Noteworthy

Leaders of two of the world’s largest religious organizations, the World Evangelical Alliance and Humanitarian Islam, announced April 21, 2020, that they are “undertaking an ambitious joint effort to reshape how the world thinks about religion and to counter the threats of religious extremism and secular extremism.” According to Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf, general secretary of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama Supreme Council (www.nu.or.id), “We seek to lay the foundation for a peaceful and stable global civilization.” In response, Thomas Schirrmacher (https://jakarta2019.org/en/dr-thomas-schirrmacher/), the WEA associate secretary general for theological concerns and religious freedom and archbishop of Communio Messianica, a church whose members are first-generation Christians from Muslim backgrounds, said, “We especially seek a close cooperation with those Muslim leaders and theologians who join us in fighting for human rights and against racism (and) religious extremism.” NU and WEA representatives met in Jakarta in November 2019 and agreed to form a joint working group led by C. Holland Taylor, emissary of Gerakan Pemuda Ansor, NU’s youth movement; and Thomas K. Johnson, WEA senior adviser for theology and religious freedom. Some 800 evangelicals attended the WEA’s 2020 General Assembly in Jakarta, also in November. In a joint statement Taylor and Johnson said, “The world needs to know that a major Christian body and a major Muslim body are not only at peace with one another, but they have pledged to actively cooperate for the betterment of humanity. . . . This is not the peace of shared religious beliefs; it is the peace of compatible approaches to life in society.” For more information, go online to https://worldea.org/en/news/global-evangelical-and-muslim-organizations-launch-major-joint-religious-freedom-project/.

To reflect theologically on the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the world, World Christianity and Covid-19: Theological Reflections on Suffering is being prepared by six editors: Chammah J. Kaunda (pastorchammah@gmail.com), Yonsei University, South Korea; Atola Longkumer, South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies, India; Kenneth R. Ross, Zomba Theological College, Malawi; Esther Mombo, St. Paul's University, Kenya; Jooseup Keum, Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary, South Korea; and Roderick Hewitt, International University of the Caribbean, Jamaica. According to Kaunda, the volume will feature “various analytical tools and lenses to reimagine Christianity in the context of global injustice and suffering.” Thirty authors will offer theological, biblical, missiological, ecumenical, and interfaith perspectives on topics such as the place of God during coronavirus, what it means to be human in the context of suffering, and the role of the church and other faith communities.

The Christian Journal for Global Health published a special issue on COVID-19 (vol. 7, no. 1 [April 2020], https://journal.cjgh.org/index.php/cjgh/issue/view/25) that considers the pandemic’s effect on individuals, health care, the community, and economics; offers a dozen leadership responses; and examines historic plagues and Christian responses. Editor Elliott Larson (elarson@cjgh.org), formerly an internist and infectious disease consultant who taught internal medicine in Afghanistan, and the other editors continue to call for papers on the pandemic as “results of further research on creative and effective responses emerges, as well as deeper theological reflection on what this means for us as humans in a broken but redeemable world.”

Two issues of Studies in World Christianity (https://www.euppublishing.com/loi/swc) will feature articles that analyze immediate responses to COVID-19 and give historical perspectives on pandemics, according to Emma Wild-Wood, senior lecturer in African Christianity and African indigenous religions at the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for the Study of World Christianity. She, coeditor Alexander Chow, and board member J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, president of Trinity Theological Seminary (Ghana), said they received an overwhelming response to their call for papers and will publish two issues, November/December 2020 and February 2021. Authors will (1) consider Christian responses to the global pandemic; (2) examine how churches have responded theologically and practically by offering hope, calling for lament, or proclaiming God’s judgment; and (3) ask ethical questions about planetary health, palliative care, and online church practices of evangelism and social engagement.

“Missions in the Age of Coronavirus” is the theme of a recent issue of Mission Frontiers (July/August 2020, www.missionfrontiers.org/pdfs/MF42-4_Web.pdf), a Frontier Ventures publication. Articles explore the global status of COVID-19, how the pandemic “creates unique and unprecedented opportunities for God’s kingdom to advance,” lessons of history (including “the first major epidemic faced by the early Church”), and how SIM International’s 180-bed Galmi Hospital in Niger is facing the pandemic. In an introductory essay, editor Rick Wood observes, “It is a new world and we will have to develop creative new ways to foster movements of discipleship and church-planting in all peoples. The confidence we have is that God is in this and He is working to open hearts and minds as never before.”

The Catholic Medical Mission Board, the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, the United Society Partners in the Gospel, SIL International, the World Evangelical Alliance, World Relief, and World Vision International are some of the many organizations partnering with the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities (https://jliflc.com) on modern slavery, refugees, the coronavirus pandemic, and other development and humanitarian challenges. As an international learning exchange led by UNICEF and Religions for Peace, the JLI “aims to facilitate evidence building and creation to support faith and COVID-19 response” and equip policymakers and practitioners to “scale up faith engagement for the common good.”

Barnabas Fund International (BFI), Pewsey, Wiltshire, UK, launched its Barnabas Coronavirus Emergency Network (https://barnabasfund.org/us/bcen.html) to give relief during the coronavirus pandemic. More than eighty-five organizations in fifty countries have partnered with the network, which, as of May 9, 2020, had sent $950,000 to support vulnerable communities. BFI, which supports Christians where they are in a minority and suffer persecution as a consequence of their faith, formed an emergency committee to monitor and respond to the global situation. Working with the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), for example, BFI is disseminating information and funds for relief work through the seminaries, colleges, and universities of the Network for African Congregational Theology.

Many 2020 meetings, gatherings, and conferences were postponed because of COVID-19 precautions. These included Princeton Theological Seminary’s World Christianity Conference (March, in Princeton, NJ), the US-China Catholic Association’s “China, Christianity, and the Dialogue of Civilizations” conference (March, in Santa Clara, CA), the American Society of Missiology and the Association of Professors of Mission annual meetings (June, in South Bend, IN), the Yale-Edinburgh Group on World Christianity and the History of Mission conference (June, in Edinburgh, Scotland), the International Association for Mission Studies Fifteenth General Assembly (July, in Sydney, Australia), the World Christian Encyclopedia 2020 conference, sponsored by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (September, in South Hamilton, MA), OMSC’s Inaugural Lecture and Reception (September, at Princeton Theological Seminary), and the Eastern Fellowship of Professors of Mission annual meeting (November, at the Maryknoll Mission Institute).

The Accord Network publishes the journal Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy , a peer-reviewed, biannual, online publication (https://crdajournal.org) to present best practices, research, and exploration of issues that include economic inequality, ethnic conflict, gender discrimination, corruption, environmental management, disaster preparedness, children’s well-being, health care, and social justice––topics that are especially important to relief and development academics and practitioners. Editors Roland Hoksbergen, professor emeritus of economics and international development, Calvin University (hoksro@calvin.edu), and Stephen Offut, associate professor of development studies, Asbury Theological Seminary, introduced the open-access journal (vol. 1, no. 1, 2019) with an editorial in which they ask, “Is Christian faith relevant to how we address global poverty, imagine a better life, and work together to ensure that everyone enjoys the opportunity to thrive in the world we share together?” Chad Hayward, the network’s executive director since 2007, was senior adviser for the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the US Agency for International Development. The network incorporated in 1978 as the Association of Evangelical Relief and Development Organizations (https://accordnetwork.org).

“Rethinking Church and Mission: God’s Agenda for Today” (John 15:12–17) is the theme for the Asia 2020 Congress, planned for November 2–6 in Bangkok, Thailand, and organized by a steering committee of Asian Christian leaders associated with World Evangelical Alliance and the Lausanne Movement. The invitation-only gathering of 600 to 700 church and mission leaders is planned “to see the Asian church and mission movement emerging from the unique perspectives coming from an Asian context in the majority world,” according to https://asia2020congress.org. Furthermore, “There is a convergence of thought that the time is ripe and strategic for a major Asian leader gathering before a Majority World Christian Leaders Congress in 2023 and the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization.” (The Lausanne International Board is contemplating a Lausanne Congress IV to be held in Asia.) Lausanne affiliates in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East–North Africa region are planning regional meetings that lead up to 2023.

Appointed. Easten Law, as OMSC’s assistant director for academic programs. OMSC executive director Thomas J. Hastings announced June 15 that Law will begin full-time with the 2021–22 academic year, and he began serving part-time as the IBMR book review editor this past July. A candidate for the PhD in theological and religious studies from Georgetown University, Law’s research focus is on lived theology, public life, and religious pluralism in contemporary China. His dissertation discerns a Chinese lived theology of migration grounded in the experiences of young professionals in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Previously, he taught intercultural relations at American University’s School of International Service (Washington, DC) and at Anhui Normal University (Wuhu, Anhui, China). He has provided training, lectures, and intercultural communication curriculum design for faith communities and nongovernmental organizations in both the United States and China. Law, who was raised in Silver Spring, MD, is a graduate of Wheaton College (BA and MA), Wesley Theological Seminary (MDiv), and Georgetown University (MA). Formed in the tradition of Washington, DC’s Church of the Savior and a member of the United Church of Christ, Law has served as a residential chaplain with Georgetown’s Office of Campus Ministry and as an elder for Redeemer Grace Church, a nondenominational, English-speaking, international congregation in Geneva, Switzerland.

Appointed. Eugene Cho, global antipoverty advocate, pastor, and author, as president of Bread for the World (www.bread.org), a Christian antihunger and poverty group based in Washington, DC, as of July 1, 2020. A Korean who is an Evangelical Covenant Church minister, Cho is founder of One Day’s Wages, a grassroots movement that advocates for the end of extreme global poverty, and Quest Church in Seattle, WA, which he pastored for eighteen years. He succeeds David Beckmann, a Lutheran minister who is retiring. Art Simon founded Bread for the World in 1974 to influence US policies that address the causes of hunger. A Princeton Theological Seminary graduate, Cho is the author of Overrated: Are We More in Love with the Idea of Changing the World than Actually Changing the World? (2014).

Appointed. Roland Fernandes as general secretary of the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries, Atlanta. He has been on the church’s mission agency staff since 1995, serving in various capacities, including as interim general secretary. Since 2003 Fernandes has been the chief operating officer and the chief financial officer. He grew up in India and is a founding trustee of Prayatna, a group in Mumbai that works with poor women and children. Prior to working for Global Ministries, he was the chief auditor of the Methodist Church in India for eight years. He is a board member and treasurer of the relief agency Church World Service. “Mission is the heart of the church’s work,” he said, “and Global Ministries is uniquely prepared to further God’s efforts on behalf of the whole world for another century.” Fernandes succeeds Thomas Kemper, who, after a decade leading the General Board, chose not to stand for reelection. Global Ministries is celebrating the 200th anniversary of the founding of its oldest predecessor, the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Appointed. Jean Luc Enyegue, SJ, former director of the Loyola Cultural Center, Lomé, Togo, as professor of church history at Hekima University College, Nairobi, Kenya, and director of the Jesuit Historical Institute in Africa; Jeremy Hegi, a former missionary in Thailand, as assistant professor of the history of Christianity, Lubbock Christian University, Lubbock, TX; and Eva Pascal, who taught at Payap University, Chiang Mai, Thailand, as assistant professor of religious studies, Saint Michael’s College, Colchester, VT. All are recent PhD recipients from Boston University; they studied with Dana L. Robert, an IBMR contributing editor, who is professor of World Christianity and history of mission, and also director of BU’s Center for Global Christianity and Mission.

Died. Professor and author James Patrick Mackey, 85, January 25, 2020. Mackey was professor of systematic and philosophical theology at the University of San Francisco (1973–79) before being appointed to the Thomas Chalmers Chair of Theology at the University of Edinburgh. As dean of the faculty of divinity (1984–88), he negotiated the transfer of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World and its director, Andrew F. Walls, from the University of Aberdeen, and the Department of Religious Studies from the University of Glasgow. Mackey was the founding editor of the journal Studies in World Christianity, which, in an obituary (26, no. 2 [July 2020]) by coeditor Emma Wild-Wood, he was called “a perceptive theologian with deep ecumenical sympathies who, influenced by Vatican II, wished to push back the confessional and cultural boundaries of the discipline. He was a doughty supporter of theological reflection from around the globe in dialogue with other religious traditions.” Mackey is the author of many books, including Christianity and Creation: The Essence of the Christian Faith and Its Future among Religions (Continuum, 2007).