Joel A. Carpenter

Introduction religious innovation and competition in Contemporary African Christianity

ABSTRACT This introductory essay lays out the main themes of a special issue of Journal of Contemporary African Studies which brings together six empirically grounded papers by African social scientists of different disciplinary backgrounds. These works touch on various aspects of the social impact of religious innovation and competition in present day African Christianity. They represent the first fruits on the social science side of an interdisciplinary initiative that made 23 research grants for theologians and social scientists to study Christianity and social change in contemporary Africa. These articles focus on a variety of dynamics in contemporary African religion (mostly Christianity), including gender, health and healing, social media, entrepreneurship, and inter-religious borrowing and accommodation. The editors conclude that the research and learning reflected in this volume will enhance understanding of religion’s vital entanglement in contemporary African society. The articles reveal problematic ethical and psychological dynamics in some of these new movements, particularly among some of the neo-Pentecostal groups. Yet the authors are determined to go beyond perspectives that are overly fixated with African problems and victimisation. They are keen to explore opportunities for understanding African agency and African wellsprings of hope. The editors conclude that scholars of religion and religiosity in Africa need to invest new conceptual and methodological energy in researching what it means to be actively religious in Africa today.

Book Review: Crossing Cultural Frontiers: Studies in the History of World ChristianityCrossing Cultural Frontiers: Studies in the History of World Christianity. By WallsAndrew F., edited by GornikMark R.Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2017. Pp. xii, 284. P...

This review essay highlights the thought of Andrew F. Walls, the renowned interpreter of the history of world Christianity. World Christianity is normative Christianity, Walls argues, a portable religion for people on the move. Walls also addresses what it means to be a scholar of missions and world Christianity. The work demands humility because it addresses missions, an activity long thought marginal. It calls for extraordinary scholarly range and diligence, and it addresses questions and data long neglected by other disciplines. Even so, the study of world Christianity is critical to the renewal of Christianity in our time.

God and the Atlantic: America, Europe, and the Religious Divide

A review of God and the Atlantic: America, Europe, and the Religious Divide, by Thomas Albert Howard (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

A Review of “China's Christian Colleges: Cross-Cultural Connections,1900–1950”

Historical interest in the 16 Christian colleges founded in China before the 1949 revolution has experienced a remarkable revival since the 1980s, with Chinese scholars leading the way. This book represents the efforts of 11 North American scholars, along with 4 East Asian historians, to contribute to the ongoing conversation. Their essays come out of a project funded by the Luce Foundation to organize, make accessible, and use some remarkable documents that were housed in American liberal arts colleges and universities. Eleven institutions participated: Carleton, Claremont, DePauw, Dickinson, Grinnell, Haverford, Mt. Holyoke, Oberlin, Smith, Wellesley, and Wesleyan. What we see in this book, then, is an attempt to add new dimensions to the study of Christianity’s role in forming Chinese higher education. Even for the reader who has little background in the basic story of China’s Christian colleges, these chapters are fascinating. We learn what these college campuses looked like, and how American architects in China aspired to merge Western university campus patterns, Chinese traditions of architecture, and 20th-century construction technology. Imagine, for example, a tall, graceful pagoda that is in fact a water tower. We see how American liberal arts curricula were adapted to Chinese social aspirations and needs. We observe the experience of Chinese students, encountering Western liberal arts methods of critical thought, and using them to challenge both their professors and the current regime.

RESPONSE TO HARRY FERNHOUT

I am intrigued to learn about Dr. Harry Fernhout s perspective on the North American academic scene. I have known Harry for some time, but only now have I had the chance to learn his views. He may have told you more than you wanted to know about the distinctions and differences within Calvinist institutions. Nevertheless, I find his characterizations of the various Reformed sub-persuasions to be largely accurate. He makes a valuable distinction between the antitheticals, who want to focus on differences and stand in opposition, and the progressives, who want to focus on points of contact and seize opportunities for positive influence. I am indeed in the progressive camp, and as a cheerful Kuyperian, I must run true to form. So I want you to know some reasons to be encouraged about Christian academic and intellectual work on the North American scene.