New Books in World Christianity

New Books in World Christianity episodes:

• 06.13.2024

  Gale L. Kenny, "Christian Imperial Feminism: White Protestant Women and the Consecration of Empire" (NYU Press, 2024)

  Amidst the global instability of the early twentieth century, white Christian American women embraced the idea of an “empire of Christ” that was racially diverse, but which they believed they were uniquely qualified to manage. America’s burgeoning power, combined with...

  
• 06.03.2024

  Jonathan A. Seitz, "Protestant Missionaries in China: Robert Morrison and Early Sinology" (U Notre Dame Press, 2024)

  With a focus on Robert Morrison, Protestant Missionaries in China: Robert Morrison and Early Sinology (U Notre Dame Press, 2024) evaluates the role of nineteenth-century British missionaries in the early development of the cross-cultural relationship between China and the English-speaking world. As...

  
• 03.24.2024

  Emily Conroy-Krutz, "Missionary Diplomacy: Religion and Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations" (Cornell UP, 2024)

  Missionary Diplomacy: Religion and Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations (Cornell University Press, 2024) illuminates the crucial place of religion in nineteenth-century American diplomacy. From the 1810s through the 1920s, Protestant missionaries positioned themselves as key experts in the development of American relations...

  
• 03.24.2024

  Cristina Rocha, "Cool Christianity: Hillsong and the Fashioning of Cosmopolitan Identities" (Oxford UP, 2024)

  When did Christianity become cool? How did an Australian church conquer the world and expand into Brazil, a country with its own crop of powerful megachurches?  In her exciting new book, Cool Christianity: Hillsong and the Fashioning of Cosmopolitan Identities (Oxford UP, 2023),...

  
• 02.19.2024

  Gwyn McClelland, "Dangerous Memory in Nagasaki: Prayers, Protests and Catholic Survivor Narratives" (Routledge, 2019)

  On 9th August 1945, the US dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Of the dead, approximately 8500 were Catholic Christians, representing over sixty percent of the community. In Dangerous Memory in Nagasaki: Prayers, Protests, and Catholic Survivor Narratives (Routledge, 2019), Gwyn McClelland presents...

  
• 12.28.2023

  Daniel Soars, "The World and God Are Not-Two: A Hindu-Christian Conversation" (Fordham UP, 2022)

  The World and God Are Not-Two: A Hindu-Christian Conversation (Fordham UP, 2022) is a book about how the God in whom Christians believe ought to be understood. The key conceptual argument that runs throughout is that the distinctive relation between the...

  
• 12.15.2023

  Between Jesus and Krishna: Christian Encounters with South Indian Temple Dance

  One of the eight national dances of India, bharatanatyam, partly originates from the area around Tranquebar. During the time that Tranquebar was a Danish colony, devadasis, women who did service at temples through dance, were patronized by the Thanjavur royal...

  
• 12.02.2023

  J. Christopher Edwards, "Crucified: The Christian Invention of the Jewish Executioners of Jesus" (Fortress Press, 2023)

  In his book Crucified: The Christian Invention of the Jewish Executioners of Jesus (Fortress Press, 2023), J. Christopher Edwards explores the early Christian teachings regarding who actually killed Jesus. Historians of early Christianity unanimously agree that Jesus was executed by Roman soldiers....

  
• 11.15.2023

  Briana L. Wong, "Cambodian Evangelicalism: Cosmological Hope and Diasporic Resilience" (Pennsylvania State UP, 2023)

  The Cambodian Civil War and genocide of the late 1960s and ’70s left the country and its diaspora with long-lasting trauma that continues to reverberate through the community. In Cambodian Evangelicalism: Cosmological Hope and Diasporic Resilience (Pennsylvania State UP, 2023), Briana L....

  
• 10.22.2023

  Ji Li, "At the Frontier of God's Empire: A Missionary Odyssey in Modern China" (Oxford UP, 2023)

  To a lively cast of international players that shaped Manchuria during the early twentieth century, At the Frontier of God's Empire: A Missionary Odyssey in Modern China (Oxford UP, 2023) adds the remarkable story of Alfred Marie Caubrière (1876-1948). A French Catholic...

  
• 10.16.2023

  Gina A. Zurlo, "Women in World Christianity: Building and Sustaining a Global Movement" (Wiley-Blackwell, 2023)

  Gina A. Zurlo's book Women in World Christianity: Building and Sustaining a Global Movement (Wiley-Blackwell, 2023) is the first textbook to focus on women’s experiences in the founding, spread, and continuation of the Christian faith. Integrating historical, theological, and social scientific approaches to...

  
• 10.08.2023

  Oluwatomisin Olayinka Oredein, "The Theology of Mercy Amba Oduyoye: Ecumenism, Feminism, and Communal Practice" (U Notre Dame Press, 2023)

  Oluwatomisin Olayinka Oredein's book The Theology of Mercy Amba Oduyoye: Ecumenism, Feminism, and Communal Practice (U Notre Dame Press, 2023) explores African theologian Mercy Amba Oduyoye’s constructive initiative to include African women’s experiences and voices within Christian theological discourse. Mercy Amba Oduyoye,...

  
• 10.05.2023

  Alexandra Kaloyanides, "Baptizing Burma: Religious Change in the Last Buddhist Kingdom" (Columbia UP, 2023)

  Adoniram Judson was the 19th-century version of an American celebrity. Americans flocked to listen to his tales of being one of the first missionaries to enter the Kingdom of Burma. Americans wanted to hear of his mission in the Buddhist...

  
• 09.12.2023

  A Better Way to Buy Books

  Bookshop.org is an online book retailer that donates more than 80% of its profits to independent bookstores. Launched in 2020, Bookshop.org has already raised more than $27,000,000. In this interview, Andy Hunter, founder and CEO discusses his journey to creating one of the...

  
• 09.09.2023

  L. M. Ratnapalan, "Robert Louis Stevenson and the Pacific: The Transformation of Global Christianity" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)

  How does Robert Louis Stevenson’s engagement with Pacific Islands cultures demonstrate processes of inculturation and the transformation of global Christianity?  L. M. Ratnapalan's book Robert Louis Stevenson and the Pacific: The Transformation of Global Christianity (Edinburgh UP, 2023) re-orients the intellectual biography of...

  
• 09.07.2023

  Kerry P. C. San Chirico. "Between Hindu and Christian: Khrist Bhaktas, Catholics, and the Negotiation of Devotion in Banaras" (Oxford UP, 2022)

  On the second Saturday of each month, on the outskirts of the ancient city of Varanasi, Shiva's own city, thousands of shudra and Dalit devotees worship Yesu (Jesus) at a Catholic ashram. In an open-air pavilion more than three thousand...

  
• 08.16.2023

  Andrew Johnson, "If I Give My Soul: Faith Behind Bars in Rio de Janeiro" (Oxford UP, 2017)

  Pentecostal Christianity is flourishing inside the prisons of Rio de Janeiro. To find out why, Andrew Johnson dug deep into the prisons themselves. He began by spending two weeks living in a Brazilian prison as if he were an inmate:...

  
• 08.05.2023

  Michèle Miller Sigg, "Birthing Revival: Women and Mission in Nineteenth-Century France" (Baylor UP, 2022)

  The nineteenth century witnessed a flurry of evangelical and missionary activity in Europe and North America. This was an era of renewed piety and intense zeal spanning denominations and countries. One area of Protestant flourishing in this period has received...

  
• 07.28.2023

  Stephen C. Taysom, "Like a Fiery Meteor: The Life of Joseph F. Smith" (U of Utah Press, 2023)

  Joseph F. Smith was born in 1838 to Hyrum Smith and Mary Fielding Smith. Six years later both his father and his uncle, Joseph Smith Jr., the founding prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, were murdered...

  
• 07.20.2023

  Scott E. Simon, "Truly Human: Indigeneity and Indigenous Resurgence on Formosa" (U Toronto Press, 2023)

  Similar to countries like the US and Canada, Taiwan also has indigenous peoples who've existed before the arrival of colonizers, and continue to grapple with the legacy of colonialism to this day. Scott Simon's Truly Human: Indigeneity and Indigenous Resurgence on Formosa (U...

  
• 06.22.2023

  Sofia Samatar, "The White Mosque: A Memoir" (Catapult, 2022)

  In the late 19th century, a group of Mennonites leave Russia for what is now Uzbekistan. Driven out by Russian demands that the pacifist group make themselves available for conscription, and pushed forward by prophecies of the imminent return of...

  
• 06.21.2023

  Alexandra Kaloyanides, "Baptizing Burma: Religious Change in the Last Buddhist Kingdom" (Columbia UP, 2023)

  In July 1813, a young American couple from Boston arrived in the Buddhist kingdom of Burma to preach the gospel. Although Burmese Buddhists largely resisted Christian evangelism, members of minority religious communities embraced Baptist teachings and practices, reimagining both Buddhism...

  
• 05.27.2023

  Raúl E. Zegarra Medina, "A Revolutionary Faith: Liberation Theology Between Public Religion and Public Reason" (Stanford UP, 2023)

  Religious commitments can be a powerful engine for progressive social change. In A Revolutionary Faith: Liberation Theology Between Public Religion and Public Reason (Stanford UP, 2023), Raúl E. Zegarra examines the process of articulation of religious beliefs and political concerns that takes...

  
• 05.25.2023

  Baba Padmanji, "Yamuna's Journey" (Speaking Tiger Books, 2022)

  In 1856, the East India Company imposed the Hindu Widow Remarriage Act, allowing widows to remarry after their husband’s death. The Act was controversial at the time: Hindu traditionalists, particularly in higher castes, prevented widows from remarrying to protect the...

  
• 05.16.2023

  Garrett L. Washington, "Church Space and the Capital in Prewar Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2022)

  Garrett Washington’s Church Space and the Capital in Prewar Japan (Hawai’i 2022) brings a fresh perspective to the question of Protestant Christianity’s outsized influence in modernizing Japan from almost the moment the centuries-long ban was lifted in the 1870s. Washington roots his...

  
• 05.14.2023

  Sebanti Chatterjee, "Choral Voices: Ethnographic Imaginations of Sound and Sacrality" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

  Sebanti Chatterjee's book Choral Voices: Ethnographic Imaginations of Sound and Sacrality (Bloomsbury, 2023) is about sacred and secular choirs in Goa and Shillong across churches, seminaries, schools, auditoriums, classrooms, reality TV shows, and festivals. Voice and genre emerge as social objects annotated...

  
• 05.04.2023

  Francis Xavier Clooney, "Saint Joseph in South India: Poetry, Mission and Theology in Costanzo Gioseffo Beschi's Tēmpāvaṇi" (Brill, 2022)

  Costanzo Gioseffo Beschi was an Italian Jesuit who worked in South India from 1710 to 1747. A brilliant scholar of Tamil, his works include hymns, instructions for catechists, and a robust defense of the Catholic missionary approach. His most famous...

  
• 05.01.2023

  Chandra Mallampalli, "South Asia's Christians: Between Hindu and Muslim" (Oxford UP, 2023)

  South Asia is home to more than a billion Hindus and half a billion Muslims. But the region is also home to substantial Christian communities, some dating almost to the earliest days of the faith. The stories of South Asia’s...

  
• 04.29.2023

  Eric Hoenes del Pinal et al., "Mediating Catholicism: Religion and Media in Global Catholic Imaginaries" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

  In Mediating Catholicism: Religion and Media in Global Catholic Imaginaries (Bloomsbury, 2022), the authors and the three editors (Eric Hones del Pinal, Marc Rosco Loustau and Kristin Norget) explore how Catholicism is produced, maintained and challenged through processes of communication. This book...

  
• 04.29.2023

  Pablo Bradbury, "Liberationist Christianity in Argentina (1930-1983): Faith and Revolution" (Tamesis Books, 2023)

  How did liberationist Christianity develop in Argentina between the 1930s and early 1970s? And how did it respond to state terrorism during the Dirty War? How did liberation theology develop in Argentina between the 1930s and early 1970s? And how...

  
• 03.05.2023

  Kyama M. Mugambi, "A Spirit of Revitalization: Urban Pentecostalism in Kenya" (Baylor UP, 2020)

  Perhaps more than anywhere else in the world, Africa has generated unique expressions of Christianity that have, in their rapid development, overtaken older forms of Christianity represented by historic missionary efforts. Similarly, African Christianity has largely displayed its rootedness in...

  
• 02.28.2023

  Elle Hardy, "Beyond Belief: How Pentecostal Christianity Is Taking Over the World" (Hurst, 2022)

  How has a Christian movement, founded at the turn of the twentieth century by the son of freed slaves, become the fastest-growing religion on Earth? This is the religion of the Holy Spirit, with believers directly experiencing God and His...

  
• 02.28.2023

  Jason Bruner, "How to Study Global Christianity: A Short Guide for Students" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022)

  Jason Bruner's How to Study Global Christianity: A Short Guide for Students (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022) provides students with an accessible–yet critically oriented–introduction to the foundational methods and themes in Global Christianity scholarship over the past 40 years. While the field of Global...

  
• 01.29.2023

  Mitri Raheb, "The Politics of Persecution: Middle Eastern Christians in an Age of Empire" (Baylor UP, 2021)

  Persecution of Christians in the Middle East has been a recurring theme since the middle of the nineteenth century. The topic has experienced a resurgence in the last few years, especially during the Trump era. Middle Eastern Christians are often...

  
• 01.24.2023

  Faithful Frontiers: A Turkish Scholar Describes How She Became a Catholic Apologist

  Derya Little has been a Muslim, an atheist, and a Protestant; today she is a Catholic writer and apologist. She tells the story of her conversion, talks about faith, family, Islam, history, the role of women in our Church. Since...

  
• 01.23.2023

  Catholic in Karachi: Living as a Christian in an Islamic Country

  Ayyaz Gulzar, journalist and Catholic youth leader in Pakistan, describes the challenges and persecutions the Church faces in the Islamic Republic, which includes the county’s blasphemy laws. He also talks about the many successes and joys he has seen—and some...

  
• 01.03.2023

  Joel Robbins, "Theology and the Anthropology of Christian Life" (Oxford UP, 2020)

  Anthropological theory can radically transform our understanding of human experience and offer theologians an introduction to the interdisciplinary nature between anthropology and Christianity. Both sociocultural anthropology and theology have made fundamental contributions to our understanding of human experience and the...

  
• 01.03.2023

  Amanda Hendrix-Komoto, "Imperial Zions: Religion, Race, and Family in the American West and the Pacific" (U Nebraska Press, 2022)

  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has always been globally situated, argues Montana State history professor Amanda Hendrix-Komoto in Imperial Zions: Religion, Race, and Family in the American West and the Pacific (U Nebraska, 2022). Through mission work, polygamous marriage, and extensive...

  
• 12.28.2022

  Quo Vademus? The Pilgrim Church on the Road of Synodality

  For two years Sr Nathalie Becquart has been in charge of the Church’s Synod on Synodality, coordinating the responses of millions of Catholics from 112 out of 114 Episcopal Conferences and from all the 15 Oriental Catholic Churches. She and...

  
• 12.25.2022

  Emma Wild-Wood, "The Mission of Apolo Kivebulaya: Religious Encounter and Social Change in the Great Lakes C. 1865-1935" (James Currey, 2020)

  The Mission of Apolo Kivebulaya: Religious Encounter and Social Change in the Great Lakes c.1865-1935 (James Currey, 2020) is a vivid portrayal of Kivebulaya's life that interrogates the role of indigenous agents as harbingers of change under colonization, and the influence of...

  
• 12.24.2022

  Jerry Pinto and Madhulika Liddle, "Indian Christmas: Essays, Memories, Hymns" (Speaking Tiger, 2022)

  Few countries celebrate religious and cultural festivals with greater passion, imagination and joy than India. And among the many festivals of this gloriously diverse, multicultural nation is Christmas—the night that Jesus came to earth, bringing with him the all-embracing ‘fragrance...

  
• 12.24.2022

  J. V. Fesko, "The Need for Creeds Today: Confessional Faith in a Faithless Age" (Baker Academic, 2020)

  The Need for Creeds Today: Confessional Faith in a Faithless Age (Baker Academic, 2020) is an accessible invitation to the historic creeds and confessions makes a biblical and historical case for their necessity and shows why they are essential for Christian faith...

  
• 12.20.2022

  Richard Brian Miller, "Why Study Religion?" (Oxford UP, 2021)

  Can the study of religion be justified? Scholarship in religion, especially work in "theory and method," is preoccupied with matters of research procedure and thus inarticulate about the goals that motivate scholarship in the field. For that reason, the field...

  
• 12.10.2022

  Tom Bratrud, "Fire on the Island: Fear, Hope and a Christian Revival in Vanuatu" (Berghahn Books, 2022)

  In 2014, the island of Ahamb in Vanuatu became the scene of a startling Christian revival movement led by thirty children with ‘spiritual vision.’ However, it ended dramatically when two men believed to be sorcerers and responsible for much of...

  
• 11.08.2022

  Kimlyn J. Bender and D. Stephen Long, "T&T Clark Handbook of Ecclesiology" (T&T Clark, 2020)

  The T&T; Clark Handbook of Ecclesiology, edited by Kimlyn J. Bender and D. Stephen Long (T&T; Clark: 2020), provides a wide-ranging survey and analysis of the Christian Church. This foundational text explores the scriptural foundations of ecclesiology, historical and confessional aspects of the topic,...

  
• 10.14.2022

  Gina Zurlo, "Global Christianity: A Guide to the World's Largest Religion from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe" (Zondervan Academic, 2022)

  Christianity is now a majority-global South religion, with more believers living in Africa, Asia, and Latin America than in Europe and North America. However, most Americans have little exposure to Christians around the world. In addition, the United States is...

  
• 10.12.2022

  Vibha Joshi, "A Matter of Belief: Christian Conversion and Healing in North-East India" (Berghahn Books, 2012)

  ‘Nagaland for Christ’ and ‘Jesus Saves’ are familiar slogans prominently displayed on public transport and celebratory banners in Nagaland, north-east India. They express an idealization of Christian homogeneity that belies the underlying tensions and negotiations between Christian and non-Christian Naga....

  
• 09.29.2022

  Jesse A. Zink, "Christianity and Catastrophe in South Sudan: Civil War, Migration, and the Rise of Dinka Anglicanism" (Baylor UP, 2018)

  The most recent addition to Baylor University Press’s Studies in World Christianity is Christianity and Catastrophe in South Sudan: Civil War, Migration, and the Rise of Dinka Anglicanism (Baylor UP, 2018), by Jesse A. Zink, who is among many other...

  
• 09.22.2022

  Andrey V. Ivanov, "A Spiritual Revolution: The Impact of Reformation and Enlightenment in Orthodox Russia, 1700–1825" (U Wisconsin Press, 2020)

  The ideas of the Protestant Reformation, followed by the European Enlightenment, had a profound and long-lasting impact on Russia’s church and society in the long eighteenth century. Though the Orthodox Church was often assumed to have been hostile toward outside...

  
• 09.14.2022

  Felicia Wu Song, "Restless Devices: Recovering Personhood, Presence, and Place in the Digital Age" (InterVarsity Press, 2021)

  We're being formed by our devices. Unpacking the soft tyranny of the digital age, Felicia Wu Song combines insights from psychology, neuroscience, sociology, and theology as she considers digital practices through the lens of "liturgy" and formation. The book is...