Please find details of our upcoming seminars below. They will usually be fortnightly on Tuesdays, in the Martin Hall and on Zoom. We also begin the semester with a whole-school seminar on Wednesday, January 17, on ‘The Digital in Theology and Religious Studies’.
Saturday 3rd February, 10am – 12:30pm
Playfair Library, Old College, University of Edinburgh EH8 9YL
Eric Liddell is best-known for his athletic achievements, particularly his gold medal in the 400 metres at the Paris Olympics in 1924. In association with the Eric Liddell Community’s celebration of the centenary of that victory, this event will focus on the other aspect of his life, which was perhaps even more important to him, namely his life and work as a Christian missionary and teacher in China.
In this half-day programme, three scholars of the University of Edinburgh will focus on Liddell’s life and work in China, his legacy there, and the subsequent history of Chinese Christianity, worldwide and in China itself.
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In the last issue, Studies in World Christianity highlighted several papers presented at the 2022 annual conference of the Yale–Edinburgh Group on World Christianity and the History of Mission. The journal took stock of three decades since the group’s first meeting in 1992, which has since been instrumental in ushering into existence the field of ‘World Christianity’. As was noted in that issue’s editorial, this new academic endeavour had at its origins a postcolonial posture which moved away from a Christendom paradigm of expansion and conquest towards a new paradigm of indigenous initiative and Christianity’s polycentric and multicultural manifestations. Hence, World Christianity is not a shorthand for idiosyncratic expressions of Christianity ‘out there’, as is often (mis)understood. Rather, it is the dynamic nature of a worldwide religion that experiences encounter and contestation, continuity and discontinuity, growth and decline.
Continue readingOn November 29, 2023, the Centre held a book launch for Andrew Walls’s posthumously authored book, The Missionary Movement from the West, published in 2023 through Eerdmans. Panelists included the editor, Brian Stanley, and three respondents, Ray Burbank, Ken Ross, and Emma Wild-Wood.
If you are unable to access the video above from YouTube, you can also try watching it from the University of Edinburgh’s Media Hopper service.