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.
Centre student Zihao He shares his reflections on the 2025 Yale-Edinburgh conference, held in São Paulo, Brazil, on the theme ‘Christianity, Democracy, and Nationalism’.
Group photo of delegates at Yale-Edinburgh 2025.
As a current PhD student at the Centre for the Study of World Christianity, I had the great privilege of attending this year’s Yale–Edinburgh Conference, held at Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie in São Paulo, Brazil. The theme of this year’s gathering, ‘Christianity, Democracy, and Nationalism’, could not be more timely in our increasingly volatile world. It also closely resonates with my own research interests in Chinese pre-modern nationalism, Christianity, and the issue of violence. Significantly, I had the unique opportunity to witness a historical milestone: for the first time, this influential conference was held in the Global South.
For the first time since its inception the next Yale-Edinburgh conference will be held in the Global South. Mackenzie Presbyterian University in São Paulo, one of Brazil’s largest private universities, has kindly agreed to host the conference in their Higienópolis Campus on 28-30 May 2025. We are thankful to Prof Sérgio Santos, head of the School of Theology, for his generosity. The theme will be ‘Christianity, Democracy, and Nationalism.’
Christianity, Democracy, and Nationalism 28-30 May 2025 ‧ Universidade Mackenzie, São Paulo, Brazil ‧ #YaleEdin2025 Yale-Edinburgh Conference on World Christianity and the History of Mission Deadline: 15 December 2024
Christian communities around the world have long developed an ambiguous and troubled relationship with nationalist movements and processes of democratisation. They can be seen on all possible sides of the religious, political, and ideological divides: at times fostering patriotic sentiments, at times falling victim to nationalist pride; at times providing theological rationale and exemplary models for movements of racial, gender, and class equality, at times portraying social hierarchies as organic and God-given. Such interactions between religious communities, the authority of the state, and the imagining of the nation shaped decisively the historical experiences of the modern world and exert a profound impact in the political and religious configurations of our time. In the Global South, local and indigenous leaders educated in Christian institutions rallied against foreign colonial control and laid the groundwork for movements of independence. We can think of the Latin American Catholic clergymen in the nineteenth century and their role in fostering “creole patriotism” against the Iberian colonisers, or the young leaders educated in Protestant missionary schools in Africa and East Asia who around a century later challenged Western colonialism. Nationalist ideals, however, could also be leveraged against religious minorities. Catholics in nineteenth-century Britain, for instance, were seen as disloyal to the monarchy on account of their attachment to Rome, while Christian conversion in post-1949 China and postcolonial India was often deemed as detrimental to the nation. In yet another way, Christian thinkers and laypeople in the modern era conceived themselves as members of a universal fellowship crossing territorial, ethnic, and linguistic boundaries, sentiments that challenged aspects of nationalist pride. Much has been written in recent years about the simultaneous revival of populist regimes and charismatic Christianity worldwide, especially their impact on processes of democratisation. The intersection of these two forces have contributed to the polarisation of civil society and the destabilisation of democratic systems of checks and balances in the United States, Brazil, Colombia, the Philippines, and Zimbabwe. Conversely, Christians of different persuasions have both organised large-scale mobilisations in favour of the enfranchisement of social and religious minorities and deployed theological arguments to withstand political authoritarianism. Examples of this abound and range from the Catholic critique of totalitarianism in interwar Europe, the evangelical participation in the Civil Rights movement in the United States, the militant Christianity of Latin America in the Cold War, to grassroots movements of popular theological reflection and action in East Asia.
For our 2025 conference we invite papers that interrogate the relationship between democracy, nationalism, Christian communities, and the Christian faith around the world. We especially welcome historical case studies exploring the relationship of Christian bodies with changing sociopolitical circumstances; ethnographies that illuminate the religious and cultural imaginaries of Christian communities and their lived realities; theological interrogations into the politicisation of Christian religion; comparative studies highlighting patterns of interactions between religious communities, democratisation, and nationalism; and any other pertinent topics.
Studies in World Christianity has sought to bring to the attention of the academy those Christian communities and theologies that have frequently been overlooked. The four articles in this issue deal – in very different ways – with questions of marginality and minority. The first two articles use historical and social-science methods to examine Christian groups in Burma and Jordan that are socially and religiously marginal. The second two articles examine political theologies. One describes the historical development of a theology of justice in war from China that has been overlooked by more prominent Western theological traditions. The other offers a constructive theology that places marginalised people in Australia at the centre of Christology. The articles present no single understanding of marginality: it is a social fact; it is something that Christian belonging can overcome; it is Christ-like; it challenges the majority and the influential; it has caused insights to be overlooked. Nevertheless, these articles, as they inquire into people, places and ideas that have been understudied or neglected, provide new angles on conversion, identity, just war and Christology. (Continue reading Emma Wild-Wood’s introduction here.)
