCCW cannot cover transfer or bank charges.
A formal announcement of the prize will be made on the CCCW website.
East Asia includes the countries of Burma/Myanmar, Cambodia, Republic of China, Indonesia, North and South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, Japan, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Timor Leste, Thailand, Vietnam.
Mission Photography Workshop at Drew University
The General Commission on Archives and History of The United Methodist Church will be hosting a workshop on mission photography at Drew University on June 10th-12th, 2015. A couple of spots are still open for historians of missions as well as visual studies scholars who would like to discover the Methodist missions photo archive. The application deadline is January 17th, 2015.
For more information: http://www.gcah.org/research/ever-widening-horizon
To be part of this workshop, please send a short curriculum and a 600-to-800 word project to: didier.aubert@univ-paris3.fr
Teaching World Christianity in Burundi
CGCM student associate and PhD candidate Daewon Moon is now teaching church history and World Christianity at International Leadership University - Burundi (ILU-Burundi) in East Africa. For the next few years, Daewon will be supervising the bachelor’s and master’s programs in the School of Theology at ILU-Burundi. His wife, Jeonghwa, is working as Director of the Leadership Language Institute at ILU-Burundi. Her responsibilities include developing curricula and training instructors to teach academic English to prospective students in a more effective way.
As the only university in the country that offers English-based degree programs, ILU-Burundi has been growing substantially over the past few years. It now has more than 300 students from 10 different countries in Africa and Asia. Recently ILU-Burundi launched two joint graduate programs in partnership with North-West University in Potchefstroom, South Africa: Master of Theology (MTh) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) with three concentrations, 1) Missiology, 2) New Testament, and 3) Practical Theology.
Call for Papers: Assessing Mission Studies Program Titles
APM Association of Professors of Mission
Call for Paper Proposals
Deadline: February 13, 2015
2015 Annual Meeting
Wheaton College - Wheaton, IL
June 18-19, 2015
What's in a Name?
Assessing Mission Studies Program Titles
The Association of Professors of Mission extends an open call for paper presentation proposals for its annual meeting. Anyone interested in presenting at APM should submit a proposal title with a 150-200 word abstract and a 30 word biography to Nelson Jennings, APM President, at jennings@omsc.org.
The 2015 Annual Meeting of the APM will examine the titles that educational institutions, North American and otherwise, use for their mission studies programs. Many seminaries and colleges have switched from using program titles that contain the term mission(s) to social science labels, e.g., intercultural studies, or to different religious labels, e.g., the more recently developing discipline of world Christianity. These nomenclature shifts affect students and graduates in such important ways as personal security or employability. What the titles mean for how institutions recruit students and new faculty is also an important area of consideration. Implications for a program’s curriculum – whether undergraduate, graduate, or postgraduate – as well as possibly for an institution’s other programs also merit assessment. An institution’s desired outcomes for its mission studies program relate to the title employed. The related type of degree that is earned, e.g., DMiss, DMin, PhD, ThD, MTh/ThM, enters the picture as well. The examination of these and other related areas should cast fresh light on how educators understand their various relationships to the missio Dei in today’s ever-transitioning Christian world mission movement.
SUBMISSION AND PRESENTATION REQUIREMENTS
Paper proposal deadline: February 13, 2015
Notification of accepted papers: February 27, 2015
Submission of completed papers and confirmation of meeting attendance: May 29, 2015
For the purposes of online publication of presentations, submitted papers may be up to 5,000 words in length including notes and references (about 20 double-spaced pages) and should conform to the style guide of the journal Missiology: An International Review, available at: http://asmweb.org/assets/pdf/Style-Guide-2011.pdf. The full text of all papers approved for the conference will be made available to the members of APM online as The Proceedings of the Association of Professors of Mission, 2015.
Presentations at the meeting will be limited to 15 to 20 minutes (about 5-7 pages of text, if read), plus additional time for discussion depending on the number of presentations accepted.
Please direct all submissions and questions to Nelson Jennings, President APM, at jennings@omsc.org.
Registration materials will be available on the website in the Spring 2015.
We look forward to seeing in June!