News of the extended network of faculty, alumni, students, visiting researchers, and mission partners is regularly updated, and some of the big ideas or major events in Global Christianity are covered in the CGCM News.
The Cambridge Center for Christianity Worldwide invites you to the in-person and online seminar: “World Christianity in Indo-Myanmar: Culture, Conflict and Christ” with Prof. Atola Longkumer.
Date: Tuesday 11 March 2025,
Place: Lightfoot Room, Faculty of Divinity Cambridge,
Time: 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM EST.
Book Symposium Invitation
The Saint Louis University Center for Research on Global Catholicism invites you to an insightful book symposium:
Competing Catholicisms: The Jesuits, The Vatican, and The Making of Postcolonial French Africa
Featuring Jean Luc Enyegue, SJ, Ph.D.
Don’t miss this engaging discussion! See the flyer for more details.
The Introduction and Adaptation of Western Food Culture in the Nineteenth Century China and Japan
The Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History at Boston College presents a Research-
in-Progress Report: The Introduction and Adaptation of Western Food Culture in the Nineteenth Century China and Japan
Prof. ZHU Feng 朱鳳, Ph.D. Professor, Kyoto Notre Dame University, Japan
Friday, March 14, 2025. 10:30 – 11:30, a.m. EST
Conference Room, BC Ricci Institute, 2125 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston.
When Contexts Change – Growing Into God’s Mission
The BU Center for Global Christianity and Mission, in collaboration with the Episcopal and Anglican House of Studies, invites you to attend "When Contexts Change - Growing into God’s Mission: From Rwanda to Massachusetts" with Rev. Canon Jean Baptiste Ntagengwa, Th.D. Join us for an engaging discussion on how mission and ministry evolve across different cultural and geographical contexts.
Oh Ji-seok
Oh Ji-seok is the Institute of Korean Christianity and Culture's Vice Director and Associate Professor at Soongsil University. He served as the President of the Society of Korean Christian Social Ethics and the Education Director of the Society Of Korean-Chinese Philosophy. He is currently the Vice President of the Korea Society Of Hermeneutics. Dr. Oh conducts academic research on various social changes in Korean and East Asian societies during the transition to modernity and publishes the results based on ethics. His publications include Swallen: Missionary Who Loved Soongsil (Press of Soongsil, 2022) and Study on Taboo Words in the Transition to Modernity (Bogosa, 2024). He is focusing on spreading Korean Christian culture through numerous academic activities.
Jang Kyung-nam
Jang Kyung-nam is the director of the Institute of Korean Christianity and Culture and Professor of Korean Literature at Soongsil University. He served as the executive director of the Institute of Korean Literary History and vice president of the Studies of Korean Literature. He is currently the vice president of the Society Of The Korean Classical Novel. He has studied modern and contemporary literary works in Korea, and recently, he has been studying missionaries’ works related to Korean studies. He published Memories of War and Novel Reproduction (Bogosa, 2018), Korean translation by missionary Baird, and Aesop Fables (Bogosa, 2023). In addition, he is actively contributing to publicizing and expanding the value of Korean literature through active research activities.
CCCW Semminar Coming up Tuesday 11th February, 2025
Our Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide colleagues are hosting Prof. Heather J. Sharkey from the University of Pennsylvania for an insightful lecture on “When World Christianity Meets Global Microhistory: Two Lives between Egypt, India, China, the United Kingdom, and the United States.” You can join online or in-person at the Lightfoot Room, Faculty of Divinity, Cambridge!
Alex Mayfield
Alex Mayfield is an Assistant Professor of History at Asbury University. His research utilizes digital methodologies that enable the reconstruction of historical networks and movements within global Christianity. His research and teaching interests include global history, pentecostal and charismatic movements, mission history in East Asia, and the history of colonial Latin America. His current scholarly focus is on the China Historical Christian Database, an international collaborative project that seeks to identify every Christian person, event, and institution in China between 1550 and 1950. With his help, the project has become the largest collection of data on Christian actors in China’s past, and it continues to grow. His most recent book, The Kaleidoscopic City(Baylor University Press, 2023), explores the historical development of the Pentecostal movement in Hong Kong. Beyond his own research, Dr. Mayfield also serves as a technical advisor to the Chinese Christian Posters projects and the Dictionary of African Christian Biography.
Yannick Essertel
Yannick Essertel is Professeur des Universités, Docteur-HDR. He was a researcher at CREDO (Centre de Recherche et de Documentation sur l'Océanie) Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, EHESS, CREDO UMR 7308; he is a member of various university research groups in the history of religion and the spread of Christianity. His work has focused on the pedagogies of evangelization, and on the phases of encounters between missionaries and the missioned. He also examines the concept of inculturation and the relationship between evangelization and cultures. In this respect, he brings in cultural anthropology and even museology through missionary collections. It also explores the constraints encountered during evangelization: colonization, rivalries, material and climatic conditions, etc.
The study of contacts and encounters inevitably led me to integrate cultural anthropology to gain an in-depth understanding of the relationships involved in conversions to Christianity. The reactions of missionary/missioned actors are dictated by their cultural categories. Often, missionaries are welcomed as superior beings, gods, or prophets. Missionaries, on the other hand, believe that the natives are predisposed to Christianity. This creates a double misunderstanding, which can be productive for missionaries if they understand it and use it as a lever for evangelization. Conversely, if the misunderstanding is unproductive and therefore impossible to understand, the missionaries' next step will be more complex and may even fail. In short, these misunderstandings show that the cultural environment is appropriate or inappropriate for the arrival of missionaries.
The essential point of this “first time” is the different perceptions of the local people towards the missionaries and their discourse, which will trigger conversions. In other words, what are the various factors behind conversions? Through the archives, we see that every missionary, every culture, was attracted or converted by one or more points of the new religion: missionary dress, skin color, Catholic liturgy, preaching, sacraments, the notion of equality, charity, the missionary's dedication, the “fulfillment” of a prophecy, a cure, the destruction of an idol, and many other aspects, were all triggers. In New Zealand, Mgr Jean-Baptiste Pompallier was perceived as a great chief, descended from a “God”, with powerful mana and tapou (sacred) character. In New Caledonia, Mgr Guillaume Douarre and his missionaries are identified as the “Ancestors” of the Kanaks, who come back and act on the elements and whose baptismal cult cures and protects against illness. In Siam, Mgr Jean-Baptiste Pallegoix established courteous relations with the future Prince Rama IV, who spoke Latin and mixed Christianity and Buddhism to the point of reforming his religion by turning to Christianity. Let's not forget the young lama who converted by translating Catholic doctrine for Father Joseph Gabet. All these “triggers” for inculturation should be listed, many of which owe little to an adapted missionary pedagogy. We must insist on the pioneering phases of evangelization, which are key to understanding the history of the missions.
Finally, this approach should not be confined to missionary history. Indeed, history is made up of various types of encounters: colonization, migrations, invasions, and explorers. Here, too, there are “first-time” situations that must be analyzed as such, because through all the reactions and reciprocal perceptions it becomes possible to understand better how the history of human relations has been constructed. Let's not forget that history is, first and foremost, about understanding people in their contexts, and in particular, the context of contacts and shocks. We therefore call for developing a spécifié approach to contacts in human history, integrating anthropology and psychology.
Grace Eun-Sun Lee
Grace Eun-Sun Lee is a PhD student in World Christianity and Mission Studies at Boston University School of Theology. Grace grew up in an Asian diaspora between the Philippines and South Korea, which sparked her interest in pursuing related topics dealing with cross-cultural narratives and interactions. In light of the demographic shift of Christianity in the past 100 years, Grace desires to participate in conversations within Global Christianity to bridge and strengthen the partnership between the Global North and the Global South to equip and empower missional endeavors. Her research interests include Diaspora and Transnationals, Ecumenism, Asian Christianity, and Ethnodoxology. Before coming to BU, Grace received a Master of Divinity with a concentration on world missions at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary based in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. She also has a Bachelor of Science in Life Science and Biotechnology from Underwood International College, within Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea.