Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T11:47:56.071Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

After Church History? Writing the History of Christianity from a Global Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2013

Paul V. Kollman
Paul V. Kollman
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recent efforts to write the global history of Christianity respond to demographic changes in Christianity and use “global” in three ways. First, “global” suggests efforts at more comprehensive historical retrieval, especially to place the beginnings of Christian communities not within mission history but within the church history in those areas. Second, “global” can refer to the broader comparative perspectives on Christianity's history, especially the history of religions. Finally, “global” can indicate attempts to retell the entire Christian story from a self-consciously worldwide perspective. Recent works also raise new theological and pragmatic challenges to the discipline of church history.

Type
Articles
Information
Horizons , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , Fall 2004 , pp. 322 - 342
Copyright
Copyright © The College Theology Society 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of this article for Horizons, whose insightful comments helped clarify the final text.

2 Jenkins, Philip, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Irvin, Dale T. and Sunquist, Scott W., History of the World Christian Movement, vol. 1 (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2001), xii.Google Scholar Again, Jenkins himself realizes this (The Next Christendom, 15). In light of the contradictions between his text's contents and its title, the latter looks to have been chosen for its marketing value rather than its accuracy.

4 González, Justo, The Changing Shape of Church History (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2002).Google Scholar

5 The Story of Christianity, 2 vols. (San Francisco: Harper, 1985); History of Christian Thought, 3 vols. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1969–1975).

6 González, , Changing Shape, 2.Google Scholar

7 Shenk, Wilbert, ed., Enlarging the Story: Perspectives on Writing World Christian History (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002).Google Scholar

8 Shenk, Wilbert, “Toward a Global Church History,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 20/2 (1996): 50–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 The Missionary Movement in Christian History (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996).

10 Walls, Andrew, The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2001).Google Scholar

11 Irvin, Dale T., Christian Histories, Christian Traditioning: Rendering Accounts (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1998)Google Scholar; Sunquist, Scott W., ed. A Dictionary of Asian Christianity (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2001).Google Scholar

12 “Introduction,” in Enlarging the Story, xi.

13 Changing Shape, 2, 79.

14 Ibid., 19ff.

15 Sanneh, Lamin, “World Christianity and the New Historiography: History and Global Interconnections,” in Enlarging the Story, 94–114, at 94.Google Scholar

16 Leung, Philip Yuen-Sang, Young J. Allen in China: His Careers and the Wanguo Gongbao (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1978).Google Scholar

17 Leung, Philip Yuen-Sang, “Mission History Versus Church History: The Case of China Historiography,” in Enlarging the Story, 54–74, at 55–56.Google Scholar

18 González, , Changing Shape, 7–9.Google Scholar

19 Barrett, David B., Kurian, George T., and Johnson, Todd M., eds., World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World, 2nd ed., Vol. 1, The World by Countries: Religionists, Churches, Ministries; Vol. 2, The World by Segments: Religions, Peoples, Languages, Cities, Topics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).Google Scholar The first edition appeared in 1982. Barrett's data is summarized in a table found in Shenk's introduction, xiii.

20 González, , Changing Shape, 33–35.Google Scholar

21 Ibid., 35–45.

22 Ibid., 59–61, 73–74.

23 Walls, , Cross-Cultural Process, 85.Google Scholar

24 Ibid. 89–91. See also Walls, Andrew, “Eusebius Tries Again: The Task of Reconceiving and Re-visioning the Study of Christian History,” in Enlarging the Story, 1–21, at 11–12.Google Scholar

25 Noll, Mark, “The Potential of Missiology for the Crises of History” in History and the Christian Historian, ed. Wells, Ronald A. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 106–23.Google Scholar

26 For this view, see the following: González, , Changing Shape, 15Google Scholar; Leung, “Mission History Versus Church History”; Walls, “Eusebius Tries Again.”

27 Mundadan, A. Mathias, “The Changing Task of Christian History: A View at the Onset of the Third Millennium,” in Enlarging the Story, 22–53, at 22.Google Scholar

28 Ibid., 45–48.

29 Shenk, , “Toward a Global Church History,” 50.Google Scholar

30 Hutchison, Mark (chair), Deiros, Pablo, Korschorke, Klaus, Lewis, Donal, and Maggay, Melba, “The Ongoing Task: Agenda for Work in Progress,” in Enlarging the Story, 115–23, at 118.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., 121.

32 Mundadan, , “The Changing Task of Church History,” 39–44.Google Scholar

33 Walls, , “Eusebius Tries Again,” 1, 21.Google Scholar

34 Ibid., 8.

35 Ibid., 8–11.

36 Ibid., 2. In a book that came out too late for its integration into this article, Lamin Sanneh has sought to clarify his opinion on the local particularities of Christian manifestation by distinguishing between what he calls “world Christianity” and “global Christianity.” The former he defines as “the movement of Christianity as it takes form and shape in societies that previously were not Christian, societies that had no bureaucratic tradition with which to domesticate the gospel.” He continues, “World Christianity is not one thing, but a variety of indigenous responses through more or less effective local idioms, but in any case without necessarily the European Enlightenment frame.” Global Christianity, on the other hand, Sanneh defines as “the faithful replication of Christian forms and patterns developed in Europe,” or “religious establishment and the cultural captivity of faith.” Whether Sanneh's preferred usages will become normative remains to be seen. See Sanneh, Lamin, Whose Religion Is Christianity? The Gospel beyond the West (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 22–23.Google Scholar

37 Sanneh, Lamin, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1989).Google Scholar

38 Neill, Stephen, A History of Christian Missions, (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1964).Google Scholar

39 Latourette, Kenneth Scott, A History of the Expansion of Christianity, 7 vols. (New York: Harper, 1937–1945).Google Scholar

40 Sanneh, , “World Christianity,” 100–02.Google Scholar

41 Walls develops this most fully in Cross-Cultural Process, 27–48. See also Walls, , “Eusebius Tries Again,” 18–19.Google Scholar

42 Walls, , Cross-Cultural Process, 32.Google Scholar

43 Two other recent attempts to write comprehensive histories of Christianity are: Chidester, David, Christianity: A Global History (London: Penguin, 2000)Google Scholar; and Hastings, Adrian, ed., A World History of Christianity (London: Cassell, 1999).Google Scholar Neither claims to speak from a Christian perspective or offer a theological perspective on the history of Christianity.

44 Shenk, , “Toward a Global Church History,” 54.Google Scholar

45 Noll, , “The Potential of Missiology for the Crises of History,” 107.Google Scholar

46 Ibid., vii.

47 Irvin, and Sunquist, , History of the World Christian Movement, 1:231–34.Google Scholar

48 Ibid., esp. 115–28.

49 Ibid., esp. 129–36.

50 Ibid., 403.

51 Pillay, Gerard J., “The Challenge of Teaching Church History from a Global Perspective,” in Enlarging the Story, 75–93.Google Scholar Pillay calls the lack of historical knowledge in his students “sobering” (76). Compared to the other contributors in Shenk's volume, Pillay is not as forthcoming about his own ethnic identity and the ways his experiences have shaped his practice of church history. A comment in the concluding remarks in the volume, however, suggests that he grew up in South Africa as a member of the Indian community there (see “The Ongoing Task,” in Enlarging the Story, 118).

52 Shenk, “Toward a Global Church History.”

53 Irvin and Sunquist, 1: xi.

54 Latourette, The History of the Expansion of Christianity.

55 Walls, , Cross-Cultural Process, 5Google Scholar (italics in original).

56 Ibid.

57 Sanneh, , “World Christianity and the New Historiography,” 102–03.Google Scholar

58 Hillerbrand, Hans J., “Presidential Address: Church History as Vocation and Moral Discipline,” Church History 70/1 (2001): 1–18, at 2 and 11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

59 Ibid., 9, 16f.

60 Ibid., 83.

61 Ibid.

62 González, , Changing Shape, 145–54Google Scholar, at 145 and 154.

63 Ibid., 12.

64 Walls, , “Eusebius Tries Again,” 18.Google Scholar

65 Tilley, Terence W., “Introduction: Practicing History, Practicing Theology,” in Theology and the New Histories, ed. Macy, Gary (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1999), 6–10.Google Scholar