Papers & Publications
Missiological Conversations
In October, Anicka Fast published, "Sacred children, white privilege, and mission: the role of historical reflection in moving toward healthier relationships within the global church," in Missiology: An International Review 47, no. 4 (October 2019): 435-448. The piece was a response to a rebuttal to her 2018 article “Sacred children and colonial subsidies” which also appeared in Missiology. Both the rebuttal by Lawrent Buschman and her response appear in this (October) issue ofMissiology. The editor Rich Starcher offers an introduction to the conversation in which he states: “While the process was stressful, the resultant dialogue was so rich that one prominent ASM leader suggested that such conversations on other disputed/controversial issues would be a good feature in future issues of the journal.”
A Disruptive Ecclesial Economy
Anicka Fast has recently published, "Let us “also work with our hands, so that the Lord’s work may be furthered”: A disruptive ecclesial economy at Kafumba, 1922-1943," in the Mennonite Quarterly Review 93, no. 4 (October 2019): 437-472. She describes how Aaron and Ernestina Janzen, American Mennonite Brethren missionaries, resigned from the Congo Inland Mission in 1920 in order to begin independent work at Kafumba. A lack of financial support from their Mennonite Brethren Conference led them to undertake significant self-supporting activities, including the production of palm oil, coffee, and food crops. Historians have disagreed about whether this episode of independent, self-supporting mission—which ended after the conference takeover in 1943—should be interpreted as an all-too-brief moment of gospel equality and economic sharing, or as an unfortunate derailment into a colonialist, station-centered pattern of ministry. Fast's essay offers the first detailed analysis of the ecclesial economy of Kafumba prior to 1943 based on primary sources. It demonstrates that the experiences of church shared by the Janzens and Congolese believers played a crucial role in shaping the development of this economy over time. Though marked by a degree of paternalism and racial separation, the Kafumba economy followed a disruptive logic by providing a refuge to Congolese young people from the most exploitative and abusive aspects of the palm oil industry that dominated the region.
Mission and Adoption
Soojin Chung ('18) recently wrote an article for Christianity Today that traces the history of missionaries in transnational adoption.
CT Blogpost Highlights Work of Soojin Chung (’18)
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New Book: Indian Trinitarian Theology of Missio Dei
The Trinity, which has been left out for long as an esoteric mystery, has recaptured the imagination of theologians and elicited remarkable trinitarian formulations from across theological traditions. This contemporary development has forced the church to review its dogma, spirituality, and Christian practices through the lens of this central doctrine of the Christian faith. One of the important and essential upshots of the doctrine has been the reclamation of a theocentric and trinitarian understanding of mission as the missio Dei. In view of the modern renewal of the Trinity and the global expansion of Christianity, P.V. Joseph explores insights and perspectives from the trinitarian thoughts of St. Augustine and the Indian theologian Brahmabandhab Upadhyay that can inform missio Dei theology relevant for the Indian context.
“P. V. Joseph, in his landmark, An Indian Trinitarian Theology of Missio Dei, brings into conversation two of the most important themes in contemporary missiology; namely, Trinitarian missiology and the missio dei. The fact that his work highlights this theme throughout the history of the church makes this volume an indispensable addition to missiology. I heartily recommend it.”
—Timothy C. Tennent, President, Asbury Theological Seminary
“P. V. Joseph is an emerging and highly gifted Indian theologian whose work promises to make very significant contributions to a truly indigenous and contextualized Indian Christian understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity and the field of missiology. Joseph demonstrates keen analytical skills and a thorough grasp of both Western and Indian theological writings on the Trinity, as well as the ability to relate theology to missiology and the mission of the Triune God into the world. I commend his book to pastors, teachers, seminarians, and all who would like to enlarge their understanding of the Trinity in the context of our globalized, multicultural world today.”
—John Jefferson Davis, Professor of Systematic Theology, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
“At a time when World Christianity is going through a theological crisis in which Trinity is replaced by a Christo monism and mission is reduced to membership drive, P. V. Joseph invites theologians everywhere to reclaim mission as the ontological vocation of the church rooted in the loving relationship within and proceeding from the Trinity. He ably brings in theological resources from St. Augustine of North Africa and Brahmabandhab Upadhyay of India who have taken both Trinity and missio Dei seriously in their writings. While offering a historical survey of Trinity and missio Dei, Joseph takes care to address the missiological challenges emerging from liberational movements, including the Dalit movement in India. Students of theology and mission will find this book helpful in understanding the rich contours of Trinity and missio Dei.”
—M. Thomas Thangaraj, Professor Emeritus of World Christianity, Emory University
New Book: Faithful Friendships
Friendship isn’t always given a lot of thought—and lately, it doesn’t get a lot of time and effort, either. But in a world of busy and isolated lives, in which friendships can too easily become shallow, tenuous, and homogeneous, Dana Robert insists that good friendships are a vital and transformative part of the Christian life—a mustard seed of the kingdom of God. She believes Christians have the responsibility—and opportunity—to be countercultural by making friends across cultural, racial, socioeconomic, and religious lines that separate people from each other.
In this book Robert tells the stories of Christians who, despite or even because of difficult circumstances, experienced friendship with people unlike themselves as “God with us,” as exile, as testimony, and as celebration.
Jesus was a friend to his disciples. Through Jesus’s life and the lives of his followers down through the ages, Faithful Friendships shows readers how friendship can become life-changing—and even worldchanging.
—United Methodist Women
“In a world increasingly starved for close, long-term personal relationships, Dana Robert’s meditation on Christian friendship is a delightful read. She brings her deep knowledge of Christian mission and her own spiritual journey into a reflection about how relationships that seem so unequal to others can be deep and forming friendships that extend across great differences. This work does not take power differentials or cultural boundaries lightly but gives attention to the personal relationships that arise in settings of mission and service in a gentle and appreciative way that may open our eyes and give us language for some of these relationships in our own lives.”
—author of Accidental Preacher
“Dana Robert has been that rare combination of renowned scholar and committed church mission leader. In this book, Dr. Robert does a marvelous job of reclaiming the practice of friendship as essential to Christian ethics and church life. I’ve just returned from a bruising at the United Methodist General Conference, full of talk of division and schism. I’m thinking, ‘Dana Robert’s guidance and wisdom, just when we need it. What a gift.’”
—author of The Crucifixion
“What a remarkable—and unusual—book Dana Robert has given us! Though esteemed as a scholar of church history and mission, she has ranged far beyond academic categories to explore the deepest human needs and to reflect on the models of friendship she has seen in Christian communities. This is not a sentimental book; her copious illustrations depict Christian commitment across boundaries, often in peril. Preachers and church leaders of all stripes will value the way she has woven biblical and theological insights together with her own warmhearted message. Dana Robert is herself a friend in the church’s need.”
— Bishop, Florida Conference, The United Methodist Church
"When we follow Jesus, we discover along the way that God blesses us with the gift of friendship. These relationships, in turn, make a life of faithfulness, hope, and joy possible. Dana Robert is one of our most distinguished missiologists, and in Faithful Friendships, her reflections are deeply rooted in the gospels, in richly varied stories of Christian mission, and in our own need for the diverse gifts of the people God places along our journeys.”
— World Vision International
“Poignant portrayals of sacrificial and joyous, subversive and life-giving friendships. Deep friendships that untie knots of binding nationalism, racial, ethnic and cultural difference and become seeds for societal healing and reconciliation. Robert’s offering is a provocative invitation to all who yearn for God’s goodness in the world.”
— Duke Divinity School
“Refusing to be torn apart by wars, revolutions, and systemic injustice and oppression, the individuals in Faithful Friendships manifest their faith and humanity in noble acts of friendship that defies the boundaries of race, nationality, class, religion, and culture. An inspiring read.”
Call for Submissions: Religious Conversion in Africa
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
This is a call for essays for a special issue of the peer-reviewed international journal Religions on the topic of religious conversion in Africa. Over the past decade, scholarly attention has focused on the “explosive” expansion of Pentecostalism across the African continent and its narrative of discontinuity with the pre-Pentecostal lives of Pentecostal adherents. This sophisticated research has demonstrated how the emic prioritization of rupture within the Pentecostal discourse of conversion was predicated on a desire to overcome the dysfunction and insecurity of life in neoliberal Africa.
The predominance of Pentecostal Christian practices and discourses within this literature has shaped recent investigations into conversion in three ways:
First, it has marginalized concurrent processes of religious change in Africa that do not necessarily conform to a discourse of rupture. These include, for example, the expansion of East Asian religions (e.g., Hinduism), the growth of new expressions of Christianity (e.g., Russian Orthodox Old Believers and Jehovah’s Witnesses), or the movement from one Christian denomination or tradition to another.
Second, the prioritization of rupture has meant that discussions about the role of cultural endurance and continuity in religious change have fallen largely out of fashion. There are material and psychological realities, however, such as abiding social relations with half-siblings from a polygamous marriage or the language(s) one speaks, that cannot be wished into oblivion following conversion.
Third, even as recent literature on conversion in Africa has reinvigorated scholarly inquiries into the phenomenon of conversion and religious change, it often reproduces older theories’ assumptions about the direction of religious conversion, from “traditional religions” to “world religions”. As a result, developments such as the reemergence of African indigenous religions through the advent of spiritual tourism and their spread throughout diasporic communities (e.g., Vodún in Benin, and Orisa in the Americas) are undertheorized with respect to conversion.
In light of these observations, we invite essays from any historical era, methodological approach, and theoretical framework that seek to make original contributions with respect to conversion and religious change in Africa. We especially welcome essays that interrogate issues of method with respect to source material, offer critical assessments of theories of conversion with respect to religious change in Africa, and are based in contexts beyond Christianity and/or Pentecostalism.
Authors who are interested in submitting an essay to this special issue should send a 250-word abstract of his/her/their paper to the guest editors at Jason.Bruner.1@asu.edu and dhurlbut@bu.edu by 1 September 2019. Notification of accepted proposals will occur by 1 October 2019. Final manuscripts will be due on 1 April 2020. All essays will be peer reviewed.
If you have any questions, please feel free to email the guest editors.
Sincerely,
Dr. Jason Bruner
Mr. David Dmitri Hurlbut
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charges(APCs) of 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs) per published paper are partially funded by institutions through Knowledge Unlatched for a limited number of papers per year. Please contact the editorial office before submission to check whether KU waivers, or discounts are still available. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- Religious Conversion
- Religion
- Ethnography
- Anthropology of Religion
- History of Religion
- New Religious Movements
- African Traditional Religions
- African Christianity
- Islam
- Africa
World vs. Global; Christianity vs. Christianities
In a recent interview with Aaron Hollander of the Graymoor Ecumenical & Interreligious Institute, Dana Robert unpacked what is behind some of the most loaded but under discussed terms in the study of World Christianity. The result is an excellent primer in the field. It is available in the June 2019 edition of Ecumenical Trends, or available for download below.
Moving Forward Together: Ecumenical Meeting
From 26 to 28 March 2019, the University of Notre Dame (Indiana, USA) hosted representatives of the five Christian world communions formally associated with the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ) to discuss implications of that landmark agreement in the context of growing closeness and collaboration between them. Church leaders came from the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Methodist Council, the World Communion of Reformed Churches, and the Anglican Communion.
The meeting opened with an ecumenical evening prayer service led by local clergy and members of the Notre Dame community. The event concluded with a public panel entitled “From Conflict to Communion: The Future of Christians Together in the World.”
Participants at the consultation recognized the urgency of presenting afresh the core message of the JDDJ that “by grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.” They stressed the relevance of this gospel message for our conflicted and wounded world.
The representatives discerned further steps on the journey toward deeper ecclesial communion and a more visible common witness. Challenged with showing the deeper bonds that have been developing over the past two decades, the group welcomed the 2016 “Lund Imperative” to act always from the perspective of unity rather than from the point of view of division. The participants also affirmed the method of differentiating consensus that allows for agreement on common convictions while maintaining different confessional expressions.
The purpose of the meeting was not to achieve theological breakthroughs, yet participants were able to discuss key issues of mutual recognition of ministry, highlighting ways of strengthening cooperation in pastoral ministry and social outreach. The group discussed the need for strategies to address the connection between justification and justice, and proposed the production of a range of common resources such as catechetical tools. Together participants encouraged the strengthening of the common bond of baptism in ways appropriate to local contexts.
The participants recognized the need to apply the 1952 Lund Principle, which calls them to act together in all things except when significant differences of conviction compel them to act separately. To continue the conversation, the participants decided to set up a steering committee to carry forward their ongoing work.
The members of the Consultation expressed gratitude for the generous hospitality shown by the University of Notre Dame which enabled them to move forward together on their journey. It was their prayer that the Holy Spirit bring to completion what God has begun.
Joining the Choir
Nicolette Manglos-Weber's new book, Joining the Choir: Religious Membership and Social Trust Among Transnational Christians was published by Oxford University Press, and recently reviewed by the American Academy of Religion's Reading Religion.