History of Global Christianities II

3 credits · Graduate School

This courses aims to acquaint divinity students with the history of the North American religious cultures and those of the global South as recipients and participants in a broader movement of Christianities in time and across space. Key moments to be explored include colonialism, slavery, interchristian rivalry, evangelicalism, participation in democratic, reform, and military institutions, and the world missionary movements - old and new. The term begins with the transmission of European and African peoples and religious traditions to the Western hemisphere in contact and interaction with indigenous peoples. Key moments to be explored include colonialism, slavery, interchristian rivalry, evangelicalism, participation in democratic, reform, and military institutions, and the world missionary movements - old and new. The second half of the semester moves with much of the modern Christian population to the so-called global South. Growth of 19th century colonial mission field and earlier Christian churches will be tracked in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The growth of worldwide Pentecostalism and indigenous churches will figure strongly, along with the Western Christian traditions of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism but also to Eastern Christian churches and the global Christian communities of the modern era. Throughout the semester students will explore the distinctions of East or West, North or South, national or transnational, marginalized or majority, lay or clerical, as well as the dynamics of gender, race, class, sexuality which have influenced variegated Christianities around the globe. [3]