October 3-5, 2024
Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

The Christian expansion to the South has birthed a new Christian flourishing for the third millennium Church. This also means that the churches (Catholic and Reformed/Protestant) have to navigate their way through some of the emerging trends in the Global South. The trends are far too many to outline. In terms of religiosity, historians and demographers are documenting a trend in which women are far “more religious” than men. On the political front, historians are documenting a worrying trend in some areas of the South, especially the Sahel region of Africa, where about 100,000 Christians are killed every year. In Latin America many of the concerns are largely socioeconomic. In Asia, where Christianity remains a minority religion among Asian religions, the concern pertains to how to engage meaningfully in interreligious dialogue. In general, all of these trends pose both challenges and opportunities for World Christianity.

We invite papers that explore one or more of the issues that pertain to the newly emerging trends in World Christianity. The papers may explore questions including (but not limited to): How do the political, social and economic factors affect the demographic shift of Christianity southward? What challenges do they pose for the global church? What are the other trends in World Christianity today that pose a challenge and an opportunity, and how are they to be addressed? We encourage papers that address these issues from interdisciplinary perspectives. We also encourage papers that seek creative ways of bridging issues regarding traditions, cultures and disciplines for the purpose of fostering discussions in World Christianity.

Deadline for submission of proposals to joseph.ogbonnaya@marquette.edu and corji1@udayton.edu is August 31, 2024.

Sponsored by the International Institute for Method in Theology.