CCCW Day Lecture 2025 “What Does World Christianity Mean for Mission Studies? Explorations in Christianity Worldwide” by Prof Kristeen Kim
22 January 2025, 16:00 - 22 January 2025, 17:30 Divinity Faculty, Room 7
Speaker
Prof Kirsteen Kim
Title
"What Does World Christianity Mean for Mission Studies? Explorations in Christianity Worldwide"
Abstract
‘World Christianity’ is a relatively new field, whose origins are closely related to the Henry Martyn Centre, now the CCCW. It is represented at several universities in the UK and in the US, and it is gaining ground in seminaries as well. World Christianity could be regarded as the saviour of mission studies in academia, in that it allows for the continued study of mission in contexts where ‘mission’ in association with Christianity is a toxic term. However, its use is resisted by others because it appears to focus exclusively on Christianity. Drawing on the recently published Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies and current discourse on world Christianity in the US particularly, this lecture asks whether there is still a role for mission studies, and what that might look like in the era of world Christianity.
Bio
Prof Kirsteen Kim is Paul E. Pierson Chair in World Christianity and Associate Dean for the Center for Missiological Research at the Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California. Prior to moving to Fuller, she worked in several institutions in the UK – Leeds Trinity University, the Selly Oak Colleges, and the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide. She was a member of the Lausanne Theology Working Group and vice moderator of the World Council of Churches Commission on World Mission and Evangelism. A research coordinator for the Edinburgh 2010 project, she drafted its Common Call, and co-edited the Regnum Edinburgh Centenary Series that emerged from it.
Prof Kim is the author of more than 150 publications including five monographs and eight edited/ co-edited volumes. Her most recent publications include The Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies (2022), Migration, Transnationalism, and Faith in Missiological Perspective (2022), and Power, Agency, and Women in the Mission of God (2024). She was the editor of the journal Mission Studies and now co-edits the book series Theology and Mission in World Christianity, both published by Brill (Leiden).
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