Akrofi-Christaller Institute
The late Kwame Bediako was a brilliant and visionary theologian and the founder of the Akrofi-Christaller Institute, a postgraduate study center in African Christian thought based in Ghana. Kwame was a great friend of the Nagel Institute, and a founding member of its governing board. He loved Calvin College, and was very proud of the fact that his two sons, Yaw and Kwabena, are both Calvin honors graduates. We can think of no better way to honor his memory and sustain his legacy than to invest in the rising generation of African Christian scholars who study at the Akrofi Christaller Institute. Here is a bit of information about the new Kwame Bediako Endowment Fund, and how you can help this great cause. Janis and I are supporting this effort. Join us, won't you?
Joel Carpenter
director
P.S. If you make out a check to the "Outreach Foundation" and send it to us, we will make sure that your entire gift makes its way safely to Ghana and that you receive U.S. tax deduction information for it.
ISAAC: Resource Development
In partnership with the Pacific Asian American and Canadian Christian Education (PAACCE), ISAAC published an Asian American Christianity Reader. The reader is a collection of historical, sociological, theological, and personal essays that offer insightful into Asian American Christianity. It can be a useful teaching aid for educators and church leaders.
History of Missiology @ Boston University
The History of Missiology website originated from doctoral seminars taught by Professor Dana L. Robert. Because of the obscurity of historic mission texts, she initiated the collection and digitization of texts in the public domain. The provision of biographical data on each missiologist stems from the priorities of the course, which focuses on the social and contextual dimensions of mission theology, theory and strategy. While the work of mission practitioners is certainly of interest, the primary focus of the website is on books and studies considered of historic importance to the development of Protestant missiology.
To provide support for doctoral-level instruction in mission studies. the collection of archival and relevant published material is a priority for the School of Theology Library, under the leadership of Dr. Jack Ammerman. As the global dimensions of the interaction among religious traditions have become more important as a subject of academic inquiry over the past few years, the demands on our rare published and unpublished texts have increased. To make the texts more widely accessible, the Theology Library in collaboration with the Center for Global Christianity and Mission has designed a digital repository of texts to support the study of Christian mission.
Visit the digital library: http://digilib.bu.edu/sth/cgcm/
Christians in the Middle East Network
The Christians in the Middle East Network is a project being run from the Universities of Stirling and St Andrews, Scotland.
The focus of the Christians in the Middle East Network is on the Middle East (loosely defined) from the late 18th century until the contemporary period, and includes local Christians as well as those from beyond the Middle East, such as missionaries. They hope to facilitate discussion and debate, further the exchange of scholarly information, distribute Calls for Papers, disseminate conference and publication announcements, and more.
See their website http://www.cme.stir.ac.uk/ for more information.
The Immanent Frame
The Social Science Research Council is pleased to announce the launch of The Immanent Frame (http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/about/), a
new SSRC blog on secularism, religion, and the public sphere.
The blog is opening with a series of posts on Charles Taylor's A Secular Age, including recent contributions from Robert Bellah, Wendy Brown, Jose Casanova, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, and Colin Jager. Robert Bellah has called A Secular Age "one of the most important books to be written in my lifetime," and there will be more to come on Taylor's major work in the weeks ahead, with posts by Rajeev Bhargava, Akeel Bilgrami, Hent de Vries, Amy Hollywood, Tomoko Masuzawa, Joan Scott, and others. Meanwhile, Charles Taylor himself has just made his own contribution to the already ongoing conversations.
But The Immanent Frame won’t be limited to discussions of A Secular Age. Later this fall we'll also host a series of posts responding to Mark Lilla's The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West. And there will be posts on a variety of other topics too-from pluralism and the "post-secular" to international relations theory, religious freedom, and the future of shari'a.
This new SSRC blog will draw on, and is closely linked to, the Council’s expanding work on religion and the public sphere.
We invite
readers to email us with comments or questions at religion@ssrc.org
World Christianity at The Billy Graham Center Archives of Wheaton College
The Billy Graham Center Archives of Wheaton College (in Wheaton, Illinois, USA) collects material about modern North American Protestant evangelism. But its collections inevitably contain materials on the church around the world. Oral history interviews (including interviews with BGC Scholarship students, many of whom are church leaders in the global south), reports and records from international conferences, papers of individuals and records of organizations help document, among other themes, the growing predominance and leadership of Southern Christianity (the Christians of Asia, Africa and Latin America) in global church.
You can use our online database at http://www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/Search/ to find out what information the Archives has on particular topics: regions, countries, people, organizations, events, subjects
A introduction to our holdings on Southern Christianity can be found at http://www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/Papers/Feast/feast.htm "Sitting Down at the Feast of the Kingdom of God" Glimpses from the Archives of the Flowering of Southern Christianity.
Our website is at: www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives
You can send messages to the Archives at bgcarc@wheaton.edu
Digital Mapping of the Spread of Christianity
Project on Religion and Economic Change receives grant from the John T. Templeton Foundation to create digital maps of the spread of Protestant and Catholic mission activity from the early 19th century to the mid-20th century.
Boston University Digital Research Archive
The Boston University Digital Research Archive "Christian Mission" collection currently contains 210 digitized books.