an empirical study. But empirical findings can and should challenge theological claims—explicit or implicit—that do not reflect ground realities; for example, any claim that a certain theology developed in in a particular time and place (Aquinas, Luther, Barth, etc.) is somehow normative for all Christians everywhere.
“World Christianity” is sometimes used to imply an approach to Christianity that focuses on developments outside the West, like the terms “world music,” “world film,” or “world religions.” Much of the study of world Christianity does indeed do this in that it redresses a balance and moves beyond colonial approaches. However, as a movement that continues to have significant centers of power in the West, world Christianity must also attend to these—especially Christianity in Europe and the USA—if it is do justice to the whole.
In many respects, world Christianity studies what is so often treated as a European religion in the same way as the other religions which are often referred to under the broad heading “world religion,” such as Islam, Buddhism, and so on. They are studied both in their countries of origin and also in their global spread and manifestations in different continents. Although, the term “world religion” is a contested and ideologically loaded one, it is not necessary to assert the parity of certain religions in order to apply religious studies methods. In any case, Christianity has a strong claim to be a truly world religion on empirical grounds because it is “locally rooted,” “globally widespread” and “interconnected.”105 The contemporary discipline of religious studies treats religions as the lived practices of people rather than as systems to live by. World Christianity tends to study Christianity this way as well, although theology is more recognized than in the discipline in general.
In the UK and North America, professorial chairs in “world Christianity” have rapidly replaced chairs in mission studies and ecumenics. In the case of mission studies or missiology, this is primarily because the colonial associations of mission have been difficult to overcome; second, because the paradigm shift to God’s mission (missio Dei) suggested to many that mission from one community to another should cease; and third, because in secular university settings mission appears as a narrowly church pursuit. Personally, I think this is short-sighted; first, because churches and their mission agendas are far from marginal to society, even in places of high secularization; and second, because now that most churches think of themselves as missional and globally missionary movements are on the increase, especially in and from the global South, it is all the more important to be doing mission studies. Similarly, with ecumenics, the growth in Christian diversity makes issues of unity all the more urgent and greatly increases the dialogue to include churches beyond Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox. World Christianity challenges a view of church history that assumes that in the beginning there was one united church which was subsequently rent asunder by schisms. This view of the origins of Christian diversity, which has dominated the ecumenical movement, sees diversity negatively and suggests that a unity that heals these divisions should be the main priority in inter-church relations. Although it was considered necessary at various times and places to unify, regularize or codify Christian belief and practice in one place, region or within one jurisdiction, such uniformity was secondary and diversity was more normal.106 Moreover, there always existed churches beyond these jurisdictions. Through the ecumenical councils, limits to diversity were set but these still allowed for regional variations. Such variations have come down to the present day in the Orthodox and Catholic churches; many have probably been lost. Furthermore, the churches have continued to be founded in different regions and cultures.
A New Approach to Catholicity
All the above definitions of world Christianity are true to an extent but at the heart of the shift to world Christianity in mission theology lies a rediscovery of the nature of the church’s catholicity. World Christianity shifts interest away from understanding Christian diversity primarily in terms of doctrine and polity and toward spatial or geographical diversity, which was the primary sense in which the first councils of the church understood catholicity. No longer is the unity envisaged mainly a denominational one; it is also a cultural and regional one. The ecumenism of the colonial period which gave birth to the World Council of Churches tended to assume that overcoming the doctrinal and liturgical differences between the churches of Europe would unite Christians globally. Today, this is no longer the case and new expressions of catholicity are being sought, for example through the Global Christian Forum.
However it is treated, the study of world Christianity tends to de-center Europe. World Christianity approaches to history reinforce the fact that Europe rose to dominance late in Christian history and that the early spread of the faith was in all directions. Early Christianity was polycentric and the faith has always been expressed in diverse ways. Christianity has multiple histories and a number of orthodoxies.107 In the light of two thousand years of Christian history and with the rise of Christianity in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and other regions, the dominance of Europe begins to look like a one-thousand-year aberration, an accident of history, soon to be superseded. Not only does it critique Euro-centrism, the world Christianity approach relativizes all regions and theologies. It is not only the study of non-Western Christianity but should include the critical study of Christianity in the West as well.
One of the strands of Walls’s theory is that Christianity undergoes “serial expansion.” Use of this term is often misleading and misguided,108 but it does make the valid point that Christianity both waxes and wanes in different parts of the world at different times. There is no guarantee that Christian growth is inexorable. From a historical point of view, the prime example is the Middle East and North Africa, in which there were once strong Christian centers. Another is the suppression of Christianity under Communism and its subsequent revival in many areas. From a theological point of view, we have the New Testament warnings to churches by Paul and the writer of Revelation, and the metaphor of pruning being necessary for growth. So one reason for de-centering Europe is that its numerical decline suggests—although it does not necessarily imply—that European Christianity will become a less significant player in world Christianity in future.
The new catholicity must recognize that many of the newer churches are organized differently from the traditional churches of Europe, which are national churches with parish systems. They may be megachurches, or new denominations, which describe themselves as “international.” Or they may be “migrant churches”; that is, they are not yet settled or integrated into the local religious landscape.109 These are “Christians without borders” and “churches on the move”—arguably much like the churches of the book of Acts.110 In view of the historical diversity of world Christianity and the different contexts in which faith is practiced, the new catholicity will keep an open mind about models of church polity and the limits to Christian diversity, while encouraging a truly “global conversation” to discern the Holy Spirit.111
The study of world Christianity not only poses conceptual challenges for understanding the context of mission, but it also suggests a re-reading of the biblical narrative and a new appreciation of mission as “in the Spirit,” which contribute to new approaches to the church’s apostolicity and catholicity. Theology is always done in context; mission theology especially must respond to the changing landscape of mission and take into account the vision of partners whose theology and view of the world may be different from our own.
84. EMW, Von allen Enden der Erde. This chapter originates in the guest lecture which I gave at the invitation of the Evangelisches Missionswerk (EMW) to their General Assembly, in Breklum, Germany, October 8–10, 2014. I thank Dr. Michael Biehl and the EMW for their kind hospitality and also their framing of the topic which stimulated my thinking.
85. See Bosch, “Structure of Mission.”
86. See Burrus, “Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.”
87. Shillington, Study of Luke-Acts.