Understanding World Christianity

Overview

Recent years have seen a paradigm shift in Christian self-understanding. In place of the eurocentric model of "Christendom," a new understanding has emerged of Christianity as a "world" movement. At the cornerstone of this new perspective lies the work of a remarkable scholar, Andrew F. Walls, whose book, The Missionary Movement in Christian History (Orbis 1996) was named by Christianity Today as one of the hundred most influential books of the twentieth century. Understanding World Christianity introduces Walls's work and explores its wide-ranging implications for the understanding of history, mission, the formative place of Africa in the Christian story, and the crosscultural transmission of faith.

Contributors include Kwame Bediako; I. Howard Marshall; Allison Howell and Maureen Iheanacho; Wilbert R. Shenk; Brian Stanley; Jonathan J. Bonk; Moonjang Lee; Lamin Sanneh; William R. Burrows; Stephen B. Bevans; Dana Robert; Mark Noll; Michael Poon; J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu; Gillian Bediako; and Jehu J. Hanciles.

William R. Burrows is managing editor emeritus of Orbis Books and research professor of missiology in the Center for World Christianity at New York Theological Seminary.

Mark R. Gornik has studied the African Christian diaspora in New York City and is president of City Seminary of New York.

Janice A. McLean is on the faculty of City Seminary of New York.