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| Centre for the Study of World Christianity | |
|---|---|
| Name | Centre for the Study of World Christianity |
| Established | 1982 |
| Type | Research centre |
| City | Oxford |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Affiliation | University of Oxford |
Centre for the Study of World Christianity is a research centre within the University of Oxford dedicated to historical and contemporary study of Christian movements across Africa, Asia, Latin America, Oceania, and diasporic communities in Europe and North America. It conducts comparative research that connects figures, institutions, and events such as David Livingstone, William Carey, Hudson Taylor, Edinburgh Missionary Conference, and World Council of Churches with local actors like Desmond Tutu, Aimé Césaire, and Wang Ming-Dao. The centre engages with archival holdings, fieldwork networks, and publications linked to bodies including Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Yale University Press, and Routledge.
The centre traces intellectual antecedents to initiatives involving Henry Venn, Samuel Ajayi Crowther, John Stott, Adoniram Judson, and the missionary societies such as the London Missionary Society, Church Missionary Society, Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Institutional milestones reference symposia and conferences like the Edinburgh 1910 Conference, World Missionary Conference of 1952, and exchanges with universities such as Harvard University, University of Chicago, Princeton Theological Seminary, and McGill University. Funding and support have come from trusts and foundations including the Ford Foundation, Bok Center, Carnegie Corporation, and collaborations with libraries such as the Bodleian Library and the British Library.
The centre’s mission situates Christianities in relation to historical actors and movements: studies of Pentecostalism, Roman Catholic Church, Anglican Communion, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, Lutheran World Federation, and indigenous Christianities in contexts shaped by figures like Pope John Paul II, Pope Francis, Martin Luther King Jr., Reinhold Niebuhr, and Karl Barth. Research themes interweave scholarship on colonial encounters involving Cecil Rhodes, Joseph Chamberlain, Mahatma Gandhi, and Kwame Nkrumah; urban congregational change studied alongside cities such as Lagos, Mumbai, Manila, São Paulo, and Cape Town; migration and diasporas connecting to Ellis Island, Windrush generation, Partition of India, and Soviet emigration. Comparative projects examine religious texts and movements associated with works like The Cambridge History of Christianity, Acta Apostolicae Sedis, The Missionary Position, and archives of Amnesty International-adjacent human rights studies.
The centre contributes to graduate supervision, doctoral training, and taught courses linked to colleges such as St Cross College, Oxford, St Antony's College, Oxford, Green Templeton College, Oxford, and departments such as the Faculty of History, University of Oxford and the Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford. Joint programs engage visiting scholars from University of Edinburgh, King's College London, Trinity College Dublin, University of Toronto, Australian National University, and seminar series featuring speakers like Kwame Anthony Appiah, Homi K. Bhabha, Jacques Derrida, and Edward Said. Pedagogical initiatives have connected with professional bodies including Council for World Mission and doctoral consortia such as European Association for the Study of Religions.
The centre produces monographs, edited volumes, and periodicals in collaboration with publishers including Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Brill, Eerdmans, and Palgrave Macmillan. Major projects have included databases and digital humanities initiatives mapping mission networks, oral history projects featuring testimonies related to Apartheid, Rwandan Genocide, Vietnam War, and migration narratives tied to Hurricane Katrina. Edited series have profiled authors and movements such as Jon Sobrino, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Mercy Amba Oduyoye, John Mbiti, and Paul G. Hiebert. The centre hosts colloquia that have produced special issues in journals like Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Church History, International Bulletin of Mission Research, and Studies in World Christianity.
Institutional partnerships span libraries and archives such as the Bodleian Library, British Library, Wellcome Collection, and the Vatican Apostolic Archive; theological institutions including Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, Regent College, Union Theological Seminary (New York), and Fuller Theological Seminary; and international bodies like the World Council of Churches, Caribbean Conference of Churches, All Africa Conference of Churches, and regional universities such as Makerere University, University of the Philippines, University of Ibadan, Pontifical Gregorian University, and Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Directors and affiliated scholars have included historians and theologians associated with names like Andrew Walls, Justo L. González, Philip Jenkins, Kwame Bediako, Lamin Sanneh, Brian Stanley, David B. Barrett, John Mbiti, Graham Ward, Meyer Fortes, and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. Visiting fellows and collaborators have included figures such as Desmond Tutu, Walter Kasper, Hans Frei, Stanley Hauerwas, Alister McGrath, Rowan Williams, N.T. Wright, and Miroslav Volf.
The centre curates collections and special archives in partnership with the Bodleian Library, the Pusey House Library, and the Rothermere American Institute, holding mission society records, personal papers of missionaries such as Mary Slessor and David Livingstone, and audiovisual interviews with leaders from Liberia, Brazil, Philippines, Nigeria, and South Africa. Digital repositories interlink with online catalogues at JSTOR, Project MUSE, Google Books, and institutional repositories at Oxford Research Archive.
Category:Research centres at the University of Oxford Category:Christianity studies