How to Study Global Christianity: A Short Guide for Students

✍ Scribed by Jason Bruner

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2022
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 150
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book provides students with an accessible–yet critically oriented–introduction to the foundational methods and themes in Global Christianity scholarship over the past 40 years. While the field of Global Christianity is itself interdisciplinary, it largely has not reflected upon the various disciplines of which it is comprised. In addressing different methods that have constituted this field of scholarship, Jason Bruner draws students’ attention to the ways in which these elements have worked together, and what the implications for their use have been in the past and might be in the future. In addition to identifying themes within the discourse, this book offers a survey of where the field has been, what its analytical priorities are, and how future scholars might develop new research projects and trajectories in light of the its history.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
About the Author
List of Figures
List of Tables
Chapter 1: Introduction
What Is Global Christianity?
Is There One Christianity?
Where, Exactly, Is Global Christianity?
Structure of This Book
Further Reading
Works Cited
Part I: Methods
Chapter 2: History
Archives
Local Literature and Oral Histories
Analyzing Missionary Sources
Challenges to Writing Global Christian History
Advice for Visiting Archives
Further Reading
Works Cited
Chapter 3: Ethnography
Ethnography, Missions, and Christianity
Christianity and Anthropology
Getting Started in Ethnographic Research
Suggestions for Starting to Work Ethnographically
Further Reading
Works Cited
Chapter 4: Theology
Historical Theology
Ecumenism
Belief
Studying Theology in a Global Context
Further Reading
Works Cited
Chapter 5: Demography
Christians and the History of Quantification
Methods and Sources for Demography
Databases
Further Reading
Works Cited
Part II: Themes
Chapter 6: Agency
Defining “Agency”
Agency and Colonialism
Power and Agency
Implications
Further Reading
Works Cited
Chapter 7: Mission
What Is Mission? Who Is a Missionary?
Mission and Imperialism
Non-Westerners as Missionaries
Mission in a Polycentric World
Further Reading
Works Cited
Chapter 8: Conversion
Socio-Economic Factors in Conversion
Continuity
Discontinuity
Further Reading
Works Cited
Chapter 9: Gender and Sexuality
Missionaries and Men in the Study of Global Christianity
Women and Missions
Global Christianity as a Women’s Movement
Sexuality and Gender in Contemporary Global Christianity
Further Reading
Works Cited
Chapter 10: Translation
Language, Texts, and Religion
Language, Empire, and Colonialism
Texts and Translation
Problems with Translation
Further Reading
Works Cited
Chapter 11: Migration
Missions, Migration, and Colonialism
Reverse Mission
Other Contemporary Forms of Migration
Christianity and the Spirituality of Migration
Further Reading
Works Cited
Chapter 12: Decolonization
Decolonization as Historical Context
Decolonization as Intellectual Process
Further Reading
Works Cited
Chapter 13: Neglected Topics in the Study of Global Christianity
Failure and Decline
Violence and Persecution
Religious Freedom
Power Imbalances
Catholicism and Orthodoxy
Ecology
Further Reading
Works Cited
Chapter 14: The Futures of Christianity
Violence and Vitality
Secularization
Further Reading
Works Cited
Glossary
Index