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The growth of world christianity
World Christianity or global Christianity is a term that attempts to convey the global nature of the Christian religion. However, the term often focuses on “non-Western Christianity” which “comprises (usually the exotic) instances of Christian faith in ‘the global South’, in Asia, Africa and Latin America.” It also includes indigenous or diasporic forms in Western Europe and North America.
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History of the Term
The term "world Christianity" can first be found in the writings of Francis John McConnell in 1929 and Henry P. Van Dusen in 1947. The term would likewise be used by the mission historian Kenneth Scott Latourette to speak of the "World Christian Fellowship" and "World Christian Community." For these individuals, world Christianity was meant to promote the idea of Christian missions and ecumenical unity. However, after the end of World War II, as Christian missions ended in many countries such as North Korea and China and parts of Asia and Africa shifted due to decolonization and national independence, these aspects of world Christianity were largely lost.
The current usage of the term puts much less emphasis in missions and ecumenism. A number of historians have noted a twentieth-century "global shift" in Christianity, from a religion largely found in Europe and the Americas to one which is found in the global south. Hence, "world Christianity" has more recently been used to describe the diversity and the multiplicity of Christianity across its two thousand year history.
Another term that is often used as analogous to "world Christianity" is the term "global Christianity." However, scholars such as Lamin Sanneh have argued that "global Christianity" refers to a Eurocentric understanding of Christianity that emphasizes the replication of Christian forms and patterns in Europe, whereas "world Christianity" refers to the multiplicity of indigenous responses to the Christian gospel.
Notable figures
Some notable figures in the academic study of world Christianity include Andrew Walls, Lamin Sanneh, and Brian Stanley, all three of whom are associated with the “Yale-Edinburgh Group on the History of the Missionary Movement and World Christianity.” More recently, Klaus Koschorke and the “Munich School” of World Christianity has been highlighted for its contribution in understanding the polycentric nature of world Christianity.
In contrast to these historians, there is a growing number of theologians who have been engaging the field of world Christianity from the discipline of systematic theology. Some examples of this include the Pentecostal Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen and the Catholic Peter C. Phan.