New research from CCCW

CCCW researchers publish a range of new articles.

Scholars associated with the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide are active researchers, engaged with a number of scholarly communities. This spring, CCCW-related researchers have published a number of articles.

Research associate Babatunde Adedibu has written, “Welcoming strangers! The responses of African pentecostal churches in London to Europe’s migration and refugee crisis” in Missionalia: South African Journal of Missiology 44.3. The article draws on his own ministry in England and in Nigeria. The abstract reads:

Despite the declining fortunes of Christianity in the West particularly England, the Church of England, Methodist, Catholic Churches and a host of others have lent their voices to giving the migration crisis a human face by the European governments. Nevertheless, the burgeoning stream of the Christian tradition in Britain which is the African Pentecostalism seems indifferent to Europe’s migration crisis. Ironically, the African Pentecostal churches’ proliferation is one direct gain of migration to Britain as the churches welcome their kith and kin from Africa and Africans that travel through North Africa to Europe. This paper aims to utilise the interpretative framework of Luke 10: 29 to explore the non-response of African Pentecostal churches in London to Europe’s migration crisis. Likewise, this paper examines the biblical motif of who is thy neighbour and its implications in the intercultural engagement of these churches about the membership of these churches who are predominantly Africans.

CCCW Director Jesse Zink  recently published: “Women and Religion in Sudan’s Civil War: Singing through Conflict” in Studies in World Christianity 23.1, which draws on his award-winning dissertation research. The abstract reads:

During Sudan’s second civil war (1983 to 2005), many Dinka people repudiated their existing religious beliefs and sought Christian baptism. Women were at the forefront of this movement. Not only were women among the first to convert to Christianity, they also became leaders of the grassroots Christian movement. Among Dinka communities displaced outside of Sudan, women organised an affinity group in the church through which they channelled their frustration with the war and hope for its conclusion. Women were also among the most significant composers of many of the new Christian hymns that were written during the war, emerging as the leading theologians of the conversion movement. By looking at the gendered impacts of civil war on religious expression, we can come to new understandings of the way societies are transformed during violence.

Earlier this year, Dr. Zink published another article, “Lost Boys, Found Church: Dinka Refugees and Religious Change in Sudan’s Second Civil War,” in The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 68.2. The abstract reads:

The experience of young male Dinka refugees during Sudan’s second civil war illustrates the connections between religious change, violence and displacement. Many of the ‘unaccompanied minors’ who fled to camps in Ethiopia and then Kenya moved decisively towards Christianity in the years during which they were displaced. Key variables were the connection between education and Christianity, the need for new structures of community, and the way in which the Church offered a way to make sense of the destruction of civil war. As the war ended, many former refugees returned to their home regions as Christian evangelists, leading to further religious change. Their case parallels other mass conversion movements in African Christian history but takes place in a post-colonial context of civil war.

These journals are available in the CCCW library.

Further publications, including several book projects, is expected within the CCCW community soon.