Category Archives: Yale-Edinburgh

Studies in World Christianity 32.3

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Yale-Edinburgh Conference in São Paulo: Christianity, Democracy and Nationalism

Edited by: Pedro Feitoza

The 2025 annual conference of the Yale-Edinburgh Group on World Christianity and the History of Missions marked a significant departure from the pattern of the previous meetings. For the first time since its inception in 1992 the conference took place outside the Edinburgh-New Haven, Britain-United States connection in the North Atlantic and moved to the South Atlantic. A group of around 80 delegates, plus a couple dozen visitors, gathered at the campus of Mackenzie Presbyterian University in São Paulo, Brazil, to discuss the relationship between Christianity, democracy and nationalism. There were a few reasons for this move. First, the conference organisers were mindful of the need to ‘provincialize the West,’ and this geographical relocation made it easier for students and scholars in Latin America to take part in this important global forum, pull the discussions in the direction of their intellectual priorities, and raise the issues that are at the centre of their own agendas. Second, for a long time Latin America occupied only a marginal place in the academic literature on World Christianity. The conference was conceived as an initial stimulus to correct this imbalance. This was also probably the first bilingual Yale-Edinburgh conference, with plenary and break-out sessions occurring in English and Portuguese. Some of the challenges involved in the planning and running of the event are reminiscent of the very dynamics that make Christianity a world religion: linguistic differences, cultural incomprehension, and the need to cross long geographical distances. But a common disposition motivated the group: the eagerness to share innovative research with peers, learn from students and scholars in different career stages, and find common ground.

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Forthcoming Yale-Edinburgh 2027

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We are pleased to share the Yale-Edinburgh Conference theme and dates below. We are grateful to our colleagues in Nairobi who have begun preparing for the conference and look forward to seeing as many of you there as possible.

Economies, Power, and Mission in World Christianity
3–5 June 2027 ‧ Kenya ‧ #YaleEdin2027
Yale-Edinburgh Conference on World Christianity and the History of Mission

Christian mission has been shaped by both trade and imperial expansion, at times serving and at other times contesting the prevailing geopolitical realities of its age. Some mission models have depended heavily on economic strength, while others pursued mendicant means, demonstrating an aversion to the use of financial power in the work of conversion. This conference offers a critical space for examining the ways in which historical legacies and contemporary economic realities continue to shape Christian witness around the world.

Discourses on economies are also discussions of wealth and poverty. Shifting patterns of financial exchange have produced inequalities and power differentials, inspiring such responses as liberation theology and integral mission. In some cases, currencies, policies, and economic ideologies advanced mission; in others, they constrained or undermined it. Shifting global power dynamics, economic realignments, and the demographic growth of the Global South continue to reshape the distribution of ecclesial authority and mission resources. Theologies, liturgies, and strategies have emerged both in response to and in spite of prevailing economic conditions, revealing patterns of innovation and agency that continue to inform the study of World Christianity.

The conference welcomes assessments, in conversation with the social sciences, of how commercial enterprise at national, regional, and transcontinental scales has affected Christian expansion in its various forms. Papers may examine the mechanisms through which economic resources were mobilized and influence exercised, or explore historical, theological, and other responses to these dynamics and the imaginative practices they inspired.

The call for papers will be announced later. The conference will be hosted in Kenya by Pan African Christian University, St. Paul’s University and Africa International University, and held at the St. Paul’s University campus in Limuru.

Reflections on Yale-Edinburgh 2026

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Written by Centre PhD student, Kpanie Addy, SJ.

Professor Emma Wild-Wood (Centre Co-Director) and Professor Jeremy Carette (Head of School) welcoming delegates to Yale-Edinburgh 2026.

With the theme “Popular, Folk, Grassroots and Pop Culture in World Christianity and the History of Mission,” the 2026 Yale-Edinburgh Conference promised an intellectually stimulating encounter. Held at New College, University of Edinburgh, from 10th to 12th June 2026, it more than met that expectation. Not many conferences witness the eruption of rhythmic sounds and harmonious melodies, with bodies gently gyrating to depict the performative aspects of religious practices, all of which align with the quest to advance academic inquiry. This distinctive feature of the 2026 Y-E Conference pointed to the richness of the field of World Christianity and the need to delve deeper into how religion is evoked, religious soundscapes, and the theatre of Christian ritual. The conference began with a gracious welcome from Professor Jeremy Carette, Head of the School of Divinity, followed by a preview by Professor Emma Wild-Wood, CSWC co-director. The eighty-five participants were then ushered into three days of thought-provoking scholarly exchanges, consisting of forty-eight in-person presentations and two hybrid panels, each comprising three presentations, held in Hong Kong and Nairobi. 

Presentations addressed a wide range of themes, including World Christianity and Music; Popular Culture and Christianity in the Digital Age; Mediating Christianity in Popular Culture; Christian Popular Culture, Social Justice and Liberation. Papers were grouped into panels to foster conversations across geographic specialisations, enriching presenters’ insights through regional, thematic, and disciplinary perspectives. Notwithstanding the emergent hybridity, traditional themes in world Christianity, such as the translation principle, resonated across many papers while also introducing novelty to these enduring motifs. 

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Yale-Edinburgh 2026 – Call for Papers

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Popular, Folk, Grassroots and Pop Culture
in World Christianity and the History of Mission
10–12 June 2026 ‧ New College, University of Edinburgh ‧ #YaleEdin2026
Yale-Edinburgh Conference on World Christianity and the History of Mission
Deadline for Proposals: 1 February 2026 (Now closed!)

Christian communities, individuals, and institutions have always grappled with grassroots cultural expressions that surround them in different historical and social settings. This relationship has been riven with ambiguities. Songs, plays, and literature, print, radio, television, and the internet are deemed to edify or to scandalise, to propagate the Gospel or to profane it, to promote Christian virtues or to reject them, to encourage devotion or to deaden Christian sentiments. Missionaries have drawn upon familiar forms for hymns or folk traditions for liturgy. They have also eschewed popular songs and myths as antithetical to the Gospel. Majority World Christians simultaneously cultivate a ‘world-breaking’ attitude towards popular culture, casting off local traditions and customs as demonic, and a ‘world-making’ posture that positively engages local ontologies and folk cultures, like the Orthodox Anastenaria in which icons are displayed at festivals.

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