The Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide and the Journal of Ecclesiastical History announce a new World Christianities essay prize of £500, funded in part by a generous donation from the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide.

The prize will be awarded each year to the author of an original research article on any subject relating to the history of Christianity outside Europe and North America since the year 700. Contributions are welcome from any historical subdiscipline and with any chronological or geographical focus within those parameters. Contributions will be assessed anonymously and are open to any author regardless of seniority or background. Entries from junior scholars are warmly encouraged.

The judges will be seeking to award the prize to an essay which displays rigorous and groundbreaking research, effectively communicated, and of significance to the wider discipline. The winning submission will be published as an article in the January 2018 number of the Journal, and the authors of other high-quality submissions may also be invited to publish in the Journal. The judges reserve the right not to make an award in the event that no submission meets the required standard.

Submissions should be prepared in accordance with the journal’s style guide and should not exceed 8,000 words, including notes.

The closing date for submissions is 31 March 2017, and the outcome of the competition will be announced in September 2017. Submissions should be sent as email attachments, with ‘World Christianities Prize’ in the subject line, to Mrs Mandy Barker.

Exemplary articles on World Christianities published in the journal to date are available to download.

Students immersed in cross-cultural Christian contexts tell of transformative experiences

 Over the summer, the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide’s Intercultural Encounter programme funded more than a dozen students to spend a significant length of time in a Christian community in another culture. These students are now reporting back on their summer travels. Amy Ross, the Encounter coordinator, writes about these reports.

Photograph from Rachel Preston

I love my job because it is brimming over with hope, and stories of positive Christian engagement with a challenging world. Participants in the Encounter scheme are required to write a report about their placements and to take part in a debrief event. Emerging from this feedback are descriptions of very formative experiences, including some powerful stories of personal challenge and transformation. What a privilege it is to read reports telling of the joy of encountering the other in their context, of personal growth, of resource-sharing, of humility in action – all the things that challenge racism, fear and division. Examples from three of this year’s seventeen bursars are given here:

Iain Osborne, ordinand – West Bank/Palestine

“I was in Palestine and Israel from 10 July to 6 August, in a small town called Zababdeh, near Jenin in the north of the Occupied Territories.  One of my strongest impressions overall has been the contrast between what I expected, given the politics, and what I met.  I believe I have been permanently influenced by this experience in several ways. First, I have seen vividly illustrated the value of strong family and community ties.  Second, I believe that this visit has been the beginning of a relationship with that part of the world.  I have opted this year to study Hebrew through my course, and my wife and I are both learning Arabic.  Third, my understanding of the political situation has improved… I have returned asking myself, how can we be more Palestinian?”

Charlotte Kane, medical student – Malawi

“This summer I spent 8 weeks in Malawi. I experienced more wonderful things than I could have dared hoped, and can only pray that I remember the lessons that I learnt. This was my first time in a developing country. It is one thing to know that poverty exists, it is another to see it in real life. During the sermon one Sunday I was struck with a very clear thought that the Gospel is truly universal. I had known this as head knowledge before, but sitting there I suddenly realised that Jesus is not a white Westerner and it was as if it was the first time this thought had occurred to me. The Gospel is for all people, and does not belong or make sense in one culture more than another. All in all, I am still thinking through many of the lessons that I would like to remember from Malawi. What I can say is that it was an immensely rich experience.”

Danny Pegg, ordinand – South Dakota, United States

“I spent four and a half weeks on the Rosebud Reservation, in South Dakota in a town called Mission among the Sicangu Lakota people. My time on the Rosebud could be entitled ‘Mission 101’. I have not experienced such unbiased, unrelenting service of people in a church context before. I have not seen Christian encounter with a culture completely separate from [Christianity] before…. I have had so many experiences that I need to spend more time reflecting on but I do not doubt for one moment that this has been the single most formational experience of my entire life. No matter where I end up serving, and whether inter-cultural tensions or oppression (etc) are an issue in any way, I have learnt and experienced things that will benefit my ministerial ability there.”

In addition to placements in east, central and southern Africa, Encounter bursars went to countries in Latin America, the Middle East, North America, Europe, and to Russia.

Bursary recipients were thankful to CCCW for providing funding and intercultural support to make their placements possible. It is the hope of the Centre that bursars go on to embed within their lifestyles and relationships the respect and appreciation for different expressions of Christianity that they have encountered.

If you or someone you know could benefit from an Encounter scheme bursary please click here for more information or contact the Encounter Coordinator.

Prof. Emmanuel Katongole to deliver lectures in February 2017

The 2017 Henry Martyn lectures are to be given by a leading expert in political violence, reconciliation, and Christian community in Africa.

Emmanuel Katongole is a Roman Catholic priest and professor at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. He will deliver the Henry Martyn Lectures under the title, “Who are My People? Christianity, Community and Belonging in Post-colonial Africa.” The lectures take place over three consecutive nights, the 20^th, 21^st, and 22^nd of February 2017 in the Runcie Room of the Faculty of Divinity on West Road in Cambridge. Each lecture begins at 5.30 pm.

Katongole was born and educated in Uganda, where he was ordained a priest in 1987. Since then, he has served parishes in Uganda, Belgium, and the United States. His doctorate from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium focused on religious ethics and the work of the American theologian Stanley Hauerwas.

Beginning in 2001, Katongole taught at Duke Divinity School in the United States where he became the founding director of the Centre for Reconciliation. Since 2013, he has taught at Notre Dame, where he teaches in both the theology department and the Institute for International Peace Studies.

Katongole has written extensively on African Christianity and the Christian social imagination. His books include Mirror to the Church: Resurrecting Faith after Genocide in Rwanda, Reconciling all Things: A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace, and Healing, and The Sacrifice of Africa: A Political Theology for Africa, all of which are available in the CCCW library.

The Henry Martyn Lectures are a biennial lecture series sponsored by the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide and devoted to world Christianity and the global church. Past lecturers have included Peter Phan, Dana Robert, and John Lonsdale.

Members of the university and the public are warmly invited to attend the lectures.

More information about Emmanuel Katongole is available on his website.

Jesse Zink’s research on Christianity in South Sudan wins recognition

CCCW Director Jesse Zink has been awarded the Audrey Richards Prize  by the African Studies Association of the UK for his PhD thesis: “Christianity and Catastrophe: Sudan’s Civil Wars and Religious Change among the Dinka.” The prize recognizes the best doctoral dissertation in African studies examined in the UK in 2014 or 2015.

Dr. Zink completed his dissertation in the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University in 2015 under the supervision of Prof. David Maxwell (pictured), who himself won the Audrey Richards Prize in 1996. The dissertation is a study of the grassroots Christian movement that emerged among the Dinka people of southern Sudan during civil war in the 1980s and 1990s. It is based on Dr. Zink’s fieldwork, interviews, and archival research in South Sudan.

In addition to his work at the CCCW, Dr. Zink is an affiliated lecturer in the Faculty of Divinity where he contributes to undergraduate and graduate teaching on world Christianity. He is also working on revising his dissertation for publication as a monograph.

Jesse Zink was in Rwanda in early June

CCCW Director Jesse Zink spent the first week of June in Rwanda as a guest of the Anglican Diocese of Kigali. He shares some memories from the trip.

The CCCW has a special connection with East Africa and particularly the East African Revival. Our archive contains the papers of Joe Church, the missionary who did so much to promote the idea of Revival. So it was a particular highlight to spend time at Gahini, site of the first Anglican mission station in colonial Rwanda and birthplace of the Revival. I was given a tour of the various places of significance in Gahini by a young man who has taken upon himself the task of interviewing surviving elders who remember the Revival and writing a history of the Revival in Kinyarwanda.

When I asked him why he was doing this, he said, “When you search the Internet, there is nothing about the East African Revival in Kinyarwanda. I want to change that so we can know our history.”

I also had the opportunity to visit with a few people who had clear memories of the Revival themselves. This included Cyprian Kabenga, a retired Anglican pastor, to whom I gave a copy of The East African Revival by Kevin Ward and Emma Wild-Wood. It was a wonder to him that the Revival he knew so well was the subject of study in other parts of the world. I also spent time with Marian Kajuga, who is 93 years old. In her life, she has seen the flourishing of the East African Revival and the growth of Christianity in Rwanda. But she also survived the 1994 genocide, during which her husband and oldest son were killed. It was remarkable to think about all that her life has encompassed, all sustained by her life of faith.

One of the most surprising—and delightful—parts of my time in Kigali was the opportunity to explore the Anglican Diocese of Kigali’s impressive archive. Over the last 18 months or so, a few hard-working souls have taken what used to be a pile of old papers in a shipping container and turned it into a working archive. They’ve sorted the material and organized it in binders. The range of material is astonishing, from early documents related to Anglicanism’s arrival in Kigali in the 1940s to parochial reports, correspondence with government officials, letters between bishops, reports on the church’s work of reconciliation, and so much else. Had I been able to read Kinyarwanda, I’m sure I would have uncovered even more. The CCCW is storing a copy of the archive’s catalogue and will be thinking of ways to support the Diocese as it continues to add material.

It was also good to visit Kigali Anglican Theological College and learn about the ministry there. As the Cambridge Theological Federation reflects on its own future, it was helpful to hear how another theological college, albeit one in a different country and cultural context, had recently rearranged its delivery of teaching to be more cost-effective and responsive to the needs of the church.

There were many other memories of this visit, of course, including visits to genocide memorials and the opportunity they afford to remember the deeply painful past while also looking towards the future. I had glimpses of that hopeful future in the church services I attended and in the incredible range of ministries in the Diocese of Kigali.

A large crowd gathered in the Faculty of Divinity on Wednesday afternoon, 27 April 2016, to learn more about the rich history of Christian mission associated with the city and university of Cambridge.

The event was both a seminar offered by the Rev. Dr. Ian Randall, a research associate of the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide, and the launch of a new occasional paper from the Centre. The subject? The Cambridge 70, a hitherto little-studied aspect of Protestant mission in the mid-20^th century.

You can listen to the talk here: Part 1  Part 2

The Cambridge 70 took their inspiration from the long history of mission in Cambridge, looking back to Henry Martyn in the early nineteenth century as well as the Cambridge 7 of the 1880s. In 1955, scores of students associated with the Cambridge Intercollegiate Christian Union committed themselves to overseas missionary service. The students who answered this call found themselves in a wide variety of ministries across the globe. They were also part of the ongoing change in mission thinking and practice. Rather than seeing mission as ‘from the west to the rest,’ they were on the frontlines of mission ‘from everywhere to everywhere.’

“So much changed about Christian mission in the 20^th century,” noted the Rev. Dr. Jesse Zink, director of the CCCW. “What is significant about the Cambridge 70 is how they were caught up in these changes and offered faithful witness to God at a moment of transition.”

The story is told inThe Cambridge Seventy: a Twentieth-Century Missionary Movement, an occasional paper published by CCCW and authored by Dr. Randall. The occasional paper has its origins in a series of ‘witness’ seminars that CCCW hosted in 2014 and 2015 in which members of the Cambridge 70 shared their memories and stories. Dr. Randall’s research used these seminars, as well as his own survey of Cambridge 70 members and the growing collection of archival material in the CCCW’s collections.

Conversation at the seminar and launch looked both back to the Cambridge 7 of 1885 and also ahead: if the Cambridge 70 followed the 7 by 70 years, would there be a Cambridge 700 in 2025? Some attendees noted that given the international nature of the student body in Cambridge now, any future Cambridge 700 would no doubt involve missionaries representing a wide diversity of the world’s cultures.

The research and publication were funded in part by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Maurice and Hilda Laing Foundation.

Copies of The Cambridge Seventy are available for £5 (including P&P) and can be obtained by writing to the Centre’s administrator Polly Keen.

A newly processed donation to the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide’s archive sheds important light on the role of church leaders during a time of turmoil in Kenya.

Paddy Benson, now archdeacon of Hereford, worked in the Diocese of Mount Kenya East from 1978 to 1989. It was an important time and Benson worked with several consequential figures, including David Gitari, bishop of Mount Kenya East, who was developing a reputation as an outspoken church leader who was unafraid to criticize the failings of President Daniel Arap Moi’s government. Bishop Gitari was also an innovator in mission and theological education, served on international commissions of the World Council of Churches and the Anglican Communion, and expanded his diocese in substantial ways. He later went on to serve as Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Kenya.

Archdeacon Benson has donated a substantial collection of his books and papers from his time in Kenya to the CCCW archive. They include extensive collections of local news-cuttings, internal publications of the Kenyan church and recordings of Bishop Gitari’s sermons. The donation has been sorted and work is in progress to ensure their proper preservation and cataloguing to enable them to realise their research potential.

“This is a significant collection,” said Dr. Philip Saunders, CCCW’s archivist. “It’s particularly important for the material it contains on church and state in conflict during the Moi presidency. But it also gives new perspectives on the church’s interface with African cultural issues such as polygamy, FGM, burial rites, and much more.”

Bishop Gitari, who died in 2013, left behind a substantial archive of his own in Kenya. The donation to the CCCW archive allows researchers to consult important primary documents in England and complements what already exists elsewhere.

 “The history of the African church in the decades after independence continues to be written,” noted Dr. Jesse Zink, director of CCCW. “The work of building the archive from which that history can be written is an ongoing task. Archdeacon Benson’s material is a vital contribution.”

The CCCW welcomes enquiries from interested researchers, as well as from those who may be considering how best to preserve their papers.

The Centre was awarded a £6,800 grant from The Heritage Lottery Fund. See how we used it to help celebrate Cambridge’s tradition of service overseas through sound archives, an audio tour, witness seminars, significant conferences and a launch day.

An audio tour, sound archives, and a launch day:

The Free Audio Tour of Henry Martyn’s Cambridge

Listen to some sound archives on the talking telephone

The Launch/Open Day on 25 October 2014

Witness Seminars and Conferences:

Three witness seminars were given in October last year, and May and June of this year, for the Cambridge Seventy research project which is being undertaken through the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide. The first part of the project has aimed at understanding the early experiences of members of the Seventy in the UK and then overseas. We hope to follow this up by looking at later developments.

The Centre hosted the Religious Archive Group (RAG) conference at the CCCW on 4th June 2015 where the members were able to view the extensive library and  archives.

The Centre received a visit from the Association of the British Theological and Philosophical Libraries (ABTAPL) on 14th April 2015. A large group of Librarians from Theological Libraries across the UK attended the ABTAPL conference hosted by Westminster College, Cambridge. As part of their programme, they visited the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide library. Dr Emma Wild-Wood gave them a history of the Centre and its library and this was followed by tours of the library and the archives.

The Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide bid farewell to a friend and scholar this week.

Dr. Paddy Musana is the head of Department of Religion and Peace Studies at Makerere University in Uganda. He has been in Cambridge since September as a fellow of the Cambridge Africa Partnership for Research Excellence. During that time, he has been based at the CCCW. He returned to Uganda earlier this week to resume his responsibilities at Makerere.

Dr. Musana’s current research examines women and Pentecostalism in Rwanda and Uganda. He used the time in Cambridge to take advantage of the wide range of resources available about the growth, history, and development of Pentecostal forms of Christianity.

“The library at the CCCW is very, very rich,” he said. “There are many people in my university from many disciplines who could benefit from spending time here.”

During his time in Cambridge, Dr. Musana presented two seminar papers, one to a CAPREx audience and one at CCCW’s regular seminar. The latter paper was titled “Christian African or African Christian: Dilemmas of Identity” and focused on questions of the inculturation of Christian faith, drawing both on Dr. Musana’s pastoral ministry and academic research.

“It was a real pleasure to have Paddy based at the CCCW these last few months,” said CCCW director Jesse Zink. “The Centre offers a base in Cambridge from which researchers such as Paddy can take advantage of the resources of the Centre and the broader university. Our seminars and life together were enriched by his presence with us.”

Dr. Musana’s departure came in the same week that the Centre hosted a handful of researchers in Cambridge for shorter periods of time, who were consulting the Centre’s rich archival collection.

The CCCW welcomes inquiries from scholars around the world who may be interested in a period of study in Cambridge.