Update: Due to a scheduling conflict, the talk has been moved to October 25 at 12:15pm.
I will be giving a talk on my research in progress in the Social Science Faculty Brown Bag Seminar on October 18 from 12:15–2pm. The title of my talk is Missionaries—in Europe? Mapping the Church-Planting Movement from Williamsburg to Wilhelmsburg. All are welcome!
Here’s the abstract:
The emergence of Europe as a missions field is certainly one of the most surprising and intriguing developments in contemporary Christianity. From its inception, the modern missionary movement was based on a geographical dichotomy between “Christendom” and “heathendom,” where the former was understood to encompass Europe and perhaps parts of North America, and the latter referred to the rest of the world waiting to be conquered for the Christian faith. This distinction has become blurred as Christianity’s center of gravity has shifted and the European religious landscape has become increasingly provincialized. Now Protestant missionary organizations from all parts of the world are active in almost every European metropolis. Recently, their emphasis has been on “church planting,” the establishment of new churches outside the existing church landscape. The focus of these activities is on urban areas, where transatlantic networks hope to benefit from a unique set of cultural and demographic opportunities. Drawing on interviews with church planters in several German cities and participant-observation in numerous newly-founded churches throughout Europe, my presentation seeks to map and to interpret this phenomenon and its impact on the religious landscape of the European metropolis. I will also address the question to what extent this phenomenon is at odds with the common perception of Europe as secular.
Further details are available here.
