Theology and Mission in World Christianity
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World Christianity Theology and Mission in World Christianity Editors-in-Chief Stephen B. Bevans (Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, USA) Kirsteen Kim (Fuller Theological Seminary, USA) Miikka Ruokanen (University of Helsinki, Finland/ Nanjing Union Theological Seminary, China) Editorial Board Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu (Trinity Theological Seminary, Ghana) Martha T. Frederiks (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) Dana L. Robert (Boston University, USA) Elsa Tamez (Latin American Biblical University, Costa Rica) Rachel Zhu Xiaohong (Fudan University, Shanghai, China) volume 19 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/tmwc World Christianity Methodological Considerations Edited by Martha Frederiks Dorottya Nagy LEIDEN | BOSTON This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided no alterations are made and the original author(s) and source are credited. Further information and the complete license text can be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ The terms of the CC license apply only to the original material. The use of material from other sources (indicated by a reference) such as diagrams, illustrations, photos and text samples may require further permission from the respective copyright holder. Cover illustration: Nemere Kerezsi, In the apiary. Used with kind permission by the artist. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Frederiks, Martha Theodora, 1965– editor. | Nagy, Dorottya, editor. Title: World Christianity : methodological considerations / edited by Martha Frederiks, Dorottya Nagy. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2021. | Series: Theology and mission in world Christianity, 2452–2953 ; volume 19 | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020046138 (print) | LCCN 2020046139 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004441668 (paperback) | ISBN 9789004444867 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Theology—Methodology. | Christianity. Classification: LCC BR118 .W666 2021 (print) | LCC BR118 (ebook) | DDC 230—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020046138 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020046139 Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 2452-2953 ISBN 978-90-04-44166-8 (paperback) ISBN 978-90-04-44486-7 (e-book) Copyright 2021 by The Authors. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner. Contents Notes on Contributors vii Introduction 1 Martha Frederiks and Dorottya Nagy 1 World Christianity: Contours of an Approach 10 Martha Frederiks 2 Recalling the Term ‘World Christianity’: Excursions into Worldings of Literature, Philosophy, and History 40 Dorottya Nagy 3 Decoloniality and Interculturality in World Christianity: A Latin American Perspective 65 Raimundo C. Barreto 4 The Interpretations, Problems and Possibilities of Missionary Sources in the History of Christianity in Africa 92 Emma Wild-Wood 5 Methodological Reflections on the Study of Chinese Christianities 113 Joseph Tse-Hei Lee and Christie Chui-Shan Chow 6 Interfaith Relations within the Emerging Field of World Christianity 135 S. Wesley Ariarajah 7 Thai Comparative Theologizing: Material and Methodological Reflections 158 Kari Storstein Haug 8 Interreligious Dialogue: A Case Study Approach in Respect to the Vatican and the World Council of Churches 179 Douglas Pratt vi Contents 9 Conquering Rome: Constructing a Global Christianity in the Face of Terror. A Case Study into the Representations of the Beheading of Twenty-One Migrant Workers in January 2015 204 Lucien van Liere 10 Multiple Religious Belonging and Identity in Contemporary Nigeria: Methodological Reflections for World Christianity 225 Corey L. Williams 11 Augustine’s Approach to Heresies as an Aid to Understanding His Ideas on Interaction between Christian Traditions 251 Paul J.J. van Geest 12 The Rise of ‘New Generation’ Churches in Kerala Christianity 271 Stanley John 13 Methodological Considerations: Convergences 292 Martha Frederiks and Dorottya Nagy Index 307 Notes on Contributors S. Wesley Ariarajah is a Methodist minister from Sri Lanka and currently Professor Emeritus of Ecumenical Theology at the Drew University School of Theology, Madison, NJ. Before teaching at Drew for 17 years, he served the World Council of Churches, Geneva, for 16 years, first as the director of the Council’s Interfaith Dialogue Program for 10 years and later as the Council’s Deputy General Secretary. He has written widely on Religious Pluralism, Interfaith Relations, Theology of Religions, Dialogue and Mission, and Ecumenism. His latest publications include: Your God, My God, Our God. Rethinking Christian Theology for Religious Plurality (Geneva: WCC, 2012), and Strangers or Co-Pilgrims? The Impact of Interfaith Dialogue on Christian Faith and Practice (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017). Raimundo C. Barreto is a Brazilian-American scholar teaching World Christianity in the History and Ecumenics Department at Princeton Theological Seminary. Among his activities in the field of World Christianity, he is one of the three conveners of the Princeton Theological Seminary World Christianity Conference, and the general editor of the Fortress Press Series ‘World Christianity and Public Religion.’ His latest publications include: World Christianity as Public Religion (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017), co-edited with Wanderley P. da Rosa and Ronaldo Cavalcante, Evangélicos e Pobreza no Brazil. Encontros e Respostas Éticas, 2nd edition, revised and expanded (São Paulo: Editora Recriar/Editora Unida, 2019), Migration and Public Discourse in World Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2019), co-edited with Afe Adogame and Wanderley P. da Rosa, and Decolonial Christianities. Latinx and Latin American Perspectives (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2019), co-edited with Roberto Sirvent. Christie Chui-Shan Chow received her Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 2015. She is a visiting faculty at the City Seminary of New York. Her monograph entitled Schism. How Adventism is Reshaping Post-Denominational China (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, forthcoming) reflects her interest in church-state rela- tions, conversion studies, Christian ethics, and gender politics. Her recent pub- lications include ‘Qiuwen (Bibliomancy). Enlivening the Chinese Bible Union.’ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 30,1 (2020), ‘Indigenizing the Prophetess. Toward a Chinese Denominational Practice.’ in Anthony E. Clark (ed.), China’s Christianity. From Missionary to Indigenous Church (Leiden: Brill, 2017), and viii Notes on Contributors (co-authored with Joseph Tse-Hei Lee) Chujing yu shiye. Chaoshan zhongwai ji- aoliu di guangying jiyi [Context and Vision. Visualizing Chinese-Western Cultural Encounters in Chaoshan] (Beijing: Sanlian chubanshe, 2017). Martha Frederiks is Professor for the Study of World Christianity at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. From 1993–1999 she worked in West Africa in the field of Christian-Muslim Relations. Since 1999 she works at Utrecht University, where she obtained her Ph.D. (2003, cum laude) with her book We Have Toiled All Night. Christianity in The Gambia 1456–2000 (Zoetermeer: Boekencentrum, 2003). Current research interests include developments in African Christianity, religion and migration, and Christian-Muslim relations. Recent publications include: ‘Mission’ in Robert Segal and Kocku von Stuckrad (eds), Vocabulary for the Study of Religion (Leiden: Brill, 2017): 453–458, (with Dorottya Nagy) Religion, Migration, and Identity. Methodological and Theological Explorations (Leiden: Brill, 2017), and (with Dorottya Nagy) Critical Readings in the History of Christian Mission (Leiden: Brill forthcoming). Frederiks is a contributing edi- tor of the series Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History (Leiden: Brill), co-editor of Studies in the Intercultural History of Christianity (Berlin: Lang Verlag) and with Lucien van Liere editor-in-chief of Exchange. Journal of Contemporary Christianities in Context (Brill: Leiden). Paul J.J. van Geest a philologist and theologian, is vice-dean of research of the Theological Faculty of Tilburg University (the Netherlands), full Professor of Church History and the History of Theology at the Tilburg University, and visiting professor at the Faculty of Theology of KU Leuven. He has published a dozen monographs, works for a wider audience, and numerous articles on the philosophy of Thomas a Kempis, late medieval nominalism, moral values in Early Christianity, and Augustine. His current research focuses on the role of fear and the pur- suit of integrity in the first centuries of Christianity. Paul van Geest is editor of Late Antique History and Religion (Leuven: Peeters), Augustiniana (Leuven: Peeters), Brill Series of Church History (Leiden: Brill) and Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity (Leiden: Brill). He holds various executive positions in the world of education and is chairman of Christen Democratische