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.

Robert and Roldan-Figueroa Attend CLADE V

Dana Robert and Rady Roldan-Figueroa are in Costa Rica this week attending the Latin American Theological Fellowship's CLADE V conference. The purpose of the conference is to pull together a diverse group of Christians from churches, agencies, institutions and movements in Latin America and the Caribbean for discussion and reflection. The theme for this conference is: “Following Jesus in God’s Kingdom of Life. Guide us, Holy Spirit!” Prof. Robert will be participating on a panel of friends from outside Latin America who will share their own reflections on what they have heard. BUSTH doctoral student Ruth Padilla DeBorst is the group's general secretary.

Ireland and Moon present at Yale-Edinburgh

Daryl Ireland and Daewon Moon both presented papers last week at the annual Yale-Edinburgh Meeting. The title of Ireland's paper is Finding a Home: John Sung's Evangelistic Bands as a Location for a New Female Identity. The title of Moon's paper is The Contribution of African Leaders to the Early Development of the Balokole Revival.

Roldan-Figueroa’s Book Named as Best!

Exploring Christian Heritage: A Reader in History and Theology edited by C. Douglas Weaver, Rady Roldán-Figueroa and Brandon Frick has been included in The Christian Century's Best Books for 2012! It was published by Baylor University Press.

Robert Wins Major Research Support Grant

A project proposed by Dr. Dana Robert to the Religion and Innovation in Human Affairs Program of the Historical Society, "The Birth of the World Church: Vision, Friendship, and Community," has just been awarded funding. The two-year project will explore how the religious vision of Christianity as a worldwide community framed a process of mutual transformation among Christian leaders in the West and global South during the first half of the twentieth century and will result in a book. The John Templeton Foundation funded this program to explore how religion may or may not contribute to progress in human history.

Meet Up at ASM in Chicago

Dr. Robert, Dr. Hartley, Dr. Santiago-Vendrell
Dr. Robert, Dr. Hartley, Dr. Santiago-Vendrell

Dr. Robert met up with alums Dr. Ben Hartley, Associate Prof of Mission at Palmer Seminary, Philadelphia; and Dr. Angel Santiago-Vendrell, the E. Stanley Jones Assistant Professor of Evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary, Orlando at the recent meeting of ASM in Chicago.

Alumnus Gary VanderPol Visits

Dr. Gary VandePol and Dr. Inus Daneel
Dr. Gary VandePol and Dr. Inus Daneel

Dr. Gary VanderPol, the new Assistant Professor of Mission and Justice at Denver Seminary, visited Dr. Inus Daneel recently. This is a new position and Gary is the first incumbent. Denver Seminary has 1100 students and is one of the largest freestanding seminaries in the U.S.

Greetings from Burundi

DaewonMoonDaewon Moon sends greetings from Burundi where he has been teaching a summer course for students in the missiology program at International Leadership University in Bujumbura.  Most of his students are local pastors and campus ministers working with Campus for Christ. Three of them are from DRC, one from Kenya and six from Burundi. DaewonMoon2

 

Peg Rigg, motive Art Editor (1929-2011)

Peg Rigg, 2009
Peg Rigg, 2009

Peg Rigg was hired as art editor in 1955 right out of seminary. She also had a M.F.A. at the Chicago Art Institute. She had interned at motive the prior summer so the editor, Roger Ortmeyer, had had a chance to see her at work. Although motive had been deeply involved with the arts since its inception, it was Rigg that gave it its distinctive look. Jim Crane today OutoftheDepthsCropremembers that while the magazine did articles on well-known artists like Ben Shahn, most of the art was done by him, Robert Hodgell, or Peg herself, most often for very little pay. She also assembled a travelling collection of art that she took to colleges so students could actually see real art in person. Although she worked in many media, the work for which she is best known is her calligraphy.

Margaret Flory (1913-2009)

Margaret Flory
Margaret Flory 2009
Margaret Flory 1962
Margaret Flory 1962

The Frontier Internship in Mission program came from the creative, entrepreneurial mind of Margaret Flory, the Presbyterian official in charge of Student Work, but who considered herself a missionary to all of the world's students. A fireball of energy with a keen sense of Christian commitment and sensitivity to what students were thinking and feeling, she sought out opportunities to turn individuals into bridge people across the world's chasms of difference. FIM was only one of her many programs that did that in different ways. This photo was taken in 2009. In 2010, shortly before her death, she hosted a luncheon where the preliminary results of the FIM Project were presented. She was 95 by then and blind from macular degeneration, but her mind was as sharp as ever. She remembered every FI, where they came from, and where they had served. She was thrilled to find out what had happened to the many she had lost touch with. More