Jehu J. HANCILES, ed. World Christianity: History, Methodologies, Horizons.  Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2021.  xxiv + 216 pp.  $45.00  ISBN 9781626984486 (paperback). Reviewed by Leo LEFEBURE, Georgetown University.

This engaging collection of essays, inspired by a conference at Emory University in 2018, does not directly recount the history of Christianity around the world; instead, it explores the creation, development, and challenges of the academic discipline of world Christianity.  Authors discuss the debate over whether this field should be called “global” or “world” Christianity.  Critics of each term see it as implying a colonial perspective; on the balance “world Christianity” is more prevalent.  Some suggest that “world” should function as a verb so that the discipline can examine the “worlding” of Christianity.  Dana L. Robert recounts the emergence of this discipline from mission studies and ecumenical efforts in the twentieth century, proposing that world Christianity should be viewed as “a revitalization movement in academic culture” (4). 

Many essays explore methodological issues in a multifaceted field that draws upon a wide range of academic specialties.  Some authors emphasize the relation of world Christianity to the secular disciplines of religious studies, history, economics, sociology, and anthropology. Kwok Pui-lan and Gina A. Zurlo point out that the earliest American sociologists were concerned with supporting Christian social action, but later many sociologists forgot the religious origins of their discipline and claimed an allegedly objective, scientific point of view.  Scholars of world Christianity frequently draw upon gender studies, migration studies, global history, and postcolonial studies, as well as media studies, urban studies, ethnography, ritual studies, and a multitude of other disciplines.

Authors also explore the religious home of the discipline of world Christianity in missions, churches, seminaries, and church-related universities. Kirsteen Kim critiques the traditional world religions paradigm, as well as ressourcement theology, the hermeneutics of Gadamer, and postliberal theology for remaining Eurocentric, noting that biblical hermeneutics is often a site of contention between Christians from different regions.  Paul Kollman calls for scholars of world Christianity to have at least some awareness of Christian theology and empathy for Christian self-understanding.  Shobona Shankar discusses the complex process of making and breaking confessional boundaries in the “worlding” of Christianity and relates the discipline to Goethe’s call for the study of world literature; Shankar offers an example of how a borderlands approach to world Christianity can shed light on Christian experience with Muslims in Nigeria and calls for scholars to move beyond Eurocentric models and acknowledge the agency of actors around the world. 

The final section of the book explores the study of world Christianity in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.  Pan-chiu Lai offers a Chinese Protestant perspective on the new discipline, proposing that no single form of Christianity should be viewed as normative and calling for Chinese scholars to engage with the discourse of world Christianity as equals and contribute to religious studies, including in the non-Chinese world.  Gemma Tulud Cruz from the Philippines challenges the continuing biases toward Western methods and epistemologies and calls for attention to diverse, cross-cultural contexts and respect for indigenous forms of knowing.  Raimundo C. Barreto, writing from the perspective of Latin American Christianities, questions who is defining the meaning of “world” in this discipline; he comments that this field “emerged mostly among Anglophone scholars studying sub-Saharan African Christianities” (138) and calls for an expansion of focus to include more attention to Spanish, Portuguese, and French language scholarship as well to the history of South-South interactions.  Barreto laments that the academic resources for studying world Christianity are largely located in the North Atlantic, while “there is no chair, department, or center of world Christianity in Latin America” (146).  He emphasizes the vital importance of the decolonial turn in cultural studies that challenged Eurocentric views of the world and supported the production of knowledge by indigenous and other marginalized communities. 

Despite many contributions, the field of world Christianity still has lacunae: Deanna Ferree Womack laments the marginality of Middle Eastern Christians in the study of world Christianity, citing as contributing factors “the overwhelmingly Protestant character of world Christianity studies, when very few Middle Eastern Christians are Protestants,” as well as “the reality that most Middle Eastern Catholics are not Roman Catholic, making them less familiar within Western academia” (176, 177).  Helen Jin Kim criticizes the neglect of nonliberal Korean Christians by many scholars and looks to the Africanist pioneers of world Christianity as models for emphasizing the agency of non-Western, non-white subjects who transformed Christianity.  Kim highlights transpacific Korean Christianity’s location at the intersection of multiple communities and fields of study.  This volume challenges long-held assumptions, offers a helpful overview of a developing discipline, and presents a cogent call for attention to traditionally marginalized voices and to the interconnections among us all.