Research
The research agenda of the Center for Global Christianity is driven by the interests of the people who are part of its community. Reports about their ongoing work will be posted from time to time.
John Parker Awarded Franciscan History Fellowship
John Parker was recently awarded a dissertation fellowship by the Academy of American Franciscan History. Mr. Parker's dissertation is tentatively entitled, "Libertas est Bonum Ordinis Superioris Omnium Bonorum: Perfect Obedientia in Epifanio Moirans O.F.M. cap's Iusta Defensio." He also has a chapter in the forthcoming, The Dominicans as Participants, Witnesses, and Critics of the Colonization of Early Latin America (Routledge).
Expanded Bios
The History of Missiology Biographies Project is grateful to announce the addition of nearly 200 new mission biographies to our digital collection. This increase was made possible through collaboration with the Methodist Mission Bicentennial project. The new biographies feature women and men from the past two centuries whose lives and mission work emanate from and touch diverse cultures, communities and contexts in Global Methodism. The History of Missiology Project welcomes these additions, as they showcase the worldwide reach of Methodism, and can stimulate more scholarship on Christian mission for the future.
New Book: The Split Economy
In his new book, The Split Economy, Nimi Wariboko looks closely at the ethical challenge of capitalism. Others have named injustice, inequality, repression, exploitative empires, and capitalism’s psychic hold over all of us, as the central problem. Nimi Wariboko instead argues that the core ethical problem of capitalism lies in the split nature of the modern economy, an economy divided against itself. Production is set against finance, consumption against saving, and the future against the present. As the rich enjoy their lifestyle, their fellow citizens live in servitude. The economy mimics the structure of our human subjectivity as Saint Paul theorizes in... More
Award of Excellence
In a recent award-winning article in Pneuma, Antipas Harris ('08) advances hermeneutical insights for emerging black pentecostal scholars to consider. The salient question is, “What distinguishes black Pentecostalism?” This study revisits James H. Cone’s sources for black theology for insight into the role of blackness in shaping black Pentecostalism. On the one hand, the study dispels the myth that black Pentecostalism is inherently a spiritual alternative to the fight for social justice. On the other hand, it calls for critical dialogue between Cone’s sources for black theology and black Pentecostalism to advance scholarship on the formation of black pentecostal hermeneutics. This essay... More
Quid pro Quo? Missionaries and Their ‘Skill Capital’ in Qing Beijing
In the eighteenth century around thirty European Catholic missionaries lived in Beijing, partly employed in technical and artistic services at the imperial palace and at the Directorate of Astronomy, and partly engaged in religious work. Starting in 1724, however, the Yongzheng Emperor forbade Christianity in the provinces. Yet the foreigners, with semi-official permission, continued missionizing in the capital and its environs, employed Chinese personnel, purchased residences and other real estate, and built churches in the Imperial City, the “Tartar City,” and the Haidian suburb. The emperor and the Qing court (Manchu nobles, eunuchs, and other officials) allowed these Europeans to... More